Approximately a quarter of UK adults are what is known as ‘functionally illiterate’. This means that while they can read and write they can do so at only a basic level, for instance having difficulties with filling forms, completing the driving licence theory test, understanding bureaucratic letters, or reading multiple publications which need higher levels of literacy. At the same time, half of UK adults possess only the numeracy skills expected of an eleven year old.
This represents a major element of social and cultural exclusion., access to good employment and barriers to continuing education.
Literacy as a whole represents many levels of reading. Most of us may have been subject to ‘comprehension’ exercises in English classes at school. Comprehension relies on having a good vocabulary and a set of reading skills. It involves many different strategies to approach texts such as how to skim, scan, and so on. It involves being able to ‘read between the lines’,for instance being aware of a newspaper’s biases. It includes the ability to read many different kinds of text. Even a lover of literature, for instance poetry and novels, will continually be developing skills of literacy.
What is referred to as ‘digital literacy’ includes the traditional concepts of literacy but goes beyond. More than a few of us, irrespective of our traditional levels of literacy, may be ‘digitally functionally illiterate’. We may be able to use things like the internet for getting information, online banking, entertainment, shopping, booking holidays and travel etc. but when it come to understanding or comprehending the digital environment we all live in, many of us are not so sure.
Between traditional and digital literacy there is something called ‘media literacy’ which is part of media education or the discrete subject media studies. here, for instance we may have been taught how to analyse advertisements or the ways in which the media represent things like gender, war, refugees, class and other very important parts of our lives. Such education in ‘media literacy’ in schools can be traced back to the 1930s.
A good degree of digital literacy includes things like understanding, for instance, how commercial operators go about trying to sell us stuff, and also how ‘influencers’ go about trying to ‘sell’ their ideas, be they political or otherwise. But at the very least we need to understand several other key points. We need to think hard and learn about just what it is that makes our digital devices so compelling to the point of being addictive. We need to be able to narrow this down too when considering a particular industry’s sophisticated forms of ‘hooking’ us. We need to be as aware as possible about how our use of digital media is ‘tracked’ so that we become ‘targeted’ by producers of media content. We need to have a basic understanding of digital algorithms which use data collected about us in order to direct our attention to items. We need to know why Google is not the only search engine in town, and particularly why some pages appear high up on search results. We need to be aware of alternative search engines such as Qwant which does not collect user data. We need to seek some understanding of how our involvement with digital media may influence our psychologies, our ways of relating to each other, and questions about children’s use of digital media from a very early age. At more advanced levels of digital literacy we would have to consider, very complex as this is, the wider implications of the digital environment in relation to democracy, justice, equality and health. In all of these considerations, of course, we need to be aware of the benefits of digital technology (while, as part of digital literacy, being alert to ‘overselling’ of any of these).
All literacy beyond the basic involves the development of critical literacy.
This very brief compression of ‘digital literacy’ is not abstract. It has immediate implications for all professional work in all sectors. In particular it can inform education. Whereas traditionally education is, and has to continue to be, informed by attention to basic skills and discrete subject areas, the new global digital environment requires special attention, probably best achieved by coherent cross-curricular design appropriate to each age. Beyond education, all of us as citizens will be empowered by reflecting on and developing our own degrees of digital literacy
The Machine Zone 