To the parrot, we are not so bad in digital!

Talking a long time ago with a very traveler friend, one of those who ends up in off-road places, he told me that once he arrived in deep Mongolia and stayed in some cabins.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
27 July 2022 Wednesday 03:00
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To the parrot, we are not so bad in digital!

Talking a long time ago with a very traveler friend, one of those who ends up in off-road places, he told me that once he arrived in deep Mongolia and stayed in some cabins. He went with a brutal cell phone, of the latest generation. But, of course, he had no coverage and there was little he could do with it apart from photos.

My friend has extensive technological knowledge… but those skills were of no use to him there. And it is that the competences depend on the context. In the West, since we entered the 21st century, it is increasingly clear what the necessary professional skills will be. Do you have them?

In the same way that we say that we should all have essential knowledge to function (from doing the rent to preparing a stew), something similar happens in the current digital world: we should also all have basic digital skills, such as a elementary use of the mobile, the computer or minimal notions of cybersecurity.

It is useful to go to a ranking created by the INE that segments Spanish citizens into four degrees of digital skills. It was carried out thanks to the TIC Household Survey and serves to have a general picture of the situation in Spain. To assess the position occupied by citizens, four aspects were measured: information, communication, problem solving and software. And how is Spain? Laporta dixit: To the parrot, we are not so bad!

If in 2016 there were 38.1% of Internet users whose skills were advanced, this rate rose to 44.1% five years later. The number of people with low skills also increased slightly, from 31% to almost 34%. These transfers explain that a good part of the Internet users who in 2016 had elementary skills, improved and acquired more developed knowledge. In addition, the number of people with low digital skills improved because the percentage of the population that did not have any skills was also reduced by several tenths.

According to the latest report published by the State System of Education Indicators, almost 85% of Spaniards between the ages of 16 and 24 have basic or advanced digital skills in 2021, 14 points above the European average. These are good data for our country, but there is still a lot to do and if technology does not stop changing, we will not be able to stop learning.