Chapter 8: Skills and information and communications technologies

Overview and highlights

This chapter explores the relationship between skills and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) use and familiarity. The ALL survey collected information on the use of, and familiarity with ICTs, at the individual level, including a series of self-assessment questions on ICT use, perceptions of experience, and degree of comfort with ICTs. First, access rates to computers and the Internet are considered. Second, the relationship between ICT use and literacy skills is studied. This is important because it demonstrates the fundamental relationship between ICT use and other skill sets. Third, the determinants of ICT use are examined, including income, age, gender, educational attainment and occupation. Finally, outcomes associated with the use of ICTs in combination with literacy skills are explored.

The main findings presented in this chapter are summarized below:

• Patterns of Internet and computer access confirm the existence of “digital divides” both within and between nations. Apart from Italy , differences in ICT use and access between countries are not large. Home computer access rates are about 80 per cent and home Internet access rates approximately 70 percent for the majority of countries surveyed.

• Within countries, however, there are large divides in access and use of ICTs. Among other factors, income differentials stand out in predicting access to, and use of ICTs. Home computer and Internet access vary significantly by income and the largest drop in access rates typically occurs between the third and second income quartiles.

• Many factors including age, gender, level of education, type of occupation and level of literacy proficiency are associated with adults’ use and familiarity of computers and the Internet. These factors help to predict whether a respondent is a “high-intensity” computer user.

• Age exerts a strong influence on computer use, showing a significant decline after age 45.

• Clear gender differences in computer and Internet use exist in the European countries but not in North America.

• Respondents with less than upper secondary education use computers significantly less often for task-oriented purposes. This effect is most pronounced in Bermuda and Italy.

• Those without access to ICTs also tend to have lower literacy levels than the rest of the population. Non-users tend to have significantly lower literacy skills than computer users.

• The proportion of adults in different literacy and computer use profiles varies substantially by country. In half of the countries, respondents with both low literacy (Levels 1 and 2) and “low-intensity” computer use represent the largest group. The group of respondents with both medium to high literacy (Levels 3 and 4/5) and “high-intensity” computer use is small in all countries.

• As prose, document, numeracy and problem solving levels increase, adults’ perceived usefulness and attitude toward computers, Internet use, and use of computers for various tasks also increase. In most countries, respondents with medium to high literacy have between two and three times the odds of being a high-intensity computer user.

• Finally, literacy and computer use profiles are strongly related to the likelihood that respondents have high earnings. In most countries, adults who have medium to high literacy skills (Levels 3 and 4/5) and are high-intensity computer users have about three to six times the odds of being in the top quartile of personal income compared to respondents who have low literacy and are low-intensity computer users.