Research into the concept of “growing up digital” reveals distinctions in the markers of digital maturity

In their study, Digital Citizenship: The Internet, Society and Participation, researchers Karen Mossberger, Caroline J. Tolbert, and Ramona S. McNeal found that the key to developing advanced digital literacy is time spent online. They argue that true “digital citizens,” defined as people who use the web every day, develop technical competence and information literacy skills due to frequency of access to the world online. There is a “continuum of capacities,” these authors suggest, distinguishing levels of digital skill. And what makes the difference as to where people are located on that continuum is connectivity frequency and connection rate.

Since 2005 the Pew Internet and American Life Project has designated some homes and teens “highly wired”—noting that high-speed broadband connectivity at home is the prerequisite for attaining the highest levels of digital ability. Fast internet opens doors to online experimentation, participation and creativity. No surprise then, that household income level, online access, web skills, digital divides, and participation gaps, all converge around the issue of digital fluency.

But how does this picture change with the spread of wi-fi, and the mainstream takeup of handheld computing gear, such as iPhones and web-ready digital cameras? Do these portable devices lower the threshold for participation online?

When Wells Fargo wanted to know more about how people are using the web and their smartphones to do digital banking, they commissioned a survey of the public’s digital habits. Partitioning the respondents into categories according to skills level and degree of online engagement, the survey identified three segments, dubbed “digital adults,” “digital novices,” and “digital teens.” The most advanced group (adults) was composed of 30somethings who are far “more likely to use advanced online photo and video technologies, career networking services, and financial management services.” Comparatively, the GenY cohort, (20somethings, though categorized in this poll as “teens”) were most adept at using “advanced online tools for entertainment” including online video watching and social networking.

In spite of upward trends in user generated media, relatively few people admit having the skill to be digital content creators. Although nine out of ten people surveyed by Wells Fargo own a digital camera or cellcam, only one-third of those photographers (know how to) use digital image manipulation tools or online photo- and video-sharing sites (like YouTube and Flickr). Similarly the survey showed, “92% of respondents have a cell phone, but only 22% have used an internet-based phone service such as Skype.”

The Well Fargo survey points to the difference between digital technology adoption and digital fluency—a comfortability with more complex technological and online tasks. The survey results are somewhat surprising, considering the proliferation of smartphone apps that extend the functionality of mobile computing hardware. There are dozens of apps that make it easy to do some mobile photoediting, for example. Yet in our point-and-shoot culture, it is far more likely that users snap-and-share, uploading over 2.5 billion photos to Facebook each month, rather than mess around with or tweak any of them. Similarly, younger users are far more likely to add comments to a friend’s Facebook profile, than they are to launch their own blog—data from Pew shows 15% fewer teens are blogging today than in 2006.

So what are the markers of digital maturity? Depends who you ask.

According to the survey tools used by Wells Fargo, contribution and active participation on social networking sites from Facebook to Fourquare and Twitter doesn’t cut it as a measure of digital maturity. The poll results will be music to the ears of educators who have long lamented the low level of technoliteracy among the digital native demographic. Of course this raises the issue of what counts as true digital maturity, literacy, fluency—a descriptor that will move and shift according to the interests and values, not to mention metrics used, by those who are polling. For Wells Fargo, doing online banking and buying stocks are indicators of mature adult technoliteracy—would educators agree that these are key 21st Century skills GenY must acquire to achieve full participatory digital citizenship?

Share on Facebook