Alexander J.A.M. Van Deursen

University of Twente | UT · Department of Communication Science

This study employs a qualitative approach to examine whether and why some societal groups are disadvantaged more by their Internet use than others do. Due to the quantitative nature of most digital divide studies, thorough explanations for why different outcomes exist are lacking. Interviews were conducted with 48 Dutch families selected on the bas...

The Internet of Things (IoT) is more complex and abstract than previous information and communication technologies as there are many connections occurring. New challenges for users arise from increased amount of data, decisions made automatically, less visibility and more ambiguity, and magnified security and privacy risks. There is a fair chance t...

The importance of 21st-century digital skills has been well established. However, research often fails to examine how various skills relate to each other. Through a survey of a sample of 1,222 professionals working in the creative industries, we tested, by using path analysis, whether six 21st-century digital skills have a sequential and conditiona...

In this article, we set out to explain different types of social uses of the Internet of Things (IoT) using forms of capital and Internet skills. We argue that the IoT platform entices different manners of social communication that are easily overlooked when focusing on the novelty of smart “things.” How people use the IoT socially is crucial in tr...

We consider inequalities within households to be an important step for increasing our understanding of digital inequalities perpetuated by smart homes. We argue that the key to understanding the use of the Internet of Things is household choreographies rather than individual practices. We specifically address different power relations between house...

As the Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming the next frontier for the digital divide, we argue that access to most of the IoT and its benefits are hindered by vendor lock-in. Yet, people with an advanced set of operational skills can find creative ways to overcome vendor lock-in. In this article, we study socio-contextual dispositions to why some p...

As the Internet of Things (IoT) is making its entrance in people’s homes, differences in the skills to operate smart home devices need to be considered. This study examined (1) the levels of digital skills to use IoT home automation among Dutch adult citizens and (2) differences of these skills over gender, age, and education. Therefore, a performa...

The Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to have a massive impact on people’s lives. However, the system’s complexity is also likely to make it an important topic of investigation in digital inequality research. Those who have the skills to use the IoT to its full potential and gain maximal benefits have a technology at hand that will have the powe...

This study examined data and strategic skill-related problems that activity tracker users experience and the extent to which these problems vary by gender, age and educational attainment. A performance test (N = 100) was conducted to study problems experienced during actual use of activity trackers. Video data of participants’ screen actions were a...

Background: Considerable effort has been directed to offering online health information and services aimed at the general population. Such efforts potentially support people to obtain improved health outcomes. However, when health information and services are moved online, issues of equality need to be considered. In this study, we focus on the ge...

The creative industry is a sector where digitisation inevitably changes work practices and the skill requirements are high. The rapid digitisation makes it imperative for workers to acquire digital skills beyond mere technical use. The aim of this study is twofold: (1) to offer a deeper analysis of the nature and level of 21st-century digital skill...

Skills, such as critical thinking, creativity, communication, problem solving, collaboration, operational skills, and information management, have become increasingly important for 21st-century employees. These skills are often referred to as 21st-century skills and influence how employees handle novel situations. They are indispensable in an econo...

Cognitive intelligence is rarely discussed in the context of digital inequality for practical and normative reasons: substantial difficulties around measurements and the fact that it cannot (easily) be changed. In the current contribution, cognitive intelligence is studied in relation to resources and appropriation theory which explains digital ine...

Nowadays, adolescents grow up in environments where many aspects of their lives are mediated by digital technologies. The aim of this study was to examine the influence of psychological, cultural and socio-structural factors in the level of digital immersion in adolescents from southern Chile. A non-probabilistic sample of 469 adolescents was colle...

This report presents the youth Digital Skills Indicator (yDSI), a unique, extensively cross-nationally validated measurement tool with 31 items, distributed over digital skills and digital knowledge questions, that can be used for large-scale population research. The yDSI is the only measurement tool for youth digital skills that has been tested u...

This study assessed the construct and criterion validity of the short version of the Internet Skills Scale and examined whether its four dimensions – Operational, Information Navigation, Social, and Creative skills – are influenced by a higher-order dimension of general internet skills as one second-order factor. In 2018, a face-to-face survey comp...

Background: The health internet-of-things (IoT) can potentially provide insights into the present health condition, potential pitfalls, and support of a healthier lifestyle. However, to enjoy these benefits, people need skills to use the IoT. These IoT skills are expected to differ across the general population, thereby causing a new digital divide...

Using the Internet of Things (IoT) at home is promising but also a conduit for new digital inequalities. People start using IoT in different ways, ultimately determining the outcomes, benefits and exploitations of IoT use. Typical for IoT use is that everyday activities involve more parties, internet connections and internet services. IoT is social...

BACKGROUND The health internet-of-things (IoT) can potentially provide insights into the present health condition, potential pitfalls, and support of a healthier lifestyle. However, to enjoy these benefits, people need skills to use the IoT. These IoT skills are expected to differ across the general population, thereby causing a new digital divide....

Background: The World Health Organization (WHO) considers the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as a public emergency threatening global health. In the current investigation, we focus on the public's need for online information and communication during the crisis. From digital inequality research, we know that internet access is not evenly distribute...

This report summarises the main insights and questions discussed on 6 February 2020 as part of the Research Dialogues at the Media and Communications Department at LSE. This was panel discussion with the Dutch, Spanish, Swiss, UK and US partners of the From Digital Skills to Tangible Outcomes project. It focused on the difficulties of doing compara...

This study takes a qualitative approach to studying how the socio-cultural context might foster beneficial Internet use for different educational groups. As the approach taken in digital inequality research is often a quantitative one, most studies yield primary determinants of obtaining positive outcomes that do not suffice in offering explanation...

The main aim of this study was to measure the actual levels of digital skills among professionals in the creative industries. Therefore, the levels of the following four types of digital skills were examined by means of a performance test: information, critical-thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills. Authentic tasks were developed for eac...

This study brings attention to the determinants of 21st-century skills and 21st-century digital skills. The following skills are investigated: technical, information, communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills. To understand differences in the level of these skills among workers, we need to know the fact...

In Europe, the creative industries (CIs) are experiencing growth rates well above the average of the EU's total economic growth. However, a lack of consensus regarding how these industries work impedes the development of effective policy. In our research, we suggest a process approach to characterize the CIs. This characterization is more flexible...

The current workplace increasingly asks for workers with highly digitally skilled knowledge who produce and distribute ideas and information. As such, understanding the factors behind differences in the level of various 21st-century digital skills is of decisive importance. This study aims to examine (1) the level of 21st-century digital skills amo...

This study uses a domestication approach to digital inequality. The aim is to uncover whether and why less-educated families benefit less from Internet use than highly educated families. The predominantly quantitative approach of digital divide research provides little explanation as to why digital inequalities exist. Interviews were conducted with...

The creative industries workforce requires employees that use ICT applications to solve the knowledge related tasks at work. The aim of this research is twofold: (1) to see if previously cited twenty-first century digital skills are suited to the creative industries workforce and (2) to investigate the extent to which skill development get attentio...

For a long time, a common opinion among policy-makers was that the digital divide problem would be solved when a country's Internet connection rate reaches saturation. However, scholars of the second-level digital divide have concluded that the divides in Internet skills and type of use continue to expand even after physical access is universal. Th...

Background: The primary goal of the current study was to conceptualize and operationalize social networking sites (SNS) skills for communication professionals. Literature review: The development of the definition and measurement instrument began with a critical look at internet skills literature. We propose a three-fold instrument for measuring SNS...

The digital divide is an important academic concern. Whereas the first generation of studies focused only on physical and material Internet access, more recent research has considered the importance of skills and usage gaps. This study seeks to bring to light meaningful insights into first and second levels of the digital divide in the special case...

Employees with high levels of 21st-century digital skills are beneficial for organizations characterized by rapid technological changes and complex knowledge bases. Although a number of instruments have been used to measure digital skills, they do not consider the broad range of 21st-century skills. Additionally, available measures are limited by t...

The “Internet‐of‐Things” (IoT) promises social benefits across a range of policy areas, such as energy, health, transportation, public safety, and environmental policy, but attention to the skills needed by individuals who use it will be an important issue for public policy, in order to ensure full exploitation of these technologies and to avoid un...

This article examines the extent to which economic, cultural, social, and personal types of engagement with the Internet result in a variety of economic, cultural, social, and personal outcomes. Data from a representative survey of the Dutch population are analyzed to test whether engagement with a certain type of activity is related to “collateral...

The Internet opens up many new business prospects for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). However, there are still many SME entrepreneurs who are reluctant to go online despite this opportunity. The main purpose of this research is to explore facts about the internet access among Indonesian SME entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, there is only a little...

Recently, several digital divide scholars suggested that a shift is needed from a focus on binary Internet access (first-level digital divide) and Internet skills and use (second-level digital divide) to a third-level digital divide in which the tangible outcomes of Internet use are highlighted. A plethora of studies have been conducted to identify...

A common risk among adolescents is sexual solicitation, in which an adolescent is asked to provide sexual information, engage in sexual talk, or in sexual activities. Although scholars increasingly address this topic from an intrapersonal perspective, there is little attention to factors of language use and message content. In two focus group studi...

Changes in society demand new types of literacy, especially those related to the Internet, which is one of the most important means of communication in contemporary society. In relation to the digital divide, most interesting are the potential outcomes that high levels of media literacy might result in. The main effect of differential appropriation...

This paper asks what predicts having access to and using social support networks that might help an individual in using the Internet. Following the course taking by digital divide or digital inclusion research, this paper uses socio-cultural, socio-economic, social, and digital indicators to predict access to and the type of potential and actual so...

Through a survey with a representative sample of Dutch Internet users, this paper examines compound digital exclusion, that is, whether a person who lacks a particular digital skill also lacks another kind of skill; whether a person who does not engage in a particular way online is also less likely to engage in other ways; and whether a person who...

Many scholars have studied the digital divide, however, often apart from eGovernment research. Therefore, more interdisciplinary research is required as eGovernment can be both hindered by and contribute to the digital divide. First research steps have already been taken, for instance by using access and socioeconomic status as representations for...

In the Netherlands, six primary schools recently participated in a pilot program, creating an educational environment in which children use a tablet PC. In these six schools, two studies are conducted. The first study highlights the process by which primary schools adopted tablet PCs by means of interviews based on diffusion of innovation theory. A...

Although a number of instruments have been used to measure Internet skills in nationally representative surveys, there are several challenges with the measures available: incompleteness and over-simplification, conceptual ambiguity, and the use of self-reports. Here, we aim to overcome these challenges by developing a set of reliable measures for u...

This paper focuses on the relationships among traditional literacy (reading, writing and understanding text), medium-related Internet skills (consisting of operational and formal skills), content-related Internet skills (consisting of information and strategic skills) and Internet usage types (information- and career-directed Internet use and enter...

Purpose Research into the explanations of digital inclusion has moved from investigations of skills and usage to tangible outcomes, what we label here as the third-level digital divide. There is a lack of theoretical development about which types of people are most likely to benefit. Understanding how achieving outcomes of internet use is linked t...

Besides work-oriented training, most Dutch adult learning courses of formal and non-formal education focus on three basic skills: literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environments. In the Netherlands, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science recently initiated the development of a new adult education framework concerning...

In this investigation, a multifaceted model of Internet appropriation that encompasses four types of access— motivational, material, skills, and usage—is tested with a representative sample of the Dutch population. The analysis indicates that while the digital divide policies’ focus has moved to skills and usage access, motivational and material ac...

In 2014, the authors of this report started a project with the main objective to develop theoretically informed measures that can be used to explain how people use the Internet and what the benefits might be. A first report (van Deursen, Helsper & Eynon, 2014) looked at how to measure digital skills, an area in which a good amount of research has b...

In the current contribution, we investigated how (1) the levels of operational, formal, information, and strategic internet skills changed between 2010 and 2013, and how (2) the observed skill patterns differ across gender, age, and education. All internet skills are measured among representative samples of the Dutch population in 2010, 2011, 2012,...

This article examines explanations for both Internet non-use and use by older individuals. Seniors are often considered as a homogeneous group with uniform reasons for Internet non-use, or when they are online, practicing a uniform range of activities. The study gathered data concerning senior non-users through a national telephone survey. Data con...

During the 1990s, researchers and policy makers began discussing the presence of a so-called ‘digital divide,’ a distinction of people who do and do not have access to information and communication technologies. The concept of the digital divide stems from a comparative perspective of social and information inequality and depends on the idea that t...

We investigate types of Internet activities among a representative sample of the Dutch population from 2010 to 2013. We examined usage patterns of seven types of Internet activities (i.e., information, news, personal development, commercial transaction, social interaction, leisure, and gaming) and related these patterns with gender, age, education,...

The first report that results from the "From Digital Skills to Tangible Outcomes project" proposes an instrument to measure five types of Internet skills. To come up with such an instrument, we took a critical look at the existing digital skills literature. Moreover, our own experience and work related to digital skills helped us in building an ela...

Please feel free to request a copy! Digital Skills systematically discusses the skills or literacies needed in the use of digital media, primarily computers and the Internet. Following the work of van Dijk's The Deepening Divide: Inequality in the Information Society, it uses conceptual analysis and empirical observations to show what digital skil...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to unexplore the area of information and communication technology (ICT) use in organizations related to the assumed productivity gains by the use of ICTs. On the one hand, the paper focus on the losses of labor time that are caused by malfunctioning hardware or non-functional software, and on the other hand, t...

In a representative survey of the Dutch population we found that people with low levels of education and disabled people are using the Internet for more hours a day in their spare time than higher educated and employed populations. To explain this finding, we investigated what these people are doing online. The first contribution is a theoretically...

This study added communication Internet skills to an existing skill framework of operational, formal, information and strategic skills. We investigated how people deal with inadequate skill levels by identifying support sources. Furthermore, we investigated which of the Internet skills actually matter for attaining beneficial Internet outcomes and...

As a hedonic information system, a location-based social network (LBSN) is often seen as a promising innovative mobile service. However, research on LBSNs is still limited. Little is known about the factors influencing the intention to use LBSNs. Our study aims to explain the critical factors underlying the use of an LBSN, by developing a conceptua...

The performance levels of fundamental (i.e., operational and formal) and advanced (i.e., information and strategic) Internet skills and their potential predictors were assessed among a sample of Dutch primary school children. The findings suggest that primary school children possess sufficient levels of fundamental but not advanced Internet skills...

In the first chapter, we introduced a list of the following digital skills: operational, formal, information, communication, content creation, and strategic skills. These skills were applied to several media. In this chapter, this range of skills is further elaborated in the context of the Internet, including World Wide Web services like email, soc...

In the chapter 3, we established that the consequences of insufficient levels of digital skills are exclusion from the contemporary and future information-based society. These skills are the key to the information society. Therefore, there is a strong need for policies that attempt to compensate for low levels of these skills, especially policies a...

In chapter 2, we elaborated six types of Internet skills that the general Internet user needs to participate in an online environment. These skills are important because an increasing number of organizations in society are moving their services online and expect that all of their consumers, citizens, workers, and students have sufficient skills to...

This book has shown that the command of digital skills is the most crucial factor in the process of the appropriation of new information and communication technologies. When these skills are inadequate or absent, new media cannot be satisfactorily or effectively used. Motivation may be the main driver in this process of appropriation and physical a...

In this book, we attempt to draw a broad social picture of the backgrounds and consequences of the digital skills as defined in the previous chapter while we have mainly focused on Internet skills. Although skills are often linked to training or education, we take a more social-scientific or sociological approach. We will show that solutions beyond...

The second way to overcome digital skill divides is the first to come to mind. It is the education or training of users to acquire these skills. Apparently, people first consider the obligations of users, ignoring the responsibility of designers. As argued in the previous chapter, this is not justified. However, is education the solution for digita...

Regarding figures of UNICEF (2008) 22% of the population of the industrialised countries is illiterate. As a result of illiteracy, citizens risk social exclusion in society. According to results of the EU High Level Group of Experts on Literacy (2012) prevention and decrease of illiteracy will be an important goal for future Europe. Still, accordin...

Observational studies prove to be very suitable to provide a realistic view of people's Internet skills. However, their cost and time are a strong limitation for large-scale data gathering. A useful addition to the measurement of Internet skills would be the development of survey questions for measuring Internet skills. In this contribution, we ana...

The average Dutch employee loses 7.6% of productive time due to poor IT resources or inadequate personal computer skills. To date, this problem seems to have escaped the attention of both employees and managers. Potential solutions include appropriate training, a more prominent role for the helpdesk, and better support from informal networks such a...

Despite the amount of health information available online, there are several barriers that limit the Internet from being adopted as a source of health information. The purpose of this study was to identify individual skill-related problems that users experience when accessing the Internet for health information and services. Between November 2009 a...

The Internet increases the availability of health information, which consequently expands the amount of skills that health care consumers must have to obtain and evaluate health information. Norman and Skinner in 2006 developed an 8-item self-report eHealth literacy scale to measure these skills: the eHealth Literacy Scale (eHEALS). This instrument...

Because of the growing amount of information on the internet and people’s increasing dependence on information, internet skills should be considered as a vital resource in contemporary society. This article focuses on the differential possession of internet skills among the Dutch population. In two studies, an in-depth range of internet skills are...

Despite the amount of online health information, there are several barriers that limit the Internet's adoption as a source of health information. One of these barriers is highlighted in conceptualizations of the digital divide which include the differential possession of Internet skills, or "eHealth literacy". Most measures of Internet skills among...

Please cite this article in press as: van Deursen, A.J.A.M., et al., Rethinking Internet skills. The contribution of gender, age, education, Internet experience, and hours online to medium-and content-related Internet skills. Poetics (2011), doi: Abstract This paper focuses on one of the factors that appears to be important in several conceptualiza...

Research that considers Internet skills often lacks theoretical justifications and does not go beyond basic button knowledge. There is a strong need for a measurement framework that can guide future research. In this article, operational definitions for measuring Internet skills are proposed, applied in two large-scale performance tests, and tested...

In order to utilize the possibilities of information and communication technology within the public domain and thereby further develop the electronic government, it is necessary that civil servants possess sufficient levels of Internet skills. Higher levels of these skills among professionals in the public sphere might result in better Internet usa...

Although traditional and digital media skills contain many similarities, digital media literacy increases the differences observed in traditional literacy. On the one hand computers and the Internet make things easier as they enable systematic information retrieval from innumerable sources simultaneously. At the other hand computers and the Interne...

This study extends the conventional and superficial notion of measuring digital skills by proposing definitions for operational, formal, information and strategic skills. The main purpose was to identify individual skill related problems that users experience when navigating the Internet. In particular, lower levels of education and aging seem to c...