Internet users’ digital skills uneven – communication stands out as strongest
Because self-reporting of individuals’ ICT skills may be subjective, ICT skills are measured based on whether an individual has recently performed certain activities that presuppose a degree of proficiency in the relevant skills. These ICT skills are grouped into five areas: communication and collaboration; problem solving; safety; digital content creation; and information and data literacy.
While the importance of digital skills in leveraging ICTs for economic prosperity and social well-being is well-documented, data remain very scant. Only 88 countries have submitted data since 2020, and rarely for all skill areas. Of these just 48 countries provide comparable data on ICT skill levels and only eight provided data on overall skill levels (see box on methodology for calculating ICT skill levels).
Despite these gaps, certain trends and patterns in ICT skills are emerging. Internet users consistently show strong communication skills. In all countries reporting data on communication and collaboration, at least three-quarters of Internet users possess at least basic skills in this area, regardless of national Internet usage levels.
Skill levels in other areas are more diverse. In the countries providing data, the share of Internet users with at least basic skills in information and data literacy tends to be higher than in other areas, except communication and collaboration. However, substantial variation persists across all skill areas, even among countries with similar levels of Internet use. For the eight countries reporting overall skill levels, the share of Internet users with at least basic skills ranges from 16 to 74 per cent, a gap of almost 60 percentage points.
Methodology for calculating ICT skill levels
At its 11th meeting in September 2023, the ITU
Expert Group on ICT Household Indicators (EGH)
recommended changes
to the reporting of data on ICT skill levels and most importantly, that individuals’ skill levels should be assessed for different areas.
Individuals should be assessed on the number of activities within a skill area they report having done in the last three months using the following progression:
- Skill levels should not be assessed in skill areas where data are reported for one or no activities.
- Activities should be weighted equally within each skill area.
- Skill areas with different numbers of components should be treated equally.
To measure overall skill levels, an individual is classified as having basic digital skills if they report having performed at least one activity in each of the five skill areas, and as having above basic digital skills if they performed two or more activities in each area. While this recommendation does not require any additional data collection, it does require that countries perform additional analysis on existing survey microdata. Through 2025, 48 countries have provided data, including eight which also provided data on overall skill levels. However, other countries were unable to provide skill level data, even though in many cases sufficient data on the underlying activities had been collected. It is expected that data availability will improve as familiarity with these new recommendations increases.