What is Digital Literacy?

The Digital Equity Act defines digital literacy as "the skills associated with using technology to enable users to find, evaluate, organize, create, and communicate information." This definition necessarily includes a wide variety of skills.

Information Literacy

Skills associated with the ability to find, evaluate, organize, create, and communicate information long predate digital technologies. Anyone wishing to be able to accomplish these skills "using technology" must, as a prerequisite, posses the analog form of these skills.

Digital Device Literacy

As a prerequisite to any other digital skill, a person must first understand how to use the digital device (PC, laptop, tablet, phone) on which they wish to practice application-specific digital skills. Digital device literacy includes, at a minimum, the skills required to:

• Turn the device on and off
• Reboot the device
• Operate the device's manual buttons
• Operate the device's I/O and power ports
• Operate the device's keyboard, mouse, or touchscreen
• Configure the device
• Recover from a frozen device

Operating System Literary

Having gained proficiency in using a digital device, a person must still gain literacy in using the device's operating system before they can practice application-specific digital skills. Operating System Literacy includes, at a minimum, the skills required to:

• Sign in to the device
• Use the operating system's windowing service
• Configure the operating system
• Manage the file system
• Install and uninstall applications
• Copying or sharing data between applications
• Use keyboard shortcuts or touchscreen gestures
• Recover from common error scenarios

Application Literacy

Having gained some proficiency in using a particular device and operating system, a person may begin to gain proficiency using particular applications or classes of applications. Digital Literacy of the type contemplated by the Digital Equity Act requires proficiency in, at a minimum, the following classes of applications:

• Web Browser
• Email
• Chat or texting
• Contacts
• File Manager
• Calendar
• Text Editor
• Word Processor
• Spreadsheet
• Presentation
• PDF Reader
• ePub Reader
• Graphic Editor

Having gained proficiency in all of these digital skills, a person can begin to apply their information skills to their digital applications and demonstrate digital literacy as contemplated by the Digital Equity Act.