Social Inequalities in digital Skills. The European context and the Italian case

The birth of the ‘information society’ has stimulated reflections on issues related to the strengthening of social inequality and the formation of new disparities. Considerations on this phenomenon, commonly referred to as the ‘Digital Divide’, have undergone progressive refinement over the years, discerning differences between individuals not only in terms of ‘possibility of Internet access’ but also including manifold variables that contribute to determining different abilities in acquiring and managing information data in optimal manner. In brief, there are signs of a ‘second-level digital divide’ in which attention is no longer exclusively focussed on the differences between information haves and have-nots, but also on the inequalities that diversified uses of the net produce in the social life of individuals, in their opportunities for personal and social empowerment and in the growing process of marginalisation of the victims of ‘information poverty’ in terms of opportunities to participate in the economic, social and political life of a nation. The approach used in this chapter focuses on the issue of ‘digital skills’ because it is believed that digital skills are the key to the Information society: the higher the level of skills of the individual, the greater is the inclusion in the knowledge society . From the empirical point of view, this study uses harmonised and standardised at European level indicators. It is proposed an analytic model that articulates these indicators around semantic areas of skills. The empirical analysis, undertaken at European level and in particular in the Italian context, sheds light on a diversification of e-skills related to levels of complexity and of different uses of the technology. There emerges an ‘elementary’ and ‘non expert’ use of the net, especially among certain ‘risk’ categories, that redefines digital inequalities also in the context of a segment of the population that could be considered already included, in terms of access.