Digital literacy is important since it makes it easy to navigate your professional and personal life. After gaining confidence in your computer literacy, it is easy to learn about digital literacy.
What Is Digital Literacy?
Digital literacy is the ability to use and identify technology confidently, critically, and creatively to meet the challenges and demands of life as you work and learn in a digital society. In short, digital literacy encompasses the skills required to learn, live, and work in a community where access to information and communication usually occurs mainly through digital technologies such as social media, smartphones, and Internet platforms. Becoming digitally literate requires fast and stable Internet with minimal downtime.
When choosing an ISP (Internet Service Provider), you should consider the following factors:
- Performance- The main focus is on reliability, duration, and frequency of outages, the speed a consumer gets daily, and the Internet tech types.
- Value- Analyze different Internet providers to determine the speed you’ll get for a certain amount of money.
- Consumer Experience- You should check the client satisfaction ratings and compare them. Scrutinize the downsides and extra perks.
Why Is Digital Literacy Important?
You should understand that digital literacy isn’t just about understanding how to use different forms of technology. It’s about effectively navigating in an environment that’s digitally enhanced. As for digital literacy, the main focus should be on building a solid foundation and improving your digital footprint afterward.
Here are six reasons why digital literacy is important.
1. It Saves Money and Time
It is important to save money. Through digital literacy, you can save money on daily tasks such as banking and shopping since you can get some of these things done online fast. Online shopping is one of the good ways that digital literacy makes a person’s life efficient since you can purchase different items from e-commerce stores while saving money in the process. The items you order online will be delivered to your home address.
2. It Helps to Improve Academic Performance
Digital literacy is important because it can help improve a student’s academic performance by allowing them to create content such as blog posts, presentations, and videos. When students use digital tools to create original content, they understand the material well and can easily retain the lessons they have learned. Digital literacy has also enabled students to express discoveries and ideas in an inventive manner.
3. It Provides Access to Information on a Global Scale
The ability to keep up with everything that’s happening across the globe and also being able to access resources from different libraries are some of the advantages of digital literacy. Currently, it is possible to transmit information across the globe within milliseconds, thanks to the Internet. Companies can also partner to offer better services to consumers. Also, you can monitor major issues taking place around the world in real time.
4. It Creates Opportunities for Collaboration
Teachers ensure collaboration is part of their lessons to ensure students can participate in academic discussions with their fellow students. Digital literacy usually offers them more opportunities to collaborate. The students can create presentations and edit them simultaneously using different computers thanks to cloud-based software. The cloud-based software also allows students to edit and share notes easily. Such opportunities also teach the students how they can communicate effectively.
5. You’ll Have a Better Understanding of Your Digital Footprint
Your digital footprint is the trail you usually leave behind after using different apps and websites. Each post you make on an app or website can be traced and cannot go away. When you understand how these things work and their impact on your life, you can better understand the trail that you usually leave for other people to see.
6. It Allows for Increased Safety
If you’re digitally literate and understand online safety practices, you can easily increase online safety. There are different ways to protect your personal information and passwords and appear anonymous to protect your safety. You should also read through the Terms of Use on a website to determine whether your information is safe.
Conclusion
Technology has advanced significantly over the years, and it makes sense to ensure you’re digitally literate. To become digitally literate, you need a fast and stable Internet connection. You should also be willing to learn and be open-minded.