Self-confidence and digital proficiency: Determinants of digital skills perceptions among young people in Spain

Abstract

The necessity of introducing telework and online education due to the COVID-19 crisis has drawn attention to the problem of digital inequalities among young people. Besides access and connectivity problems, the lockdown has shown a gap between young people’s self-perceived level of digital skills (which is generally high) and their actual digital performance, they tend to experience important difficulties associated with the second-level digital divide. Most of the empirical evidence about digital skills relies on index construction based on variables about digital tasks or practices that people can fulfill. Nevertheless, there is no evidence about the sociological and biographical determinants that influence subjects’ self-perception of their level of digital skills, particularly among young people, since this generational group is generally associated with a high level of digital skills. Therefore, in this article we will measure the influence of different sociological and biographical aspects (gender, age, education, forms of digital accessibility, digital practices, itineraries of digital literacy along their life, etc.) over declaring a certain level of digital skills. The outcomes show the importance of socio-demographic factors and of the processes of appropriation of technology when young people perceive their level of digital performance, which are only partially related to socioeconomic situations, since digital vulnerability is mediated by acquired cultural patterns over the use of technology.