In preparing for tonight’s ABC Nightlife segment I was re-reading the Australian government’s National Digital Economy Strategy when I twigged what was bugging me in the first few pages; the talk of “digital literacy“.
As part of the plan, the Federal government intends to setup “digital hubs” in the each of the 40 communities that will first benefit from the NBN, these will “assist local residents to better understand how they can benefit from the NBN and to improve their digital literacy skills”.
The whole concept of digital literacy is worrying; it assumes there is something unique about using technology and that the concepts to use web services and devices are arcane and difficult to grasp.
Such a belief might have been true in the days of the command line interface where obscure commands and strange keystroke combinations controlled how you used a computer, but in the age of the touchscreen and intuitive systems the majority of people, regardless of age, can pick up the basic concepts with a few minute’s instructions.
A bigger issue is genuine literacy and numerical skills. Without these, we’re not able to understand or properly evaluate the data that is being presented to us.
Even more important are critical skills, the volume of information on the net demands we have the ability to filter fact from opinion and truth from misinformation if we don’t possess these talents we’re condemned to being unable to filter the gems from the dross that masquerades as fact on the net.
Clifford Stoll said “data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom”. Without basic literacy we’re unable to process the data we see on the net, without the critical skills we cannot understand that information.
That’s the real challenge the connected society presents, how do we develop and nurture the critical skills that lets us identify the scammer, the knave and the ill-informed – all of whom thrive in an environment that gives their views equal weight with the wise, honest and knowledgeable.
Probably the best thing we can do for our children, and ourselves, is to work on developing those skills.