Analysis: Boiling down the digital competences of Danes

The Danish ADD project provides an overview of the digital skills, competences and what we call “skills”. At a time when digital self-service and others are becoming increasingly demanding, it is relevant to know how well we think we are able to do so.
ADD stands for algorithms, data and democracy. Within the fast-paced development of all these concepts, ADD rests in the middle of sociotechnical dynamics, in an effort to realign the algorithmic organisation of data and thereby strengthen digital democracy.
Digital skills in a digital society: what's changed in Denmark?
The digitalisation of our society continues to grow and new technologies are emerging that demand the skills and abilities of individuals. Using and mastering basic digital tools and online platforms is no longer enough. There is also a need to understand the impact of digitalisation on our society, social relations and democracy, while new technologies and digital opportunities continue to flow across us. This is why we use a broad and action-oriented definition of digital competences in this survey.
The analysis is presented digitally in the ADD project, where you can click on graphs and charts for further information. Let the present post serve as an appetite – continue here.
3 dimensions to digital competence
For the purposes of this survey, digital competences are understood as the citizen’s level of insight into, and experience with, digital technologies that enable individuals to use the technology in their everyday lives, critically address the influence of technology in their everyday life and at the level of society, as well as being outreach and up-to-date with new technologies.
We have identified three dimensions of digital competences: user, analytical and discovery skills. The three dimensions have been formed by summarising respondents’ answers to questions on technical and practical skills, analytical knowledge and curiosity on development. Based on the summarised response values, we have created an index ranging from a high level of skills to no competences at all. In further analysis, we use the categories of high, medium and low level of digital competence, broken down into the three dimensions below:
- User Competences: Denotes the individual’s own assessment of its ability to make use of technologies and electronic devices in everyday life. These include the ability to solve common computer problems, being able to communicate digitally with authorities, friends and family through digital platforms;
- Analytical skills: Covers individuals’ own assessment of their ability to reflect on and address the impact of technologies on one’s own, on everyday life and on society in a broader light, including how digital technologies affect our democracy, communities and social relations. It reflects
- Day skills: Expresses the individual’s assessment of their interest in new technologies and curiosity on how they work. At the heart of this competence is that individuals keep up to date on new trends and developments in the digital sphere and engage in testing new technologies;
Find out more about the methodology of the ADD project here.
Danes are strongest in digital usage and analysis skills, but are lagging behind in discovery skills
Denmark is known as one of the most digitised countries in the world. This is reflected in the digital skills of Danes, where the vast majority (76 %) themselves estimate that they have high digital user skills. They do not face challenges in using online banking, changing settings on the phone or chat with the friends of Messenger, and are generally able to run smoothly on the internet.
Danes also rate their digital analytics skills high – in fact higher than their user skills. 81 % of Danes believe they have a good understanding of how the internet and social media can affect themselves, their mental health and society around them. However, about a quarter (24 %) of Danes face challenges in their digital daily lives and one fifth (19 %) have limited understanding of how digitalisation affects their lives and society as a whole.
Danes are less strong to keep up to date on new trends and technologies, and more do not test new digital solutions when they emerge. Four out of five Danes (80 %) have low or medium discovery skills, indicating that average Danes are not among the first to embrace digital innovations.
There has been no significant development in citizens’ digital usage skills since 2021, when the population survey also measured the digital competences of Danes. It is not possible to compare the other two digital competences dimensions, as the underlying questions have changed in 2023.
Getting women on board
The study shows that there is a gender gap in which men are more often “ahead” in the digital development of society because they look more closely at how technologies and digital services can be used for their benefit and women more often struggle to use and circumvent “everyday technology”. Men have higher self-assessed digital skills than women. Amongst women, 30 % have low or medium digital user skills and 70 % are high. Conversely, 83 % of men have high user skills and 28 % digital digital discovery skills.
A digital generation gap
There is a divide between Danes under and over 50 years of age that testifies to a digital generation gap. Danes under the age of 50 have acquired more digital skills that make their daily lives easier, while Danes over the age of 50 have not necessarily had the same opportunity to develop these skills.
Among the 18-29 year-olds, 32 % have high digital discovery skills. They also account for 29 % of Danes with high discovery skills and are the age group that is most up-to-date with digital developments. Conversely, Danes over the age of 50 do not follow digital trends in particular. 37 % of 50-59 year-olds have low digital discovery skills. The same applies to 39 % of the 60-69 year-olds.
The differences in age are also reflected in the ability of Danes to move smoothly on the internet, where more Danes with low user skills are over 50 years old.
In particular, there is a higher proportion of students with high digital skills (86 % high user skills and 31 % high discovery skills). Pensioners and early retirement earners account for almost half (46 %) of Danes with low digital user skills and 39 % of Danes with low discovery skills. It is important to point out that the data sheet is not representative of the distribution of employment and therefore there may be a bias for over- or under-representation of certain employment groups.
The digitally exposed
We live in a digitalised society for the benefit of many who experience everyday life more easily and conveniently. Digital technologies have also become an indispensable living environment for all Danes. But this can create digital inequality, with some citizens facing more barriers than opportunities or actively opting out of as many digital solutions as possible. It is the digitally vulnerable in which this part of the survey submerges. This
survey defines digital vulnerability in two ways: Either being exempted from getting digital mail from public authorities or being in the digital grey zone. This grey zone consists of Danes who often or very often experience difficulties in the digital meeting in public. The Danish Digitalisation Agency draws the same distinction, where digitally freed citizens are also exempted from digital mail from the public sector and the grey zone includes citizens who have difficulties in committing themselves on an equal footing with the majority in the digital world.
Digitally exposed do not necessarily have low digital skills.
Not all digitally exposed Danes experience low digital skills. This is particularly significant for digital analytics skills, where more than half (55 %) of Danes at risk estimate that they have high skills – i.e. a good understanding of how digital technologies can affect different aspects of society both positively and negatively. There are also smaller shares of digitally exposed Danes who estimate that they have high usage and discovery skills (29 % and 10 % respectively).
It stresses that digital exposure and low digital skills may not necessarily be equated. At least not by listening to citizens’ own experiences of their meetings with the digital society. You can experience difficulties with the digital meeting with the public, and at the same time feel that you have an understanding of how our democracy, social relations and societies are affected in line with digitalisation. It also raises the question of how digital silence is understood and whether the definition of the survey is simplistic.
Who are the digitally exposed?
The digitally- vulnerable group is particularly characterised by a predominance of women, which accounts for almost 60%. More than half of the digitally exposed (52 %) is over 70 years old, which is also reflected in the group’s employment, where 67 % is on retirement or pre-retirement. There is a small proportion of the digitally vulnerable, young people under the age of 30 (11 %) or students (5 %), which underlines that it is not only the older generation who is digitally vulnerable, although they account for the largest share.