Digital Literacy

Skills

Digital literacy is hard to describe because it is so complex nowadays. You can have skills but if you don’t understand what can be done with those skills you aren’t that literate. For example, you can have typing skills but if you don’t know typing short cuts (like control f) you won’t be as literate as others. You will still know some things, but digital stuff have so much layers to them. There is learning the bare minimum to get around, and knowing enough to be an technician. Things are just so advanced nowadays with so much going on and so much you are able to do, describing digital literacy is hard. 

Digital Language

There are even more layers than having skills and knowing how to advance those skills. It is also knowing the language of the digital space. If someone says “open a new tab” you should know what to do. So having literacy is just not knowing your way around, it is also knowing the different sayings that happen in the space too. Just because you know how to type, doesn’t mean you have the literacy. You could learn more about what the keys do, know the different spaces to type in, know what the different keys do where. You can have a lot of skill in one space, but in a whole different space on the internet things can be very different.

Digital Spaces

Just like how language is another layer added, so is knowing the different spaces. There are so many examples of different spaces and the different things they do. Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and any other social media have way different digital spaces than that of the others. They function in very different ways, so there are ways to be more literate in one versus the other. I usually use google docs for typing things out. I am way more literate in Google Docs than Word. My first two years of college used Blackboard. I had to learn Canvas. These are all examples of how there can be different digital spaces and that knowing this can lead to different literacy skills. 

Technologies

What the different technologies can do in these different spaces also contributes. Apple products are very different than android products. Different digital spaces, different languages, different reactions to keys, and more. These technologies change what the digital spaces can do and how they react to things. Knowing this can improve your digital literacy. It can also make you literate in apple products versus android ones. I can’t think of more layers as of now, but I am sure there are many more layers. This all goes to show just how complex digital literacy can get. Digital things are just so advanced nowadays that this goes deeper than ever thought of years ago.