News release

From: Taylor and Francis Group

Tech savvy users have most digital concerns

Digital concerns around privacy, online misinformation, and work-life boundaries are highest among highly educated, Western European millennials, finds a new study from researchers at UCL and the University of British Columbia.

The research, published in Information, Communication & Society, also found individuals with higher levels of digital literacy are the most affected by these concerns.

For the study, the researchers used from the European Social Survey (ESS) – a project that collects nationally representative data on public attitudes, beliefs and behaviour, from thousands of people across Europe every two years.

They analysed responses from nearly 50,000 people in 30 countries* between 2020 and 2022.

For the ESS, participants were asked how much they thought digital tech infringes on privacy, helps spread misinformation, and causes work-life interruptions. Combining responses to the questions into a single index, the researchers generated a digital concern scale, ranging from 0 to 1, where a higher score indicates greater concern.

To establish their digital literacy and digital exposure, the respondents were asked how often they use the internet and to rate their familiarity with preference settings on a computer, advanced search on the internet, and using PDFs. At the country level, digital exposure was captured through the percentage of the population using the internet in each country.

The researchers looked at the levels of concern across different countries, as well as how the concern varies across social groups.  They also looked at patterns by people’s digital literacy and their exposure to digital tech.

Findings 

They found millennials (those aged 25–44 in 2022) reported greater concerns, compared to younger (15–24) and older adults (75+). They found no significant differences in the level of digital concerns between men and women, nor between income groups or between urban and rural residents.

Across the board, people were more concerned about the potential harms of digital technologies than not. Bulgaria was the only country in the study that did not exceed the mid-point (0.5) on the digital concern scale (0–1). Of all the countries studied, digital concern was lowest in Bulgaria (with a score of 0.47) and highest in the Netherlands (0.74), followed by the UK (0.73).

Compared with native-born citizens, migrants reported lower levels of digital concern, and those who were in work had a lower level of digital concerns than those out of work. People with middle/high school education and those with a university degree reported greater levels of worry compared to their peers with no education or only primary school education.

The researchers found that those with greater tech know-how are more concerned about the negative impacts of digitalisation, but this association is only observed among people who use digital technology on most days or on a daily basis.

The findings suggest that individuals may perceive the potential harms of digitalisation as something that is beyond their control. So, the more they know about and are exposed to the issues, the more powerless and concerned they may feel.

Lead author Dr Yang Hu (UCL Social Research Institute) said: “Our findings call into question the assumption that greater exposure to the digital world reduces our concern about its potential harm.

“Rather than becoming desensitised, greater use of digital technology seems to heighten our concerns about it, particularly among people who have a high level of digital literacy.

“Anxieties about digitalisation have become a defining feature of today’s world. As our use and understanding of technology grows, concern about its potential harm can impact individuals’ mental health and quality of life, as well as wider societal well-being.

“As businesses, governments, and societies embrace new technologies, tech has become ubiquitous and digital literacy is essential for most people. The rapid development of AI is undoubtedly accelerating this process, so digital concern is not an issue that can be ignored.”

Co-author Dr Yue Qian (University of British Columbia, Canada) said: “Our results reveal dual paradoxes: those who are supposedly most vulnerable to digital harms – young people, older adults, and those with a low level of digital literacy – appear least concerned about the harms, while those with advanced digital skills report the most concern.

“While mainstream efforts at improving digital literacy have focused on bolstering practical skills, authorities should not ignore people’s concerns about what rapid digitalisation means for the subjective well-being of individuals and societies.”

Notes to Editors   

*29 European countries and Israel.