The intersection of digital literacy with life

Paying bills, banking, insurance, managing your household utilities, even buying groceries — so many things we used to do in person with help from a friendly face behind the counter, we’re now expected to do for ourselves online. That opens up a whole new accessibility barrier: digital literacy.

While literacy or numerical literacy is your ability to read, understand, and use written information, digital literacy is being able to do the same with the internet, apps and electronic devices that now surround us. There are any number of reasons people may struggle with digital literacy:

· no access to the digital tools — computer, ipad, laptop or latest iphone

· lack of internet access due to geography or poverty

· low literacy or numerical literacy skills

· complex navigation of the website or App

· no opportunity to learn or practice

· language barrier

· lack of knowledge of the words of the digital world — modem, Apps

· poor design making digital tools inaccessible to older people and people with disability.

As self-serve digital tools become more and more embedded in our society, people in these situations are increasingly shut out from systems to manage the essentials of everyday life.

Current Australian Digital Inclusion Index, 2023 informs us 1 in 4 people are completely digitally excluded. Another 10% only use a mobile to access the internet. See our blog here about some issues about that as the only way to access information in your community.

How has it come to be that services from the government are all digital? Think MyGov, MyHealth Record, ATO, Census, NDIS services and portal, Medicare, etc Well here is the Australian Government Digital Economy Strategy, 2021 . Who was not included in this consultation and strategic development? Whatever happened to Universal Design, and reducing barriers for everyone?

And don’t forget the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability, Article 21. Surely it also is a discriminatory practice under the Aus Govt Disability Discrimination Act; and if it is not, let’s hope in its redevelopment, as recommended by the October 2023 report from the Disability Royal Commission, page 60, it must be.

The closure of bricks and mortar banking services around the country in recent times is a great example of the many issues for access for everyone, when the whole community is not included in the consultations and planning.

A case study.

My parents’ phone line — Regional Queensland.

After a hectic bout of coastal Queensland weather, my elderly parents’ aging landline stopped working.

They do have mobiles, but even with the accessibility settings in place find the text too small, the icons indecipherable, the touch screens hard to use, and the whole concept alien and sometimes frightening. After several frustrating hours on hold to their phone provider with a recording urging them to deal with it themselves online, I was enlisted to download the app and sort it out.

Sorting it out involved a chatbot, which walked me through all the “have you turned it off and on again?” troubleshooting I’d already tried, with no way to skip ahead. It asked about the modem’s serial number. My parents struggle to pick the modem itself out of a lineup of boxes behind the couch. It asked us to upload photos of plugs and buttons, assuming both device and human were able to do that. And, for an automated script, it got surprisingly narky when our answers were slow or not what it was programmed to expect.

Having watched me try to complete this process over several hours, my parents were more convinced than ever that digital tools were difficult to use, ineffective, and were a big step backwards from the old system of dropping in to the local Telecom office and asking a nice young man to fix it. I, having been under the couch to get an acceptable photo of the wall socket and now covered in dust and interesting spiders, was inclined to agree.

I’d like to say it was all worth it, our app-based adventure fixed the problem and my parents were sold on the brave new world of self-serve digital freedom. But it wasn’t and they weren’t. We had to do the whole process again the next day, and the next. Eventually a nice young man from NBN Co. did come round in person, and the problem turned out to be completely beyond the scope of the app, the phone provider, or me on the floor behind the couch. Sometimes talking to a real person really is the best and easiest solution. It’s short-sighted and tight-fisted to remove that as an option.

That’s not to say Dad doesn’t love his mobile phone. He’ll happily spend hours browsing clips of wrestling, fishing, and the news. But Dad grew up in a very different world. It’s a big ask to expect someone who survived the Hongerwinter to tell the difference between a news story, an ad, and random rubbish from social media, talking about things he’s never heard of, in a language that isn’t his first.

That’s why, a few days after the phone line was fixed, Dad mixed up at least three different things he’d seen online and confidently told me “Optus is giving me $5000 to fix the NBN!”

…………..They’re not even with Optus.

Come along to our 2 hour webinars on Digital Literacy and Easy English or Financial Literacy and Easy English in February, 2024. What else do we need to be aware of, plan for and do to have #UniversalDesign for everyone to be included?

Jodie van de Wetering
Specialist content writer

Access Easy English
Office phone: 0466 579 855

Email: jodie@accesseasyenglish.com.au
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