Describe a range of personal, social and economic reasons why some adults and young people may not have fully developed digi

The reasons that adults and young people may not have fully developed digital literacy skills fall into three main areas.

+ Personal

Fear of the unknown and fear of failure are likely to hold someone back from becoming digitally literate.
An older person may not have learnt new skills in a considerable time so may not feel confident or may lack the skills of how to tackle learning something new.

+ Social

Not wanting to look stupid or different from your peers might lead to someone remaining digitally illiterate. So either a person avoids everything digital if their peers are digitally literate or if in a part of society where digital illiteracy is common a person will not feel encouraged to engage with learning digital skills. Many parallels can now be drawn with similar lack of skills in literacy and numeracy.

+ Economic

Digital in most cases means money. Lack of finance often means that the opportunity of reliable access to the internet is not possible.
Lack of money for buying technology, forced to use old or outdated equipment is another factor in people remaining digitally illiterate.

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