Is digital literacy the new class barrier?

How the growing digital divide has become a class privilege — and why functional literacy is no longer enough

On the 21st of February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. That sent oil and gas prices skyrocketing across Europe, which prompted a swift response from the EU. At the local level, many governments implemented measures to support consumers, industrial sectors, and businesses. In Portugal, one of those measures was Autovoucher, a government cashback initiative that gave back a few cents per liter whenever a consumer paid for fuel with a credit card and requested a receipt with their fiscal number. If you wanted to join the program, you had to go online, register for an account, enter your data, and wait for it to be activated (which could take 48 hours). You also needed to know which gas stations were on the program. At the end of every month, the accumulated amount was deposited back into the consumer’s account. Many users, including me, thought this was absurd. If the government wanted to help consumers, it should simply lower prices at the pump, not make us prove we deserved it by surviving convoluted procedures. What’s even worse? According to INE (the Portuguese statistics institute), back in 2021, basic digital literacy rates were 36.3% for people aged 55-64 and only 16.6% for those aged 65-74. There’s no data for those aged 75+. Portugal has one of the oldest populations in the world. This means the elderly, a large part of the population and an already fragile one, were largely left out: most had never heard the words “cashback” or “voucher”, they didn’t know how the program worked, they were (and still are) suspicious of credit cards, and they didn’t know how to create an account or validate it. The government and the media kept talking about websites and apps as if they were as common as potatoes.

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Tech is moving fast, leaving people behind.

Imagine that your parents need to replace their old car. You offer to help, which they’ll probably appreciate. For most people, money is the barrier when buying a car. For some, it may be its technology. My parents? They would ask, “What the f*** is Spotify?”, “Where are all the buttons?”, and “Why do I need to read the user’s manual just to open the glove compartment?” The person who taught you how to drive is probably unable to drive your car — or any modern car, for that matter. If that seems extreme, try doing the same with a simple oven. Buttons and dials got replaced with touch sliders. Ovens have software now.

Am I against this? Well, it depends. When new and complicated tech is widely adopted, and you become unable to do your taxes on your own without an alternative made available by those who decided to erect this barrier in the first place, then yes, we definitely need to have a conversation about it. Technology should help level the playing field, not mine it.

Some may think this is how things always were, and, after all, it’s an old people’s problem. Is it?

Are we digitally literate?

Let’s focus on software. Most users and organizations struggle to choose an app, let alone a tech stack. There are a lot of apps to choose from and an infinite number of features and pricing plans to compare them on. It’s a lot, and at the same time, we are just scratching the surface. Main functions and prices are just the basic criteria.

Here’s where digital literacy comes into play. Digital literacy, as described by UNESCO, is “the ability to access, manage, understand, integrate, communicate, evaluate, and create information safely and appropriately through digital technologies ...” Come on, it’s 2026, everyone can do it, we may think. Actually, multiple studies across diverse populations have consistently found that users overestimate their digital literacy. The definition of digital literacy is broad and, to me, it still seems lacking and outdated. Mainly, it concerns the interpretation and use of information. It says little about the tools, how to select them critically, or how to use them consciously. This is where we need to distinguish between functional digital literacy and critical digital literacy: the first is knowing how to use an operating system to help us in our daily work, the latter is knowing how to choose the best operating system for us — considering the work we need to do, how ethically sound the software and the software house are, how the business model works, how it handles data and ensures privacy, how balanced the power dynamics between the software company and its clients is, and how it all affects you, our fellow humans, and the planet. It’s the ability to choose wisely, not just execute. If it seems a lot, it’s because it is. We are not just talking about the tools anymore, especially in the age of AI-augmented everything. Choosing an app to communicate with our loved ones or an AI to review our medical records deserves much more consideration than, say, buying a hammer. All of those things — not just the hammer — can hurt us really badly.

The digital gap is widening, fast.

The ability to choose varies widely across the globe and, probably, among our own family members. Does an elderly person have the necessary skills to assess the “fairness” of a new AI bot being implemented at the local hospital? Do energy-poor households have the means to develop critical digital literacy when they still don’t have access to reliable energy and the Internet?

People with higher socioeconomic status have better ICT skills. They have access to reliable services and better education. Typically, they use technology more productively — for work, education, services, or, in other words, capital-enhancing uses — thereby reinforcing existing hierarchies. Lower-income groups are pushed toward entertainment use. What’s even more troubling: entertainment and social networking apps are designed to be addictive. They have polished interfaces that sometimes hide dark patterns — a user interface that has been carefully crafted to trick users —, not to mention a plethora of notifications and rewards; they leverage on the fear of missing out. Friendly interfaces can increase the willingness to provide data, and dark patterns are strongly associated with higher acceptance of tracking and services people don’t really want. Those who are already underserved are offered poor-quality options, sometimes creating the illusion of access to first-tier digital infrastructure while potentially worsening their lives.

It starts early: if you are raised in a family with low digital literacy, it can lead to unequal cultural and social capital. In schools and universities, unequal access to devices, connectivity, and skills undermines the outcomes of underserved students, especially in science and online learning. Cheaper Android devices frequently come pre-loaded with applications that harvest significantly more data than their premium equivalents, and run older operating systems that no longer receive security updates. The inequalities in technology access, skills, and usage — the digital inequality stack — can influence a person’s entire life: for example, it can boost or curtail access to higher education and shape the job/career one chooses.

Each new wave of technology can reproduce and deepen existing class inequalities rather than erase them. Take AI and blockchain, for example. They are promoted as tools for inclusion, but research shows that AI often deepens existing inequalities when rolled out atop unresolved divides. Similarly, blockchain requires sophisticated infrastructure, skilled workers, and substantial investment; emerging countries struggle to afford it. These systems are built for augmentation (productivity, power), not fairness.

And, if you think this is (only) an African/elderly/poor people problem, you are mistaken. Digital literacy gaps in Europe remain substantial and are shaped by geography, age, education, income, gender, and urban–rural location. High connectivity does not guarantee equal skills or benefits, so closing these gaps remains a major task for EU and national policies. Around 56% of the EU population has at least basic digital skills; rates exceed 80% in the Netherlands but are about 30% in Romania and Bulgaria. This is for basic skills — far short of what critical digital literacy actually demands.

Digital inequality: inheritance or design?

Strongly tied to broader social inequalities, digital inequality is just “the new face of inequality”. But, in 2026, can we accept it as “just one more inequality”? As decades and centuries go by, and (unresolved) inequalities persist, can we argue that by not solving them and accepting things as they are, more than inheritance, they become the design?

We can argue that bad geography, harsh climate, and diseases are bad luck, and that before the 20th century, we didn’t have the tools to tackle them at scale (although we found ways to conquer and enslave). That has changed. For some time now, we have had the resources, but we have not used them to close the gap. Instead, we developed new and powerful technologies — only possible because of all the accumulated wealth — on top of existing disparities.

Maybe there are no groups of villains with the sole mission of keeping some people poor, but modern initiatives like debt, rating agencies, or intellectual property highlight aligned interests. They are too specific, consistent, and extraordinarily powerful and lucrative to happen by chance.

We cannot prove that (digital) inequality is designed, but we can argue that there is no design to fix it either. Without intentional, equity-focused design of technology, policy, and education, digital tools will systematically favor already-advantaged groups. Next time we hear an AI-influencer promising to 10x everything, “everything” may include inequalities.

Where’s the class issue?

Critical digital literacy has many prerequisites: we need access to options, which means access to a developed and mature market, the ability to recognize and understand the potentially critical issues from privacy, sovereign, cultural, and societal perspectives, and a vast amount of knowledge and time to develop these skills. And money, of course. Critical judgment will often steer you away from “free” apps. Anything at least a bit ethical costs more: food, clothing, software.

As tech permeates all aspects of life and its complexity increases, how capable are we of critically assessing a digital tool?

Some may have access, but do they have the knowledge? Some may have the money, but do they have the time? Who has everything that critical digital literacy requires? Many have too little or nothing.

This is what makes digital literacy a class issue.

What can we do as individuals?

While it’s not the purpose of this article to provide an extensive list of possible solutions, there are many things we can do, within reason, to actually improve our situation:

1. Acknowledge the problem. Some technologies are not neutral, and they exacerbate existing inequalities.

2. Help reframe the narrative. It’s not about personal choices, but more about unresolved structural inequalities that become the design.

3. Keep learning. Most people learn to use the tools by using them. That’s functional literacy. Go beyond that. What’s underneath the interface? What data are you inputting? Where does it go? Who has access to it? What meaning can be derived from it? How does the company make money, and if it doesn’t, who is funding it? Why?

4. Start or keep teaching. If you happen to be tech-savvy, help someone who needs that knowledge. Help your parents with home banking and teach them to recognize suspicious emails, teach your kids about addictive tech, and help a work friend set up a password manager. Take the time to explain: we want both functional and critical digital literacy.

5. Don’t be a tech elitist. If you have the latest knowledge, the best tools, and the shiniest devices, great. Now, instead of shaming others, help them understand why their choices may be harmful to them and let them decide. Don’t act so disappointed just because they’re not rushing to replace Facebook with Mastodon. Use your circumstances for inspiration, not for bragging.

6. Start or join the conversation. It may be at work, at the gym, or at the dinner table. Ask questions. What apps are your close ones using? Do they understand the tools? When your organization adopts a new tool, ask about the criteria used to select it. You may not get good answers, and people may not like the questions, but after that, they know the subject matter, at least to you.

What does this mean for organizations?

Organizations are in a different position from individual users: they have more resources and more negotiating power with vendors. That’s leverage. On the other hand, their decisions affect dozens or hundreds of people. That’s responsibility.

Most organizations have non-technical staff making decisions about which tools to adopt, which services to subscribe to, and which data to share (and that’s not necessarily a bad thing — I’ll delve into it in a different post). Most of those decisions are based on functional literacy at best (does this tool do what I need? Is it easy enough to use?). The questions about critical digital literacy? They don’t get asked often. People don’t know that they don’t know.

The strongest policy frameworks are only as effective as the literacy level of those implementing them. This is the gap that matters most for organizations trying to make informed choices. The ease of use that makes surveillance platforms so dominant is not accidental. It is the result of billions of dollars invested in removing friction and increasing engagement — specifically designed to make the path of least resistance the path of maximum extraction. It cannot be fixed by sending everyone on a GDPR training day. The solution is not education alone. It requires a different kind of deliberate, ongoing attention.

Here’s what most organizations can do, starting today and well into the future:

1. Make informed choices. Try to select tech not just because it works, but also based on how it works. Try to figure out who it works for and against.

2. Use purchasing power as pressure. Make sure vendors understand the digital gap, and that their efforts to minimize it may play a role in who gets the contracts. It may not change much overnight, but it will help shape future offers. Vendors respond to clients.

3. Include critical — not just functional — digital literacy in internal training programs. Foster an environment where your workers feel safe about questioning the tools needed to do the work.

4. Designate someone whose job is to learn these matters and ask the questions. It doesn’t have to be a formal role, let alone an entire department (although it could be appropriate, depending on the organization’s size). That person could help shape internal initiatives, drive policy, and serve as a bridge between your organization and the community.

5. Invest in the community. Educate people on these subjects: it can be a free e-book, a workshop on digital literacy, or an event at the local school or library. Consider hiring diverse people, possibly coming from backgrounds with low digital literacy. The community is your client and employee pool: you’ll want to invest in them.

6. Embrace or sponsor open-source projects. Most organizations rely on open-source software (Linux, OpenSSL, Apache, WordPress, Git, Python, React, …), but never contribute to it. That’s an extracting mindset. If you do code, maybe open-source some of it or even entire projects; maybe sponsor a project with money; use some of your company resources to help those projects — they usually need engineers, designers, translators, or even just users to test new functionalities and go bug hunting.

7. Make products and services easy to access and understand. If you need to write a privacy policy, write for the user who needs to understand the compromises, not to impress a (fellow) lawyer. Do the same for your whole site, user manuals, and so on. It’s not dumbing down, it’s reducing the cognitive load and meeting people where they are.

8. Adopt and help shape policy. Adopt best practices to reduce digital inequalities and participate in the conversation. Organizations have a voice, especially in the European regulatory landscape.

Organizations did not create the digital divide. But they operate inside it, sometimes profiting from it. They also have enough leverage to help close it. That choice is also a literacy decision.

So?

I think I’ve established that digital literacy, both functional and critical, is a class barrier. It’s a new face of structural inequality, and like many other types of inequalities, it’s not an easy one to fix — if even possible. It also doesn’t mean we should accept things as they are: that only leads to the accumulation of disparities, especially for already fragile groups. By not acting, we help the divide become the design.

I’ve also shared some concrete steps that we, as individuals and organizations, can take right now to help shape fairer digital environments. Writing this newsletter and creating fair-software.org (launching soon) are two ways I can contribute to that. Learning about and thinking through these issues, and starting or participating in the conversation, is something everyone can do. Or is it?

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