Digital Transformation and Digital Competences of Urban and Rural Polish Youths

Abstract

This article explores the level of digital competence of young people in Poland, with the indirect aim being to show the differences in the level of digital competence for adolescents living in rural and urban areas. The research covered a sample of 985 respondents, from 11–18 years old, from Poland. The research was carried out within the EU Kids Online network. The survey tool related to the assessment of digital competences covered issues of installation of software on mobile devices, configuration of internet access as pertains to confidential information, information security awareness, management of information downloaded from the internet, configuration of social networks, e-shopping, verification of costs related to the use of additional software, advanced information search, checking the reliability of information, and editing online content. Descriptive statistics, k-means cluster analysis, one-way analysis of variance (non-parametric test), and correlations were used to show the differences between rural and urban adolescents in the indicated areas. The collected data offer several postulates for education and education policy, being not only diagnostic but also implementational. Based on the analysis of the data, it was noted that: (a) Eleven areas related to basic digital competence strongly differentiate between urban and rural young people; (b) rural young people rate their own digital competence lower than urban young people do; (c) a small percentage of young people from both rural and urban areas have low digital competence; (d) one well-developed area of key competence does not always co-occur with another well-developed area; and (e) the style of using new media among rural and urban young people is similar.

Public Employment Services and Vulnerable Youth in the EU: The Case of Rural NEETs

“…Simply relying on the belief that younger generations are more inclined to use digital tools and channels (e.g., social media) than older people as if they were all ready for digitalised PES, is only wishful thinking. While young people do make greater use of digital tools and channels when approaching PES, it is also clear that the most vulnerable young people face greater constraints, such as stable Wi-Fi connections or show lower digital literacy (International Labour Organization, 2021), particularly in rural areas (Tomczyk, 2024). At the organisational level, encompassing the exosystemic and mesosystemic layers of the bioecological model, it is important to notice how PES digitalisation has the potential to release staff from administrative, time-consuming tasks and improve their availability for those needing more attention.…”

“…Moreover, many vulnerable young people in these communities, particularly rural NEETs, have a record of negative interactions with other public institutions due to school failure or compulsory monitoring by welfare services (e.g., child protection committees; Simões & Brito do Rio, 2020). Adding to this, rural young people show limited digital skills and literacy (Neagu et al, 2021), especially when compared with their urban counterparts (Tomczyk, 2024). All these specific individual challenges posed to digital interactions from PES with rural NEETs can be tempered by other individual features, such as enhanced opportunities for younger generations to interact and learn digital skills or even their preference for digital means for establishing first contact with services.…”

“…Nevertheless, this trend is not uniform. Indeed, evidence from Poland shows that young people in rural areas use internet services less frequently compared to young people living in urban areas (Tomczyk, 2024). As some policy reports have previously shown (e.g., International Labour Organization, 2021), these discrepancies in the use of digital tools flag that attuning to the individual features of rural NEETs is more a matter of the dosage of digital and analogue support used in service delivery rather than a question of using digital tools or not.…”