Digital Literacy

Digital literacy refers to an individual's ability to find, evaluate, and communicate information through typing and other media on various digital platforms. It is evaluated by an individual's grammar, composition, typing skills and ability to produce text, images, audio and designs using technology. The American Library Association (ALA) defines digital literacy as "the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills." While digital literacy initially focused on digital skills and stand-alone computers, the advent of the internet and use of social media, has resulted in the shift in some of its focus to mobile devices. Similar to other expanding definitions of literacy that recognise cultural and historical ways of making meaning, digital literacy does not replace traditional forms of literacy, but instead builds upon and expands the skills that form the foundation of traditional forms of literacy. Digital literacy should be considered to be a part of the path to knowledge. Digital literacy is built on the expanding role of social science research in the field of literacy as well as on concepts of visual literacy, computer literacy and information literacy. Overall, digital literacy shares many defining principles with other fields that use modifiers in front of literacy to define ways of being and domain-specific knowledge or competence. The term has grown in popularity in education and higher education settings and is used in both international and national standards.

Some types of Skills defined so far are :

Photo-visual literacy: the ability to read and deduce information from visuals.
Reproduction literacy: the ability to use digital technology to create a new piece of work or combine existing pieces of work to make it your own.
Branching literacy: the ability to successfully navigate in the non-linear medium of digital space.
Information literacy: the ability to search, locate, assess and critically evaluate information found on the web and on-shelf in libraries.
Socio-emotional literacy: the social and emotional aspects of being present online, whether it may be through socializing, and collaborating, or simply consuming content.

The Concept of Digital Literacy

Digital literacy is the ability to understand, analyze, and use information in various forms from varied sources that we can access through computer devices. Digital literacy is more associated with technical access, compiling, understanding, and disseminating information skills. (Dinata, 2021). Digital literacy requires the ability to make critical information and evaluation, the accuracy of the application used, and a deep understanding ofthe information content contained in the digital content

There are eight essential elements for developing digital literacy:

Culture: comprehension diversity digital world user context
Cognitive: thinking power in assessing content
Constructive: create something expert and up-to-date
Communicative: understanding the performance of networks and communications in the digital world
Confident: the ability to undo an action allows individuals to approach situations in digital environments differently
Creative: doing new things in new ways
Critical: critical in handling content
Civil: the ability for people to use digital environments to self-organize into social movements

Now, this is the era of the industrial revolution 4.0. The characteristics of industrial revolution 4.0 are the "internet of things" (Everything is controlled by the internet. The particular reason for that circumstance is, almost all work is related to the internet, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. During this pandemic, people work and study from home. Wecan do various things via the internet) and big data.

The Advantages of Digital Literacy

Time SavingsIf you do digital literacy, you will know a reliable source of information that can be used as a reference for assignments and so on.
Learn FasterIf you want to find data or information it can be done quickly using only electronics and if you do digital literacy, you will know a reliable source of information that can be used as a reference.
Money Savings: We don't need to buy books or anything else. Nowadays, there is a lot of information on the internet.
Always get the latest informationWith the internet, information is easier to obtain.
Always connectedWith digital technology, we can communicate and stay connected with anyone and anywhere.
Make better decisionsWith digital literacy, you know right from wrong so you can make good decisions.
Can get you a jobWith digital literacy, you can add a lot of skills so you can get a job. For example, Microsoft word skill, Microsoft excel skill, Microsoft power point skill, editing skill, and so on.
Influencing the worldThe dissemination of writing through the right media will contribute to the development and changing dynamics of social life.

Conclusion

This day, literacy is essential. Digital literacy is the ability to understand, analyze, and use information in various forms from varied sources that we can access through technology. In the era of the industrial revolution 4.0, information is easy to spread and easily accessible. Therefore, we must take advantage of this situation for good. We can know what is good and what is not through digital literacy.

DIGITAL LITERACY

The Advantages of Digital Literacy

Conclusion