Digital inequalities among internet users before and during the COVID-19 pandemic : a comparison from two cross-sectional surveys in Slovenia

Petrovčič, Andraž (author), Reisdorf, Bianca Christin (author), Quan-Haase, Anabel (author), Bartol, Jošt (author), Grošelj, Darja (author)

The further digitization of society during the COVID-19 pandemic had implications for differential internet access and related social and economic outcomes. The pandemic impacted all three levels of the digital divides, as it affected how people accessed the internet, their internet skills and usage patterns. The literature, however, provides only a limited understanding about how these changes are interrelated at different levels of the digital divides. Building on the model of compound and sequential digital exclusion, this study examines the sequential pathways between the three digital divide levels before and during the pandemic, using two datasets obtained through cross-sectional surveys conducted in 2018 and 2022 from representative samples of Slovenian internet users (N$_{2018}$ = 814, N$_{2022}$ = 802). Path and multi-group analysis results confirmed strong sequential pathways between the three digital divide levels before and during the pandemic, suggesting that despite a significant increase in internet access and breadth of uses, digital inequalities among users continue to persist following the pandemic. Moreover, the interaction effects of age and education on the relationships between the three digital divide levels were found to be almost unchanged, indicating that the pandemic did not affect the role of social inequalities in shaping digital inequalities.

• Language: English
• Keywords: digital inequalities, internet access, internet skills, COVID-19 pandemic, internet users, path analysis
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences; FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2024
• Number of pages: 11 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 209, art. 123745
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-162198
• UDC: 004.738.5:316(497.4)
• ISSN on article: 1873-5509
• DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2024.123745
• COBISS.SI-ID: 208088835
• Publication date in RUL: 19.09.2024

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Technological forecasting and social change
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 1873-5509
• COBISS.SI-ID: 23168261

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: covid-19, uporabniki interneta, analiza poti, statistika