Good Digital Citizenship

       

Good digital citizens

Good digital citizens work to help create a society of users who help others learn how to use technology appropriately. Everyone should work together to identify the needs of technology users and provide opportunities to make them more efficient (Ribble, 2015, p. 15).To be deemed a good digital citizen, Lindsay & Davis (2013) suggest that making good decisions in the digital environment is reliant upon knowledge of the four key rays of understanding and applying them to the five areas of awareness.

Digital Citizenship and Access

The human is a central imperative to Digital Citizenship, and it is important to understand that all digital citizenship begins with access. Meaning, each citizen must first have access to technology, before they can become a digital citizen (Lindsay & Davis, 2013, p. 99). The Digital Inclusion index Australia measures Access, Affordability and Digital Ability (Thomas, et al., 2020, p. 9). Australia is one of the most connected communities globally, with approximately 86% of households having access to the internet (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018). The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the inequities of access to digital devices and dependable broadband (Buchholz, et al., 2020, p. 15). This notion is supported by The Australian Digital Inclusion Index 2020, and suggests that those from disadvantaged backgrounds have been greatly affected by COVID-19 (Thomas, et al., 2020, p. 7) as they typically lack access to appropriate devices, have lower digital skills and less access to internet access at home, which has contributed to an increase in the digital divide and educational inequalities (Thomas, et al., 2020, p. 24).

The following video by ABC NEWS highlights some issues of technology access that have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic: