Digital Literacy: A Conceptual Framework for Survival Skills in the Digital Era

Digital literacy involves more than the mere ability to use software or operate a digital device; it includes a large variety of complex cognitive, motor, sociological, and emotional skills, which users need in order to function effectively in digital environments. The tasks required in this context include, for example, “reading” instructions from graphical displays in user interfaces; using digital reproduction to create new, meaningful materials from existing ones; constructing knowledge from a nonlinear, hypertextual navigation; evaluating the quality and validity of information; and have a mature and realistic understanding of the “rules” that prevail in the cyberspace. This newly emerging concept of digital literacy may be used as a measure of the quality of learners’ work in digital environments, and provide scholars and developers with a more effective means of communication in designing better user-oriented environments. This article proposes a holistic, refined conceptual framework for digital literacy, which includes photo-visual literacy; reproduction literacy; branching literacy; information literacy; and socioemotional literacy.