How's Life in the Digital Age?
Opportunities and Risks of the Digital Transformation for People's Well-being
This report documents how the ongoing digital transformation is affecting people’s lives across the 11 key dimensions that make up the How’s Life? Well-being Framework (Income and wealth, Jobs and earnings, Housing, Health status, Education and skills, Work-life balance, Civic engagement and governance, Social connections, Environmental quality, Personal security, and Subjective well-being). A summary of existing studies highlights 39 key impacts of the digital transformation on people’s well-being. The review shows that these impacts can be positive as digital technologies expand the boundaries of information availability and enhance human productivity, but can also imply risks for people’s well-being, ranging from cyber-bullying to the emergence of disinformation or cyber-hacking. In sum, making digitalisation work for people’s well-being would require building equal digital opportunities, widespread digital literacy and strong digital security. Continued research and efforts in improving statistical frameworks will be needed to expand our knowledge on the many topics covered in this report.
How's life in the digital age in Denmark?
People in Denmark benefit to a large extent from the opportunities of the digital transformation, but are also exposed to high risks. A very large share of the Danish population benefits from the possibilities offered by the Internet: access and use of the Internet are in the top tier of the OECD. Nine out of a list of ten online activities are used by a majority of the population, which is the highest level of variety of Internet uses in the OECD. The high degree of digitalisation of daily life is reflected in other domains, such as governance and civic engagement, where Denmark ranks as the top country in terms of people using e-government services and expressing political opinions online. In addition, the level of jobs at risk of automation is below the OECD average. However, as a result of the high share of workers with computer-based jobs, Denmark faces a significant risk of job stress and worries about working when not working associated with computer-based jobs. On the other hand, Denmark also reports the highest share of people who telework (42%), which may bring substantial, benefits in the area of work-life balance as well.