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 Estonia?
Estonia belongs to the group of countries with a relatively high performance in opportunities and low risks, as compared to the OECD average. People in Estonia have high levels of access to the internet and use it for a large range of purposes, for instance to get access to health information online. The government has embraced a strong e-government strategy, which is not impeded by lack of skillsto use e-government services, as Estonia ranks first in this regard. The labour market provides substantial returns to ICT skills, and employment in information industries as a share of total employment is the second largest among OECD countries. There is still scope for improvement, as about one fourth of Estonian people report having experienced digital security incidents (versus 19% on average among the OECD) and 24% of teachers report lacking ICT skills, as compared to 20% on average among OECD countries. While the share of extreme Internet users among children is slightly above the average, Estonia records fairly low levels of cyberbullying, especially compared to the other two Baltic States, where this problem is more prevalent.
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