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 Hungary?
Compared to other OECD countries, Hungary is highly exposed to the risks of the digital transformation, while only experiencing limited benefits from its opportunities. Hungary has a very high level of inequality of Internet uses. Despite limited use of Internet, Hungary is in the top three of OECD countries in the share of people reporting digital security incidents. While there is no data on digital skills, Hungary is the country with the highest share of people reporting lack of skills as a reason not to use e-government services. However, national data show that 29% of Hungarian people have submitted completed forms to public authorities’ websites, which is in line with the EU average. The Internet is not widely used for key economic activities such as online consumption and finding jobs online, although the share of information industries in employment is well above the OECD average. While comparatively few people use the Internet to express political opinions, many people report having been exposed to disinformation. Furthermore, children are particularly affected by online risks: the share of extreme Internet users among children is above the OECD average and Hungary ranks second in terms of children reporting cyberbullying.