Digital literacy and digital inequality: new challenges and formation factors

The article reveals the problems of developing digital literacy and digital inequality among young people, and considers the potential of higher education in overcoming the dysfunctions of digital education. The aim of the study was to analyze the digital literacy of young people, detailed assessments of digital skills, and study the role of modern universities in developing students' digital competencies and eliminating digital inequality. The key research methods were a questionnaire survey (N=633) and a focused group interview of students (n1=7 and n2=9). The results of the study showed low self-criticism of young people when assessing their digital literacy and the prevalence of inflated marks. It was found that cognitive distortions, primitivization of ideas about digital literacy, irrelevance of identifying their own deficiencies in digital learning and directions for replenishing them limit the development of digital competencies of young people. Focus group materials showed that students, justifying their high level of digital literacy, appeal to fragmentary practices of working on the network, algorithmic procedures for searching for information, and typical forms of youth communication in chats. The most vulnerable position was found among students majoring in the humanities, the risks of their digital deprivation are associated with an insufficient level of development of digital skills, as well as with a limited understanding of the prospects and possibilities of using digital technologies in professional and everyday life. The scientific novelty of the article is associated with the substantiation of theoretical conclusions and the increase in empirical data characterizing the dysfunctions of pedagogical practices in the field of ICT, new factors in the formation of digital inequality, digital exclusion of students studying in the humanities and socioeconomic areas of training. The practical significance of the obtained results is related to the possibility of their use for modernizing university education, reducing digital inequality in society, and increasing the digital competence of young people.