Jan van Dijk

University of Twente, Communication Sciences, Faculty Member

Followers

Following

Co-authors

Public Views

International expert in the social aspects of the Internet and the Digital Media

less

Interests

Uploads

Papers by Jan van Dijk

Digital Skills

Digital Skills systematically discusses the skills or literacies needed in the use of digital med... more Digital Skills systematically discusses the skills or literacies needed in the use of digital media, primarily computers and the Internet. Following the work of van Dijk's The Deepening Divide: Inequality in the Information Society, it uses conceptual analysis and empirical observations to show what digital skills are, how they are distributed, how skill inequalities develop, and how these inequalities can be remedied by designers, educators, policymakers, and different types of Internet users.

Does e-government reduce the administrative burden of businesses? An assessment of business-to-government systems usage in the Netherlands

Government Information Quarterly, 2014

The reduction of the administrative burden on businesses is an important governmental policy obje... more The reduction of the administrative burden on businesses is an important governmental policy objective. Electronic government is presented as a promising reduction strategy in many countries. Underlying assumptions and mechanisms are hardly ever made explicit and scientific evidence of successful implementations is scarce. This paper presents an assessment of business-to-government systems in use in the Netherlands. Results show that organizational characteristics are the most influencing factors of perceived burden reduction and implementation effectiveness. Whereas perceived organizational benefits positively relate to the overall confirmation of the former system adoption decision. Surprisingly the quantitative, usage related characteristics do not present any statistical relevance. These findings help us understand existing differences in appreciation between business and governmental representatives on the successfulness of e-government projects in reducing the administrative burden on businesses. Furthermore, research results can help to enhance the effectiveness of e-government policy and measurement instruments.

Download

The Digital Divide as a Complex and Dynamic Phenomenon

by Ken Hacker and Jan van Dijk

The Information Society, 2003

The purpose of this article is to propose a fruitful analytical framework for data supposedly rel... more The purpose of this article is to propose a fruitful analytical framework for data supposedly related to the concept of the socalled "digital divide." The extent and the nature of this divide depend on the kind of access defined. Considering the possession of hardware, growing divides among different categories of income, employment, education, age, and ethnicity can be proved to have existed in the 1980s and 1990s according to official American and Dutch statistics. If only by effects of saturation, these gaps will more or less close. However, it is shown that differential access of skills and usage is likely to increase. The growth of a usage gap is projected. Multivariate analyses of Dutch official statistics reveal the striking effect of age and gender as compared to education. The usage gap is related to the evolution of the information and network society. Finally, policy perspectives are discussed.

Download

Internet Skills Survey

The digital divide as a complex and dynamic phenomenon

by ken de la pryme and Jan van Dijk

The Information Society, 2003

The Information Society, 19: 315–326, 2003 Copyright c Taylor & Francis Inc. ISSN: 0197-2243 prin... more

Download

Modeling Traditional Literacy, Internet Skills and Internet Usage: An Empirical Study

Interacting with Computers

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the relationships among traditional literacy (reading, writing and... more ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the relationships among traditional literacy (reading, writing and understanding text), medium-related Internet skills (consisting of operational and formal skills), content-related Internet skills (consisting of information and strategic skills) and Internet usage types (information- and career-directed Internet use and entertainment use). We conducted a large-scale survey that resulted in a dataset of 1008 respondents. The results reveal the following: (i) traditional literacy has a direct effect on formal and information Internet skills and an indirect effect on strategic Internet skills and (ii) differences in types of Internet usage are indirectly determined by traditional literacy and directly affected by Internet skills, such that higher levels of strategic Internet skills result in more information- and career-directed Internet use. Traditional literacy is a pre-condition for the employment of Internet skills, and Internet skills should not be considered an easy means of disrupting historically grounded inequalities caused by differences in traditional literacy.

What Makes Robots Social?: A User’s Perspective on Characteristics for Social Human-Robot Interaction

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2015

A common description of a social robot is for it to be capable of communicating in a humanlike ma... more A common description of a social robot is for it to be capable of communicating in a humanlike manner. However, a description of what communicating in a 'humanlike manner' means often remains unspecified. This paper provides a set of social behaviors and certain specific features social robots should possess based on user's experience in a longitudinal home study, discusses whether robots can actually be social, and presents some recommendations to build better social robots.

Download

Increasing Inequalities In What We Do Online

Telematics and Informatics

We investigate types of Internet activities among a representative sample of the Dutch population... more We investigate types of Internet activities among a representative sample of the Dutch population from 2010 to 2013. We examined usage patterns of seven types of Internet activities (i.e., information, news, personal development, commercial transaction, social interaction, leisure, and gaming) and related these patterns with gender, age, education, and income. Activities related to news, personal development, commercial transaction, and social interaction increased in popularity. For most capital enhancing activities, men, younger people, higher educated people, and people with higher than average incomes were prominent. These observations, however, are subject to change. The Internet seems to provide increasingly more capital-enhancing opportunities for those with higher education and income, which would accordingly reinforce their already strong positions in society.

Internet skill levels increase, but gaps widen: a longitudinal cross-sectional analysis (2010–2013) among the Dutch population

ABSTRACT In the current contribution, we investigated how (1) the levels of operational, formal, ... more ABSTRACT In the current contribution, we investigated how (1) the levels of operational, formal, information, and strategic internet skills changed between 2010 and 2013, and how (2) the observed skill patterns differ across gender, age, and education. All internet skills are measured among representative samples of the Dutch population in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013. Cross-sectional data are repeated to consider patterns of change at the aggregate level. The levels of operational and formal internet skills increased most. Information internet skill remained more or less consistent, and strategic internet skills only revealed a very small increase. Policies related to internet skills are largely aimed at improving basic skills among specific target groups. Future policies should shift towards improving information and strategic skills, which will be a more difficult challenge. Gender, age, and educational background are all important variables related to skill inequalities. As age increases, internet skill levels decrease. Information internet skills only increased for people aged over 65 years between 2010 and 2013. It seems that the gain in operational and formal internet skills among older people results in a better performance on information internet skills. The higher educated, the higher the levels of all four internet skills. The skills gap between the higher educated, on the one hand, and lower and middle educated, on the other hand, increased, while the gap between low and middle educated decreased. We expect that a particular share of inequality concerning information and strategic internet skills will remain and that these inequalities are long lasting.

Digital skills: unlocking the information society

ABSTRACT Digital Skills systematically discusses the skills or literacies needed in the use of di... more ABSTRACT Digital Skills systematically discusses the skills or literacies needed in the use of digital media, primarily computers and the Internet. Following the work of van Dijk&amp;#39;s The Deepening Divide: Inequality in the Information Society, it uses conceptual analysis and empirical observations to show what digital skills are, how they are distributed, how skill inequalities develop, and how these inequalities can be remedied by designers, educators, policymakers, and different types of Internet users.

Inequalities in the Network Society

Digital Sociology, 2013

Download

The one-dimensional network society of Manuel Castells

New Media & Society, 1999

Download

De digitale kloof wordt dieper : van ongelijkheid in bezit naar ongelijkheid in vaardigheden en gebruik van ICT

Dit eerste hoofdstuk bevat de aanleiding en centrale vragen van dit onderzoek. Er wordt gesteld d... more Dit eerste hoofdstuk bevat de aanleiding en centrale vragen van dit onderzoek. Er wordt gesteld dat de discussie over de digitale kloof oppervlakkig is en verklaard waarom dat zo is. Op basis van een eerste observatie wordt een aantal vragen gesteld, die de rest van dit rapport structureren. De oppervlakkige discussie over de digitale kloof De discussie over de ongelijkheid in de toegang tot informatie en communicatie technologie (ICT), de digitale kloof, is tamelijk oppervlakkig. Er zijn drie redenen voor de oppervlakkigheid in de discussie.

Download

The Acceptance of Domestic Ambient Intelligence Appliances by Prospective Users

Pervasive Computing, 2009

Ambient intelligence (AmI) is a growing interdisciplinary area where the focus is shifted towards... more Ambient intelligence (AmI) is a growing interdisciplinary area where the focus is shifted towards users instead of merely emphasizing the technological opportunities of AmI. Different methods are employed to understand the adoption of AmI appliances by users. However, these are often small-scale methods that are focused on specific subgroups. Large scale quantitative studies to understand the adoption of AmI appliances

Measuring Internet Skills

International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 2010

... DOI: 10.1080/10447318.2010.496338 AJAM van Deursen a * &amp; JAGM van Dijk a pages 891-91... more

Proposing a Survey Instrument for Measuring Operational, Formal, Information, and Strategic Internet Skills

International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 2012

Observational studies prove to be very suitable to provide a realistic view of people&amp;amp... more Observational studies prove to be very suitable to provide a realistic view of people&amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;s Internet skills. However, their cost and time are a strong limitation for large-scale data gathering. A useful addition to the measurement of Internet skills would be the development of survey questions for measuring Internet skills. In this contribution, we analyzed potential survey measures for operational, formal,

Internet skills and the digital divide

New Media & Society

Because of the growing amount of information on the internet and people’s increasing dependence o... more Because of the growing amount of information on the internet and people’s increasing dependence on information, internet skills should be considered as a vital resource in contemporary society. This article focuses on the differential possession of internet skills among the Dutch population. In two studies, an in-depth range of internet skills are measured by charging subjects assignments to be accomplished on the internet. Subjects were recruited by applying a random stratified sampling method over gender, age, and education. While the level of operational and formal internet skills appeared quite high, the level of information and strategic internet skills is questionable. Whereas education appeared an important contributor to all skill levels, age only appeared a significant contributor to operational and formal skills. The results strengthen the findings that the original digital divide of physical internet access has evolved into a divide that includes differences in skills to ...

Download

Measuring Internet Skills

International Journal of Human-computer Interaction, 2010

Research that considers Internet skills often lacks theoretical justifications and does not go be... more Research that considers Internet skills often lacks theoretical justifications and does not go beyond basic button knowledge. There is a strong need for a measurement framework that can guide future research. In this article, operational definitions for measuring Internet skills are proposed, applied in two large-scale performance tests, and tested for reliability and validity. The framework consists of four Internet skills: operational, formal, information, and strategic Internet skills. The framework proves to be a powerful means for understanding the complexity of the Internet skills that people employ when they use the Internet. The reliability of the framework is supported by obtaining similar results from two studies focusing on different contexts. The validity of the framework is investigated by comparing the results with external standards that also provide an indication of Internet skill levels.

Does the eHealth Literacy Scale (eHEALS) measure what it intends to measure? Validation of a Dutch version of the eHEALS in two adult populations

Journal of medical Internet research, Oct 1, 2011

Background The Internet increases the availability of health information, which consequently expa... more Background The Internet increases the availability of health information, which consequently expands the amount of skills that health care consumers must have to obtain and evaluate health information. Norman and Skinner in 2006 developed an 8-item self-report eHealth literacy scale to measure these skills: the eHealth Literacy Scale (eHEALS). This instrument has been available only in English and there are no data on its validity. Objectives The objective of our study was to assess the internal consistency and the construct and ...

Download

The Myth of Digital Democracy; Digital Citizenship, the Internet, Society …

Journal of the American Society for …

It is also possible that your web browser is not configured or not able to display style sheets. ... more

Jan van Dijk

Uploads

Papers by Jan van Dijk

Log In