The digital information level measures access to the Internet; ownership of fixed and wireless information devices; the ability to use computers and other mobile digital tools and the scope of Internet utilization. (image: Kobizmedia/ Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, Feb. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — Digital information access among underprivileged people in South Korea improved in 2018 from the previous year, a poll showed Monday.
According to the survey of 15,000 people nationwide, the digital information level among so-called digitally vulnerable groups stood at 68.9 percent of the average for all South Koreans last year, up 3.8 percentage points from a year earlier.
The poll, by the Ministry of Science and ICT, was taken on people who lack access to information, which include senior citizens, people in low-income brackets, farmers and fishermen, and the physically challenged.
The digital information level measures access to the Internet; ownership of fixed and wireless information devices; the ability to use computers and other mobile digital tools and the scope of Internet utilization.
“The poll showed that the digital information level of underprivileged groups improved every year,” Oh Yong-soo, an ICT ministry official, said in a press release.
The level has steadily increased from 52.4 percent in 2015, 58.6 percent in 2016 and 65.1 percent in 2017.
The digital information level stood at 86.8 percent of the national average for people in the low-income bracket, with the corresponding numbers falling to 63.1 percent for people aged 65 and older.
South Korea is one of the world’s most wired nations, with more than 90 percent of its population having access to the Internet. Nearly nine out of 10 South Koreans own a smartphone, marking one of the highest levels of smartphone ownership in the world.
(Yonhap)
