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Digital Literacy as a Human Right — An Interview with Helen Milner
This article was originally published on Wonk Bridge
11.9 million people in the United Kingdom are digitally illiterate. It’s a statistic to set you back an inch or two in your chair or, if you are like me and considerably more exuberant when demonstrations involving chairs are in question, to knock you out of it entirely.
In a prosperous nation, not merely well-connected but in the midst of negotiating one of the most advanced (and ethically and diplomatically questionable) nationwide wifi plans ever to be implemented, 11.9 million lack the basic digital literacy to use the internet. Just under half of that number have never made use of the net whatsoever: never gone online to make an order, book a movie, hunt for a deal, use an app, connect with a distant friend.
Some would dispute the presence of the notion of universal internet access on a bill of primary human rights, but the fact is, with the comprehensive digitisation of our world, the internet and a lack of ability to access it not only reflects broader patterns of poverty and social exclusion — those things whose status as human rights concerns few would argue against- but actively helps to compound them.
That’s where the likes of Helen Milner and the Good Things Foundation come in. In her role as…
