Albanians are last in Europe for basic digital information skills

2025-09-10 07:15:00, Sociale CNA

74.6% of residents living in Albanian cities have the ability to search, judge and organize digital information (information and data literacy skills[i]), a percentage that drops to 69.7% for those living in the suburbs and reaches the lowest level, 62.2%, for residents of rural areas.

The difference of over 12 percentage points between urban and rural areas clearly shows the urban-rural gap in access to and use of technology.

According to Eurostat data for 2023, the EU average for individuals with at least basic information and data skills is 85.4% in cities, 80.4% in suburbs and 77.6% in rural areas. Compared to the EU level, our country is significantly below the average in all three categories, while there is no data for countries in the region.

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In 2023, 85.4% of people aged 16–74 living in EU cities had at least basic skills in using information and data. This level was slightly lower for those living in small towns and suburbs (80.4%) and rural areas (77.6%).

The data show that in 22 EU countries, the highest percentages of people with at least basic information literacy skills are recorded in cities. However, in 4 countries, the highest percentages are recorded for those living in small towns and suburbs – in Denmark (95.9% of the population), Ireland (94.4%), Cyprus (90.4%) and Belgium (89.4%) – while in the case of Malta, the highest percentage is recorded in rural areas (91.6%, with low reliability).

Among EU countries, the Netherlands recorded the highest percentages of people with at least basic information and data literacy skills across all three levels of urbanization: 97.7% of city dwellers, 97.4% of those living in small towns and 97.1% in rural areas.

In addition to the Netherlands, Finland (97.7%) and Denmark (95.8%) also recorded the highest percentages of city dwellers with at least basic information and data literacy skills. The lowest levels were recorded in Germany (77.5%), Bulgaria (78.0%) and Italy (78.2%).

Bulgaria (66.3%), Romania (71.7%) and Germany (72.5%) recorded the lowest percentages of people with at least basic information, reading, understanding and using digital data skills, not only in small towns and suburbs, but also in rural areas (57.7%, 64.9% and 71.2% respectively).

The “information and data literacy skills” indicator is a sub-dimension of the Digital Skills Indicator (DSI) that measures individuals’ abilities to search, judge and organize digital information. It is assessed through concrete activities on the internet or software, where performing one activity indicates basic skills, while more activities indicate above-basic skills. This indicator is part of the EU’s digital policies and helps monitor the objectives for increasing citizens’ digital skills by 2025 and 2030./ Monitor.al