Digital (Il)Literacy and (Un)Dignified Ageing in Contemporary Europe: Comparing Statistical Data for Serbia, Bih, and Montenegro

The shared experience of ageing in the European Union and beyond is recognizable through common problems of lack of digital literacy and even the interest in mastering the knowledge and skills for navigating and maintaining dignity in the digital age. The elderly cohort experiences twofold alienation in personal agency and respect in the public sphere because of ageing and digital knowledge deprivation.

The constant pressure of “digital protocols” upon them in everyday life, from the apps for m-banking to ATM money withdrawal, e-delivery of communal bills and obligatory tax payments, even grocery shopping to scheduling medical appointments, underlines and augments the lack of skills and often the abilities for the digital interactions and transactions that this mature populace usually does not wield. Digital technology older generations encounter relatively late in their lives makes them vulnerable and sometimes heightens their insecurity. This strips them of their dignity, turning their living into a “bare existence” invaluable to society, burdening governing institutions with their rights to live a life of dignity, value, and virtue.

Comparing the statistical data on digital habits and skills for the cohort of 65+ in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and Montenegro intersectionally with the same Eurostat statistics for the European Union, Norway and Switzerland, we will try to discern the patterns of twofold alienation primarily aiming to outline the deprivation of dignity that older people experience. One of the main possible findings will be how the abuse of elderly rights to dignity and dignified living springs from their digital illiteracy or naivety of their genuine living habits before the digital epoch.