Title: An overview of the internet skills of digital platform users' in a digitally emerging country: India

Authors: Dorothy Dutta; Mrinmoy K. Sarma

Addresses: Department of Business Administration, Tezpur University, Napaam, Tezpur, 784028, Assam ' Department of Business Administration, Tezpur University, Napaam, Tezpur, 784028, Assam

Abstract: Internet skills are an important aspect of today's digitally advanced world especially in a country like India where the problem of the digital divide is still intact due to the lack of proper internet skills. This study attempts to analyse different characteristics of internet skills in an era of incremental innovations taking place in digital platforms which results in frequent changes in these platforms. A structured questionnaire was distributed amongst 665 respondents based on judgement sampling and the results are analysed using linear regression analysis and Independent Sample t-Tests. The results show the dependency of an advanced level of internet skills on the basic ones. While age, income and internet experience showed significant positive associations with internet skills; gender, place of residence and education level showed no such statistical inferences towards the level of internet skills. Though the insignificant influences of gender and place of residence could serve as a factor for reducing digital divide; the disinterest of users' with the increase in age might be a bit problematic in the future and requires immediate attention.

Keywords: internet; skills; medium; content; digital; platforms.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTGM.2022.121466

International Journal of Trade and Global Markets, 2022 Vol.15 No.2, pp.241 - 253

Received: 19 Feb 2020
Accepted: 21 Nov 2020
Published online: 14 Mar 2022 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article