A study on the use of the Internet in Greece, as well as issues such as the digital divide and the information and entertainment value of the Internet, was prepared by the National Center for Social Research.

The Internet in Greece study also looked at social media and AI algorithms in relation to the future of privacy and the future of work.

EKKE also examined trust, freedom of expression, political competence, victimization, and privacy violations.

Nine out of ten use the Internet

Internet usage in Greece is steadily growing, with 91% of participants identifying themselves as users in the latest survey, up 20% from the previous survey in 2019 (71%).

9% who do not use the Internet said that the main reasons were two: “lack of interest and usefulness of the Internet” (63%) and lack of knowledge and familiarity with technical knowledge or fear/misunderstanding of technology (27%). ).

digital divide

The study concludes that “thousands of our fellow citizens continue to suffer from the adverse effects of the primary digital divide, exacerbated by the burden of ‘old’ inequalities.” However, these are categories of the population that are likely to decline drastically in a relatively short period of time due to the ever-increasing penetration of the Internet.”

The digital divide “essentially forms and mutates from the primary to the secondary, which no longer concerns the socio-demographic characteristics of citizens to the same extent as digital skills or digital human capital in general and, more broadly, digital citizenship“.

Those who connect become familiar

In terms of internet skills, users’ self-assessment of their level of online skills appears to have increased compared to previous measurements. In particular, 86% of those surveyed said they know how to open files (compared to 82.3% in 2019), and 87% say they know how to properly use keywords in search engines (84% in the 2019 survey). ).

inequalities

However, the study reveals the difficulties and weaknesses of the labor market in the context of the digital transition, which are mainly related to the “increasing weight of social inequalities in the development of digital skills of workers, as well as broader systemic weaknesses in the country’s production model.”

Electronic transactions

There has been significant growth in the use of the Internet for transactions, with almost 75% saying they pay bills and use online banking services at least once a month (51% in 2019), while the percentage of those who have never used the Internet for certain goals decreased to 8.9% against the corresponding 37.3% in the previous measurement.

Fun and entertainment, but mostly information

The Internet is an important area of ​​entertainment for users in Greece with daily video viewing ranks first in their preferences with 64%. This is followed by “downloading” or listening to music (56%), as well as online gaming (44%).

Undoubtedly, the main and most frequent use of the Internet is for news reporting. In particular, respondents who update “daily” and “several times a day via the Internet” account for 90%, which means a jump of 26.6% compared to the previous measurement in 2019 (63.5%).

At the same time, however, there is also caution regarding the reliability of online news: an increase of about 3% compared to 2019 (77.1%). However, the proportion of those who believe that none of the news is reliable has fallen to 1% (3.6% in 2019), while no one believes that all news on the Internet is false. However, almost 8 out of 10 (77%) believe that they are able to distinguish fake news from fake news, and only 15% believe that they do not have this ability.

The empirical sample survey World Internet Project Greece (WIP-GR) is implemented by EKKE and is part of the World Internet Project (WIP), an international partnership of universities and research centers, consisting of more than 30 countries on different continents.

The study was implemented with the support of the Special Secretariat for Long Term Planning.

RES-EMP source