While digital literacy is widely seen as an essential skill, Americans’ understanding of digital topics varies notably depending on the subject, according to a new report from Pew Research Centre.
The report finds that Americans answer a median of five out of nine digital knowledge questions correctly. The findings are based on a survey of 5 101 US adults using the American Trends Panel conducted from 15 to 21 May 2023. The questions span a range of topics, including cybersecurity practices, facts about major technology companies, artificial intelligence and federal online privacy laws.
For example, most of US adults know what cookies on websites do and can identify a secure password, but fewer can recognize an example of two-factor authentication. Much larger percentages know Elon Musk was running Tesla and Twitter in April 2023 than understand the technology behind ChatGPT. (Twitter was recently renamed X in July 2023, after the survey was conducted, and Musk stepped down as Twitter’s CEO in June.)
Overall, some 26% of US adults can answer at least seven of the nine questions accurately, but just 4% can correctly answer all nine. And as was the case in past digital knowledge surveys by the Centre, the public’s understanding of digital issues differs by age and educational attainment.
For instance, adults with a bachelor’s or advanced degree answer a median of six out of nine questions correctly. Those who have some college education answer a median of five questions accurately. And those with a high school diploma or less education correctly answer a median of four questions.
Similarly, age differences in Americans’ digital knowledge widely vary depending on the topic, but the most pronounced age differences appear when Americans are asked about two-factor authentication, deepfakes and large language models.
Key findings about how Americans’ digital knowledge varies by topic include:
Cybersecurity
* 87% of US adults can correctly identify which password – out of four choices provided – is the most secure option.
* 67% know that the purpose of cookies is to track visits and activity on a website.
* 48% can correctly identify an example of two-factor authentication from a series of provided pictures.
Major technology companies
* 80% know Elon Musk was running Tesla and Twitter in April 2023.
* 77% know Facebook changed its company name to Meta.
Artificial intelligence
* 42% know a deepfake is a seemingly real image, video or audio of something that didn’t occur.
* 32% know large language models, such as ChatGPT, produce answers based on word patterns and relationships they previously learned from text pulled from the Internet.
Federal privacy laws
* 23% know the US lacks a national privacy law that sets common standards for what companies can do with all of the data their products and services collect.
* 21% know websites in the US are prohibited from collecting personal data from minors under 13.
Still, Americans acknowledge they don’t know the answers to some of questions. When it comes to artificial intelligence, similar shares say they’re not sure how large language models work (53%) or what a deepfake is (50%).
Uncertainty is also common when it comes to privacy laws: 52% of adults aren’t sure if the US has a national online privacy law. And 40% aren’t sure about the age under which minors are protected from websites collecting their data without parental consent.