On Tuesday, May 6, the radio station Onda Cero's 'La Brúixola' interviewed Sandra Ruiz Peralta, general director of Economy and Digital Society of the Department of Business and Employment of the Generalitat de Catalunya. The conversation focused on the digital divide and how it affects older people. In this context, the digital literacy program 'Més Digitals' was presented, which works to reduce the digital divide and promote the digital empowerment of more than 90,000 people through more than 9,000 courses that are taught throughout the Catalan territory to help citizens achieve basic skills and competencies in the digital field and at the same time improve their quality of life through the use of new technologies in a safe, inclusive, sustainable, democratic and equitable way. Sandra Ruiz Peralta explained that the objective was to combat the digital divide. In 2020, with the health emergency resulting from Covid-19, this digital gap became more pronounced and became very evident, as many elderly people felt distant from their family environment and could not or did not know how to use digital devices to communicate.
The courses of the 'Més Digitals' program, which focuses especially on people over 65 and vulnerable groups, have a total duration of fifteen hours and are carried out in small groups, between five and fifteen people, distributed throughout the Catalan territory. Sandra Ruiz Peralta explained that citizens need digital skills to be able to develop and pointed out that the digital divide is not only focused on access to technology, but also on its use. Maybe everyone has a mobile phone in their pocket, but this is not synonymous with making good use of it. Specifically, the 'More Digital' program offers three different training itineraries adapted to the knowledge and skills of the participants: 'Discovering the digital world', for people who want to start using a mobile device and become familiar with new technologies, 'Let's move through the digital world', for people who use a mobile device or smart tablet, but who need to be more autonomous and want to give them new uses, and 'Let's delve into the digital world', for people with basic autonomy in the use of digital tools, but who want to delve deeper into them.
For more information, you can listen to the entire interview through this online link .