{"id":28551,"date":"2026-07-03T17:00:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T16:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/?p=28551"},"modified":"2026-07-09T13:14:44","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T12:14:44","slug":"digital-poverty-is-holding-university-students-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/business-law\/digital-poverty-is-holding-university-students-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital poverty is holding university students back"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When a student can\u2019t submit their essay because the household\u2019s only device is being used by three siblings for school, or because their mobile data ran out mid-lecture, they are experiencing digital poverty, <em>says <a href=\"https:\/\/profiles.open.ac.uk\/matthew-hinton\">Matthew Hinton<\/a>, S<\/em><em>enior Lecturer in Information Management, The Open University <\/em>and <em><a href=\"https:\/\/profiles.open.ac.uk\/jacqueline-baxter\">Jacqueline Baxter<\/a>, Professor in Public Policy and Management, The Open University.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Digital poverty describes a cluster of overlapping disadvantages: lack of access to devices, unreliable or unaffordable internet connectivity, and insufficient\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/topics\/digital-skills-26057\">digital skills<\/a>\u00a0to make meaningful use of online resources even when access exists.<\/p>\n<p>According to a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/digitalpovertyalliance.org\/digital-poverty-in-the-uk-a-socio-economic-assessment-of-the-implications-of-digital-poverty-in-the-uk\/\">2023 report<\/a>, between 13 and 19 million people over the age of 16 in the UK are experiencing this in some form.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk\/publications\/understanding-digital-poverty-and-inequality-in-the-uk\/\">Researchers describe<\/a>\u00a0digital poverty as operating across three levels. These are poor access to digital technologies, poor digital literacy and skills, and a reduced ability to convert digital access into real-world benefits, such as securing a job, managing finances or navigating health systems. Each level compounds the next.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/digital-poverty-is-holding-university-students-back-285663\">Read the full article on The Conversation<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Picture credit: www.kaboompics.com on Pexels<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When a student can\u2019t submit their essay because the household\u2019s only device is being used by three siblings for school, or because their mobile data ran out mid-lecture, they are experiencing digital poverty, says Matthew Hinton, Senior Lecturer in Information Management, The Open University and Jacqueline Baxter, Professor in Public Policy and Management, The Open [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":28553,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[874,1525,1640,2200],"class_list":["post-28551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-law","tag-fbl","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home","tag-the-conversation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28551"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28556,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28551\/revisions\/28556"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}