DIGITAL LIMITATIONS

Abstract

Information and communication technologies – ICTs are of paramount importance in the promotion of citizenship in contemporary society. Research about an individual’s limitations regarding the access to and the use of ICTs – the digital limitations – is widely found in the academic literature, and the general citizen and public policy makers are also engaged in addressing this issue. Our study comprises a theoretical review of concepts about the digital limitations and argues that they are of three interdependent types: access limitations, cognitive-informational limitations, and behavioral limitations. The three types of limitations are commonly not addressed in full or in similar depth both in literature and in practice, or they are even treated as an undifferentiated whole. The theory of planned behavior helps us to identify and explain the types of limitations and to devise how sensitive their interdependencies are to changes in technological, social, economic, cognitive, and behavioral factors.