Use of ICTs at work: an intergenerational analysis in Spain

From a comparative intergenerational analysis, this article examines the use of ICTs in the workplace by working-age Spaniards. To do so, it uses the 2012 PIAAC survey administered to 6,055 Spaniards on the variables related to the use of ICTs in the workplace. Descriptive and inferential analyses were carried out, taking the categories of digital immigrant and digital native as the reference, and adding another variable: pre-digital immigrant. Broadly speaking, the results show that ‘pre-digital immigrants’ (who started to use ICTs late) use ICTs less at work compared to ‘digital immigrants’ (who started to use ICTs via an adaptation process that began in their early or mid-adulthood), although they use them more than ‘digital natives’ (who started to use ICTs at a very young age). Finally, we discuss the implications of the results considering today’s society, and we offer potential avenues of future research.