Factors Affecting Levels of Digital Literacy on Smartphone Devices of the Elderly in Bang Khae District. Bangkok

Abstract

This research aimed to explore levels of digital literacy on smartphone devices and 
factors affecting the levels of digital literacy of the elderly in Bang Khae district. Bangkok. 
Population were the elderly in Bang Khae district aged between 60 – 79 years total amount of 
30.888. The 395 samples were identified based on the Taro Yamane method. In fact. 302 samples 
(76.5%) were voluntary joined the study. Research instrument was a digital literacy test comprised 
of 45 questions aimed to explore levels of digital literacy in nine aspects as follows: (1) rights and 
responsibility (2) media accessibility (3) digital communication (4) e-safety (5) media understanding 
(6) courtesy in digital society (7) e-Healthy (8) digital commerce and (9) digital law. The test was 
verified its quality by educational experts then tried-out before its implementation. Data were 
analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics. 
The results revealed that more than half of the elderly (51.7%) gained digital literacy at 
‘high’ level followed by a group of 23.4% which gained ‘intermediate’ level. Considering of each 
aspect of digital literacy. the results showed that the highest mean was ‘courtesy in digital 
society’ whilst the lowest mean was ‘digital commerce’. Thus. the elderly had more or less 
misunderstanding towards ‘rights and responsibility’ as well as being less proper care in using 
smartphone. behaving smartphone addiction. and lacked knowledge and skills about how to 
verify product’s qualifications before making online payment. Results also revealed that gender 
and age were not factors that affect the level of digital literacy of the elderly. However. ‘period 
of smartphone possession’ and ‘average time spent with smartphone’ did affected levels of 
digital literacy of the elderly statistically significant at .05 level.