How's Life in the Digital Age?

How’s life in the digital age in Poland?

In general, Poland has mixed performance in reaping the benefits of the digital transformation, but is also somewhat less exposed to the risks, compared to other OECD countries. The rate of access to the Internet in Poland (77.6% of households are connected to broadband Internet according to national sources) has increased substantially since 2005 (when the share was only 30.4%), and is now slightly above the OECD average. However, the share of people using the Internet remains low, the variety of uses of the Internet is limited, and there is substantial inequality of uses of the Internet. Despite the fact that teachers do not consider themselves to lack ICT skills, people in Poland have relatively low levels of digital skills and there are few digital resources in Polish schools. The share of jobs at risk of automation, at 50.4%, is high compared to other OECD countries. Due to the relatively low share of workers with computer-based jobs, the negative impacts of associated job stress and worries about work when not working are more contained than in other countries. In addition, the prevalence of other adverse effects, such as exposure to disinformation online or extreme internet use of children (23.4%) are below the OECD mean.

Figure 4.27. The digital well-being wheel in Poland

Note: This wheel depicts Poland’s relative performance in terms of key opportunities and risks in the context of the digital transformation. The centre of the wheel corresponds to the lowest outcome observed across all OECD countries, while the outer circle corresponds to the highest outcome. For opportunities (in dark blue) longer bars indicate better outcomes, whereas for risks (in yellow), longer bars indicate worse outcomes. If data are missing for any given indicator, the relevant segment of the circle is shaded in white.

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