RETHINKING THE GENERATIONAL DIVIDE: COMPARING THE DIGITAL MEDIA LITERACY OF GEN Z AND MILLENNIALS IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

Digital media literacy is comprised of skills including technical and creation of content, source verification, evaluation and critical judgement of the digital content. Gen Z and Millennials are considered the important cohorts when it comes to comparing the digital skills. Due to familiarity of Gen Z with digital technologies, they are considered to be highly digital competent and have technical adaptability skills. However, this assumption neglects the difference between critical and operational skills. This paper examines and compares the digital literacies of both generations (Gen Z and Millennials), highlighting that both cohorts have varied skills of digital media literacy. Potter’s approach to cognitive literacy is used in the current paper to study digital media literacy as a multidimensional skill, rather than a single unique concept. To compare the digital media literacies of Gen Z and Millennials, this study used a quantitative research design, whereby a survey was conducted with 200 respondents from NUML, Islamabad and Rawalpindi campus, out of which 117 were Gen Z and 83 were Millennials. The results were analyzed via SPSS and T-test was done for group comparison and significant difference was observed in overall digital media literacies of Gen Z and Millennials, with Millennials scoring high in Mean comparison. These results indicated that although Millennials scored higher in critical judgment, source verification and credibility assessment, however, Gen Z scored better in terms of technical and creation of content skills. The findings of paper emphasized the importance of digital media literacy as a multidimensional and differentiated construct identifying the complimentary skills of both generational cohorts.