Young people have never been more connected. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), 82% of people aged 15–24 worldwide were using the internet in 2025, a higher rate than among the rest of the population.
It is easy, then, to assume that this is also the most technologically literate generation we have ever seen.
But being surrounded by technology is not the same as understanding it.
The “digital native” assumption
For a generation that has grown up with smartphones, social media, search engines, algorithms, and now generative AI, using technology can feel almost instinctive. Interfaces are increasingly designed to make it that way: click, swipe, search, prompt.
Yet technological fluency and technological literacy are two different things.
Tech literacy means more than knowing how to use a device or navigate an app. It means understanding, at least at a functional level, how digital systems work, how information is produced and distributed, how algorithms shape what we see, how data is collected, and where the limitations and risks of technology lie.
The gap between access and understanding is significant. UNICEF has estimated that only 42% of young people are on track to acquire the digital skills needed for education and employment.
So perhaps the question is no longer whether young people have access to technology. It is whether they are being equipped to understand the systems increasingly shaping their lives.
AI makes that question more urgent
Generative AI has made powerful technology remarkably accessible. A user no longer needs to know how to code to generate software, analyse information, create an image, or automate parts of their work.
That accessibility is valuable. But it also makes technological literacy more important, not less.
When an AI system produces a convincing answer, can a user assess whether it is accurate? Do they understand what information should not be shared with it? Can they recognise bias, hallucinations, or the difference between automation and genuine understanding?
The easier technology becomes to use, the easier it can also become to stop questioning what happens behind the interface.
For young people entering increasingly AI-integrated workplaces, knowing how to prompt a tool will not be enough. The more valuable skill may be knowing when to trust it, when to challenge it, and when not to use it at all.
Tech literacy is becoming civic literacy
The stakes also extend far beyond employment.
Algorithms influence the news people encounter, the products they buy, the communities they find, and increasingly the decisions institutions make about them. Personal data moves through systems most users rarely see. AI-generated content is making the boundary between authentic and synthetic information harder to recognise.
Understanding technology therefore increasingly means understanding the environment in which contemporary social, economic, and political life takes place.
That makes tech literacy less of a specialist competency and more of a basic form of literacy.
We would not consider someone fully literate simply because they can read words without critically understanding a text. Perhaps we should stop treating the ability to operate technology as evidence that someone understands the digital world either.
The tech industry has a role to play
Responsibility cannot fall entirely on young people or education systems.
The technology industry has spent decades making digital products easier and more intuitive to use. That is an achievement. But creating frictionless experiences should not mean creating passive users.
For those of us building technology, there is a larger question worth asking: Are we simply creating more users of technology, or are we helping create people who understand it?
Supporting the next generation requires more than giving young people access to devices and platforms. It means investing in digital education, creating opportunities to develop practical skills, designing technology transparently, and encouraging critical engagement with the systems we build.
Young people will inherit a world increasingly mediated by technology. Many of them will also be the engineers, designers, researchers, founders, and decision-makers who determine where it goes next.
Calling them “digital natives” should not become an excuse to assume they already know everything they need to know.
They deserve something more useful: the knowledge and critical capacity to question technology, understand it, and ultimately shape it.
