Optimising technological literacy acquirement to protect privacy and security

In the contemporary digital era, users may take actions which may affect their privacy and security without being aware of the consequences. Knowing the consequences, may be perceived as a higher level of usability, above the basic operational skills. This phenomenon is mainly a direct outcome of the gap between users’ knowledge and the complexity of the digital systems. The ability to master those systems is known as technological literacy, which thus is a critical factor to protect privacy and security. However, the process of acquiring technological literacy is costly and not trivial. In this research, we address the problem with a qualitative approach, and introduce a methodology named OTLA (Optimising Technological Literacy Acquirement) to achieve optimality between the cost of the teaching process and its benefits. We conducted an empirical study with n = 320 participants on five technological literacy issues, and showed that optimal solutions to this problem can be found. Thus, OTLA has a significant contribution to protecting users’ privacy and security in the digital world.