Our guest for this episode (28 min. long) is Eszter Hargittai, who is a professor and holds the chair of the Internet Use and Society in the Department of Communication and Media Research at the University of Zurich,  where she also heads the Web Use project research group. She’s also one of the most cited web science researchers in the world. Her research focuses on the social and policy implications of digital media, especially how differences in people’s web skills and digital literacy influence what they do online. 

During this conversation, Eszter gets into why she wishes people would use the term “digital inequality” more, as well as how it means something different than “digital divide.” She describes her research on how people’s web skills vary, including her findings dealing with disability status and age. Eszter also discusses why she feels it’s important to explore the challenges of studying web science, as well as have people shared how they overcome those difficulties, a topic on which she has (co-)edited three books. Plus, she shares a peek into what she’s writing right now: a book about web use and COVID-19, which is based on a large data collection effort across three countries that she and her team completed in last April. To hear about about all this and more, listen to the episode!

Click here for this episode’s transcript, and click here for this episode’s show notes.