What is digital citizenship for students and why it is important?

As citizens of a country, we have rights, responsibilities, duties and privileges. This remains true even when we think of ourselves as citizens of the world or international citizens. But another concept has come up now: digital citizenship. A digital citizen uses technology responsibly and has the ability to engage positively, critically, and competently in all public digital environments linked with society, politics, governments, and entertainment. Since COVID-19 struck us, digital citizenship has become more important than ever, as it reflects the reality of the virtual global environment, we all live in.  

Digital citizenship and the question of ethics  
Digital citizenship is strongly associated with ethics. A whole new branch of studies called digital citizenship education (DCE) has come up to educate people. It teaches digital best practices, aimed at ensuring online safety, digital responsibility while using gadgets and social media, and digital health and well-being. Since digital citizenship is always a global concept, behaviour considered inappropriate by ethical standards of most countries would be criticised on digital media.  

Digital citizenship and students  
During the lockdown, students became more conscious of their global identity. They also learnt a lot from wider use of smart gadgets. But while they were open to these benefits, they were also open to all the harmful elements of the digital world. So teaching about digital citizenship gained ground and is now a strong trend.  

Digital citizenship teaches students to ensure that they practise and maintain respect and responsibility for themselves and others in a virtual space. Lack of awareness about digital citizenship can lead to delinquent tendencies, cyber-bullying, stalking, trolling, sexting and many other vices. Another common issue is plagiarism and lack of authentication when students research online. Digital citizenship awareness enables students to find, identify, and process information from online sources. They learn to choose an original and authentic source of information and not the first one they happen to find. Safety and ethics form the core of digital citizenship for students, and it is no surprise that it is a learning trend.