The Ripple Effect: How essential digital skills create social value and improve lives

‘The Ripple Effect: How essential digital skills create social value and improve lives’ is a first-of-its-kind exploration of the relationship between essential digital skills and social value.

It delves into the positive changes that come from an individual improving their digital skills and the social value this generates.

Using best practice techniques, this research uncovers a web of positive outcomes and brings this to life through stories of real people in six typical archetypes. It also presents emerging analysis on the financial implications of this social value.

‘The Ripple Effect’ has been developed with the support of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

 Key findings

• The digital skills ripple effect: When an individual has the essential digital skills, their digital capability and confidence creates a ripple effect of positive change in their life and the lives of those around them.
• The positive impacts of digital capability: These changes can be grouped under three types of positive impact: 1) Improved communication, 2) Greater choice and 3) Enhanced contribution. It is this impact that drives the range of social value outcomes set out in this report.
• Digital skills create social value: These positive changes, which occur when people build their digital skills ultimately create social value for multiple audiences.
• Social value at scale: Best practice research techniques uncovered ten categories of social value and six beneficiary groups that map across to complex web of interconnected outcomes – see the Outcomes Framework.