Cultivating Digital Literacy among College Students Connotations, Dilemmas, and Pathways

Abstract

Digital literacy is a foundational capability for college students to participate in the production and daily life of a digital society, and it also represents a key component of talent development in higher education. This paper first clarifies the basic connotations of student digital literacy, then systematically examines four major challenges currently facing digital literacy education. These are:a mismatch between cognitive awareness and practical skills,which leads to an imbalanced literacy structure;instructional models that lag behind the evolution of digital technologies,resulting in limited educational effectiveness;external digital environments and individual behavioral habits that reinforce each other, thereby increasing learning inertia; and vague ethical awareness and unclear responsibility boundaries, which weaken the possibility of steering technology toward positive social purposes. In response to these issues, the paper proposes an integrated cultivation framework that combines coordinated development, pedagogical restructuring, environmental governance, and ethical regulation. The goal is to shift digital literacy education for college students from a purely skills-oriented approach toward one guided by values, so as to achieve a meaningful integration of instrumental rationality and value rationality.