Over the past number of years of teaching digital skills classes to adults, I’ve come to realise that the most meaningful changes rarely have anything to do with technology itself. While these classes are often framed as learning how to use devices, apps, or online services, the shifts that matter most tend to happen elsewhere. Often quietly, unexpectedly.

People arrive describing themselves as “not good with technology”, “too old to learn”, or “behind everyone else”. These phrases are usually said lightly, sometimes with humour, but they point to something deeper than a lack of technical knowledge. They reflect a relationship with technology shaped by exclusion, rapid change, and a sense that the digital world was built for someone else - the next generation.

What happens in a digital skills class, then, is not simply the transfer of technical skills. It is the slow reworking of confidence, belonging, and self-perception. Something that sits at the heart of adult and community education.

Beyond skills acquisition

From the outside, digital skills training for adults is often understood in instrumental terms. The goal is framed as competence: being able to send emails, use online banking, access online services, or communicate with family. These outcomes matter, and learners are usually clear about wanting practical digital skills that make everyday life easier.

But focusing only on what someone can now do misses what is also changing in how they see themselves.

Learning to use technology in adulthood often takes place against a background of accumulated doubt. Many learners have spent years absorbing messages (explicit or implicit) that digital technology is for younger people, or for those who “grew up with it”. When difficulties arise, they are frequently interpreted as personal failure rather than as a consequence of design, pace, or lack of support.

In this context, simply staying in the room matters. Asking questions matters. Returning the following week matters. Each of these small acts quietly challenges the idea that learning has an expiry date.

The classroom as a social space

One of the most significant aspects of community-based digital skills classes for adults is that they are social. Learning takes place alongside others who are negotiating similar frustrations, anxieties, and moments of success. This shared experience reduces isolation and normalises difficulty.

I’ve often seen learners relax when they realise they are not the only ones struggling to remember steps or understand unfamiliar terms. Sometimes I, as the facilitator, have technology issues during the class which I use to highlight that it happens to us all. Laughter appears. Not at the technology, but at the shared recognition that none of this is as straightforward as it is often presented to be.

In community education settings, particularly in places like Sligo and the wider North-West of Ireland, this social dimension is especially important. For some learners, the class is one of the few regular opportunities to engage in structured learning and conversation. The technology becomes a reason to gather, but the value lies equally in the human connection that forms around it.

Confidence, agency, and voice

Perhaps the most noticeable change over time is confidence. Not the confidence to master everything, but the confidence to try, to ask, and to persist.

This confidence often shows up indirectly. Learners begin to describe what they want to use technology for, rather than what they feel they should be able to do. They speak more clearly about their boundaries, their interests, and their priorities. There is a growing sense of agency stemming from an understanding that technology is something they can engage with on their own terms.

In this way, digital skills education becomes less about keeping up and more about reclaiming voice. Learners are no longer passive recipients of technological change; they are active participants in deciding how, when, and whether technology fits into their lives.

A human-centred understanding of digital inclusion

These experiences have shaped how I understand digital inclusion. It is not simply a matter of access to devices or connectivity, important though those are. Nor is it only about functional competence. At its core, digital inclusion is about dignity, autonomy, and participation.

When digital skills education is approached as a human-centred practice, one that respects learners’ experiences, acknowledges fear and frustration, and values slow learning, it creates space for real change. The technology becomes secondary to the relationships, the patience, and the trust built within the learning environment.

An ongoing process

Digital skills classes do not “solve” digital exclusion, and they are not a one-time intervention. They are part of an ongoing process of support in a world where technology continues to evolve. What they can offer, however, is something more enduring than technical competence.

They can offer reassurance that learning remains possible, that confusion is not failure, and that people are not alone in navigating an increasingly digital society. In that sense, what changes most is not what learners know, but how they feel about their place within the digital world and within their communities.