Digital literacy is one of those formal-sounding, academic-sounding terms, the kind of phrase you might expect to read on a school curriculum or at a government seminar. But for many of us, especially here in the Philippines, digital literacy did not start in a classroom. It began from a much more modest place: a tiny, cramped pisonet shop with a row of secondhand computers, keyboards marinated in stickiness, and the familiar hum of dial-up, or prepaid internet that expired every hour.
And that’s where I started my own journey of online literacy too, back in elementary school.
My First Computer Was Not Mine
Growing up I didn’t have a computer at home. Like most kids of my generation, my first real exposure to computers, the internet and eventually social media was in a pisonet shop. You'd put in a coin, get a set amount of time, and try to squeeze as much out of it as possible before your screen locked you out and demanded another coin.
When I was that age I didn't know what I was doing. I was just a kid clicking around wondering what this glowing screen could do. But looking back, those hours in the pisonet shop were my first real lessons in internet literacy, how to navigate a browser, how to type faster, how to explore social platforms, how to problem-solve when something didn’t load right, and eventually, how to actually create something online instead of just consuming it.
Digital Literacy Isn't Just Knowing How to Use a Device
And many people think that online literacy is only knowing how to scroll through an app or use a smartphone. But true online literacy is more than that. It’s about knowing how to navigate the internet safely, how to critically evaluate information, how to protect your identity and data, and eventually, how to use digital resources to actually build something, whether that’s a skill, an income, or a community.
That pisonet shop experience opened up to something bigger for me. What was initially a curiosity about computers became a real career – working online, managing social media for real businesses, learning platforms, content and eventually exploring decentralized spaces like BCHNostr. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Why This Matters for the Next Generation
Not every kid today grows up with a laptop or a stable home internet connection. A lot of them are still discovering computers and the internet the same way I did, through shared spaces, borrowed devices, or public access points. That's exactly why digital literacy needs to be something we actively teach and encourage, not something we assume everyone already has equal access to.
Being digitally literate today isn't just a nice skill to have, it's practically a requirement. Whether it's for school, for work, for starting an online business, or even for participating in spaces like BCHNostr where owning your identity and understanding how platforms work actually matters, digital literacy is the foundation everything else is built on.
From a Pisonet Shop to Where I Am Now
If you told a younger version of me, sitting in a pisonet shop, racing against a coin-operated timer, that all of that curiosity would eventually turn into a career and a place in communities like this one, I probably wouldn't have believed it. But that's the thing about digital literacy: it doesn't matter where you start. What matters is that you keep learning, keep exploring, and keep applying what you learn.
If you're someone who's just starting to explore the digital world, whether it's social media, content creation, or even something new like decentralized platforms and cryptocurrency, don't underestimate where you're starting from. Some of us started with borrowed time on a secondhand computer in a small shop, and we're still here, still learning, still growing.
Digital literacy isn't about where you begin. It's about how far you're willing to keep going.
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