The problem of the digital divide, which affects people living in disadvantaged conditions, especially those with low incomes, includes critical factors such as illiteracy and digital exclusion. The urgent diffusion of technologies is progressively reinforcing the exclusion of some socially disadvantaged groups, especially in terms of access and relevance of the use of technologies. In fact, the data show that where poverty rates increase, digital literacy is lower because the poorest people have fewer opportunities to participate in literacy processes and acquire skills that allow them to interact with the digital world. Thus, while technologies may represent a real opportunity for those most at risk of digital poverty, they may also end up penalizing them, creating digitally disadvantaged subgroups. With the increasing digital integration in society, production, education and daily life, we are witnessing unprecedented changes. Through a systematic analysis of the evidence literature, the paper draws attention to risk factors, which relate to specific poverty conditions that are statistically associated with the causes that can contribute to, foster or increase digital inequalities, and protective factors, which relate to inclusive educational interventions that countries, governments and institutions should provide to socially weaker groups in order to reduce the conditions of digital illiteracy and thus avoid the emergence of forms of full-blown digital exclusion.

Keywords: Digital illiteracy, digital poverty, social exclusion, education, risk factors, protective factors.