Does the idea of being without your mobile phone make you anxious? The experience is so common that ‘nomophobia’ (the fear of being without one’s mobile phone) has been recognised as a psychological condition, which is estimated to impact 99 per cent of Australian smart phone owners.
Yet, if we stop to think about how essential digital devices have become to our daily lives, and particularly to our health, is it really surprising that we feel, and potentially are, made sick without them?
No matter who we are and where we live, our health is increasingly managed digitally, from booking our health appointments to tracking our cycle, renewing our prescriptions to searching for the health information and services we need. Some of us literally couldn’t find the doctor’s office without GPS and a working wi-fi, not to mention the number of people who rely on wearable electronic devices like hearing aids, heart monitors and continuous blood glucose monitors. Digital technologies also connect us to the people we love and help us maintain social networks that are vital to our wellbeing.
As personal as all this sounds, our increasing dependence on digital technology for our healthcare isn’t all just individual choice. Australia’s health system has also been undergoing a digital transformation, outlined in the National Digital Health Strategy, which includes the introduction and expansion of tools and programs like Telehealth, My Health Record and the use of electronic prescriptions. These changes aim to provide better health outcomes, but they also present serious challenges for anyone who is digitally excluded.
What is digital exclusion, did we hear you ask? According to the Australian Digital inclusion index, there are three broad components that impact how included or excluded we are: accessibility, affordability and digital ability, which we could also call digital literacy.
Digital connection is something that many of us take for granted and expect in our daily lives. However, according to the Australian Digital Inclusion (ADI) Index, 1 in 4 people living in Australia are still digitally excluded. That means, for a range of reasons including physical access to devices or connections, the cost of those devices and connections, and people’s level of digital literacy—how well they know how to use digital devices— almost 10 per cent of Australians are missing out on the same technology that many of us ‘can’t live without’.
While the internet has long been linked to the democratisation of information, this couldn’t be further from the truth. The most digitally excluded are people over 75 years of age, those who did not complete secondary school, low income earners, and people living with disabilities or in public housing.
For migrant and refugee women who experience barriers to access, digital exclusion can be further amplified by many factors. As COVID-19 showed us, language can be a significant barrier, particularly for older women with both low English proficiency and digital literacy.
Our Building Bridges Research Project found that financial hardship, precarious employment, and reliance on low-paid jobs can also contribute to migrant and refugee women’s digital exclusion from health services. Research suggests that young migrant and refugee women, in particular, face access challenges to digital devices due to financial and privacy constraints, including reliance on shared and/or public devices, and limited access to desktops or laptops. Moreover, just like some face-to-face health services, subsidised telehealth services remain unavailable to temporary visa holders due to Medicare restrictions.
Digital technologies are so embedded in our daily lives and healthcare, that our internet connection has become a literal lifeline for many. However, as long as these opportunities are not equally available to everyone, digital technologies could widen existing health inequities and even create new barriers to accessing health information and services.
We probably already recognise and support people in our lives who feel left behind by technology. By naming digital inclusion as a determinant of health, we can advocate for a future that connects everyone to better health.
This article was first published in edition #147 of The WRAP on July 2025.