Bitkom State Index 2024 - Focus on society

‘The federal states are not dependent on the federal government or the EU, they have digitalisation in their own hands,’ emphasised Bitkom President Dr Ralf Wintergerst at the presentation of the state index. The more than 1,200 data points analysed and the survey of the 16 state governments and more than 5,600 citizens speak a clear language - there are clear differences between the 16 federal states - Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saarland and Saxony are particularly convincing with regard to the digital society. In this category, the digital skills and attitudes of citizens towards digitalisation were scrutinised. The relevance of IT lessons as an indicator of digital training was also included in the assessment. On average, the federal states scored 66.8 out of a possible 100 points.

Digital society on the Baltic Sea

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania leads the ‘digital society’ category with 79 points. Saarland scored 77 points and Saxony 72, while Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt came in last in terms of digital participation with 62 points each and Bremen with 59 points.

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has a positive attitude towards digitalisation - 92% of respondents stated that they have a very positive or somewhat positive attitude towards digitalisation. 83 per cent of respondents see digitalisation as an opportunity, while a further 68 per cent say that they are very good or fairly good at using digital devices and media. Only 39 per cent feel overwhelmed by digital technologies.

The respondents in Saarland provided similar information: 94% have a positive attitude towards digitalisation, 85% see digitalisation as an opportunity and 65% rate their own ability to deal with digital devices and media as very good or good. However, 43 per cent of respondents often or even very often feel overwhelmed by digital technologies.

In Saxony, 89% of respondents have a very positive or somewhat positive attitude towards digitalisation, while 80% also see digitalisation as an opportunity. More than a third of respondents say they are good or even very good at using digital devices and media. According to 42 per cent of respondents, they feel overwhelmed by digital technologies.

Not too great a deviation in the results

There is not too much variation in the results for the supposed laggards: the new federal states of Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia and the Hanseatic city of Bremen. In Saxony-Anhalt, 92 per cent of respondents stated that they had a very positive or somewhat positive attitude towards digitalisation, compared to 91 per cent in Thuringia. Bremen scored highly with a positive attitude of around 98 per cent of respondents. Nevertheless, the city only made it to 16th place in the overall digital ranking.

The results show: When it comes to the digital society, the results of the German federal states are very close to each other and differ primarily in the implementation and interpretation of digital participation on site.