The Digital Transformation of Societies. The Example of the Selected ASEAN Countries

Digital transformation constitutes a key driver of long-term social and economic change, influencing the inclusiveness of development, social cohesion, and societies’ capacity to adapt under crisis conditions. The aim of this article is to analyze and assess the level of societal digitalization in selected ASEAN countries, with particular emphasis on differences between the pre-pandemic period and the Covid-19 pandemic period. The study employs an original measurement tool: the Digital Development of Society Index (DDS Index), which captures three core dimensions of societal digital transformation: access to digital technologies and infrastructure (ACCESS), digital skills of society (SKILL), and the actual use of digital technologies (USE). The empirical analysis was conducted using statistical and econometric methods, enabling the assessment of change dynamics, development of trajectories, and cross-country comparisons. The results reveal substantial differences in both the levels and trajectories of digital development across the countries analyzed. It demonstrates that the development of human capital and digital skills constitutes a critical prerequisite for societal digital transformation, while strategies focused exclusively on expanding digital infrastructure exhibit limited long-term effectiveness. The empirical findings provide new comparative evidence on how different configurations of access, skills, and use shape distinct paths of societal digitalization under crisis conditions, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. A significant value added to this study lies in the combination of its methodological and empirical contributions and lies in its human‑centered analytical perspective, which places society - and thus human capital - at the core of digitalization analysis. By treating societal digitalization as an autonomous analytical starting point, the proposed Index prioritizes people over artefacts, enabling a clearer understanding of how digital transformation unfolds through human agency rather than through technological presence alone. The publication was co-financed by the European Union under the Horizon Europe Framework Programme (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-SE-01-1); Project number: 101086381; Project title: Overcoming Digital Divide in Europe and Southeast Asia.