MULTICRITERIA EVALUATION OF THE USE OF ICT IN RURAL AREAS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION COUNTRIES IN 2018

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are becoming more accessible and more widely used in different areas of socio-economic activity and in various territories, including rural areas. There is a noticeable increase in the interest of rural residents in modern technologies, especially those supporting communication. At the same time, it should be noted that despite the small level of ICT skills and competences, rural areas have great potential that can be expressed in: human resources, the natural environment biodiversity, and raw materials. Therefore, rural areas in Europe should be similar in terms of the use of ICT and should not differ from the level observed in urban areas. The article presents the use of the AHP method (Analytic Hierarchy Process) for multicriteria decision analysis of the use of ICT by natural persons living in rural areas of the European Union (EU), in 2018. The empirical material used in the research came from the resources of the European Statistical Office (Eurostat). The result of the survey is the ranking of 27 EU countries (Great Britain was omitted). The obtained results showed large disproportions in the use of ICT in rural areas between the countries of the European Union. In the extreme case, between Denmark being the leader of the ranking and Bulgaria, which was in the 27th place, this differences amounted to 70.7%.