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This paper examines the relationship between the different levels of digital divide and the effect of sociodemographic factors and autonomy of use on the level of digital skills, and how these elements influence the harnessing of online opportunities. The Correspondent Field Model proposed by Helsper (2012) was used as theoretical framework to operationalize the concept of online opportunities in the economic, social and personal domains. Microdata from the 2014 and 2016 editions of the ICT Households Survey in Brazil were used to test the hypotheses, resulting in a sample of 9,902 and 9,995 of Internet users respectively. The findings support the hypothesis of sequentiality between the different levels of digital divide, so that internet users with greater use autonomy tend to have a higher level of digital skills and this, in turn, has a positive impact on harnessing online opportunities. The findings also point out that, even among people who have overcome the initial barrier to access the Internet, their digital inequalities in autonomy, digital skills, and uses (opportunities) still reflect existing social inequalities, reinforcing the existence of a Matthew Effect in harnessing online opportunities (the richer get richer, the poor get poorer). These findings can also contribute to the discussion of initiatives of mobile leapfrogging, as our results indicate that mobile-only Internet access has a negative impact on the level of informational skills, essential for harnessing online opportunities. Thus, this may result in a more superficial use of the Internet, collaborating to the formation of a second-class digital citizen.
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