*4.2.2 Inner areas' condition*

The high political bodies' interest in Inner areas is due to their drawback conditions since these territories are affected by different problems such as the demographic drop, the high average age of the population, the low digitalization level, the low education level, and the distance from essential services to the point to stay in a situation of marginalization in comparison with urban centers [190]. This disease is also relapsed in the social paradigm, falling back into a situation of passivity, stationary development, and absence of absorptive capacity for innovation to the point of not benefiting from the global innovation process. Although this stagnant situation, the inner areas still have the potential for future development, thanks to their material and immaterial heritage richness, as natural and historical, cultural, and architectural resources [191]. Considering the above aspects, the institutions and academic literature are looking for new triggering pathways for the long-term sustainable development of inner areas. Within the toolbox, digitalization appears to have positive impacts on sustainability in terms of community prosperity and greater environmental control. On the other hand, it can also have disruptive effects, w since the possible outmatching with the specific socio-economic characteristics of the domain. So, it is important to mitigate negative impacts to maximize the potential positive effects. The following sections will deal with the positive and negative impacts of digital innovation on territories.

## *4.2.3 Deep glance at digital innovation impacts*

The pivotal role of digitalization in rural reality is in the rural development strategy of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which emphasizes the importance of digitalization for sustainable development. Its report, "Rural Well-Being: Geography of Opportunities", emphasizes the potential of digitalization for overcoming the disadvantages of remoteness in rural regions by reducing distances and increasing location independency.

As Ferrari et al. [192] argued the impact is multidimensional since it embraces different aspects. As a matter of fact, digital innovation can have the following:

