Bitwise operations are highly efficient and allow competitive programmers to perform tasks at a lower computational cost. They are particularly useful for toggling states, setting or unsetting flags, and checking properties in binary numbers, such as parity or specific bit patterns. Bitwise operations are used in problems that involve subsets, powers of two, or binary representations of numbers. For example, they can quickly solve problems like subset generation or optimization challenges by using bit masks. Due to their speed and efficiency, bitwise operations are a valuable tool in competitive programming, especially when working within tight time constraints.