Digital media and youth: social uses of new technologies. Two researches from Italy
Alessandra Carenzio, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano (Italy)
Abstract
This paper intends to discuss the relationship between digital media and youth, through the
presentation of some findings of recent researches conducted in late 2008 by the team of the Italian
research centre CREMIT (Research Centre on Media, Information and Technology Education) 1
based at Università Cattolica in Milan. The common focus is represented by the relationship
between new media and youth, analysing the role of mobile phones in adolescents' social networks
and how young people make sense of new media in everyday life. New media seem to be more than
tools to help and fasten communication/information transfer, on the contrary they are a very
important social device to get in contact with usual friends, to expand relationships, to communicate
identity and sometimes to support adolescents’ need to share experiences among peers. In other
words: a strong social connector.
The diffusion and the robust presence of technologies in formal and informal contexts is not an
emerging topic, as many studies clearly pointed out in recent years, especially when related to
adolescents and youngsters. What is sensitively different is the role of technology in our society, as
technology is more and more fading (also for its portability – computers are no more big boxes
stored in a room and mobile phones are not heavy equipments to drag walking in the street), getting
a different shape as a “normal” presence in the way we organise our private time and our social
presence.
The aim of our researches2 is to study the role of digital media in adolescents’ social behaviours and
networks (how they create and maintain these networks and how mobile phones and the Internet
can be positioned in this social activities) and to renewal the debate around new media and youth.
The first study (“Can you speak? Adolescents in the era of mobile phones”3) focuses on the specific
role played by mobile phones, that for instance are now acting as a multidimensional tool
(according to contexts and people adolescents refer to – to inform family when they are late, to talk
with friends and school mates or to interact with adults they know for example - mobiles assume
1
CREMIT, led by Pier Cesare Rivoltella, was born in November 2006 after the invitation offered by the Regional
School Office to become a reference for the integration of media and technologies at school. The main purpose of the
Centre is to promote scientific research, to develop and study models, methodologies and tools in the field of Media
Education and Technology Literacy. URL: http://www.cremit.it
2
We have to acknowledge the team involved in these researches, as this paper is formally based on the results shared at
CREMIT.
3
From this moment on, we will refer to this research as “Can you speak?”. Research report can be found in CREMIT
website (URL: http://www.cremit.it).
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various and multiple shapes). But besides this, mobile phones also act as a diary, a memory device
(pictures to fix special moments) and as an object that reflect adolescents’ interests (music or short
videos they have on it). Not only a tool then, but a social and emotive object.
The second study (“Connected youth. Italian preadolescents and new media”4) can be considered as
check study that seems to confirm an important aspect: new media, especially the Internet and
social networks, are settings that work together with “corporeal” life; they do not appear as a
separate world for adolescents, in blogs, Messenger, Facebook or other social networks young
people tend to expand their physical networks (schoolmates, friends in extra-school contexts,
fellows in sport activities), pointing out a sort of futility in the idea of the Web as a place where
adolescents are someone different or as a forum where they trespass limits normally imposed in
their daily life. Virtual does not mean transgression, but basically an extension of social
relationship.
Methodologically speaking, we considered two main fields of interest: the study of representations
and uses of digital media among adolescents; the definition of the role of digital media in
adolescents’ socialization. To deepen these topics we have used a qualitative approach. In the first
research (“Can you speak?”) the approach is based on questionnaires, useful to define profiles and
uses, and focus group sessions5 in order to grasp personal connotations and symbolic images,
involving 64 students (city area/suburban area, male/female, professional school/gymnasium) in the
metropolitan area of Milan. While in the second study (“Connected youth”) only questionnaires
have been considered, as suggested by a scope of more than 1300 students involved. Interviews or
focus group still remain a proposal for further analysis in this field.
As suggested in the first lines, the results express converging views. This is the reason why we
decided to discuss both studies and to reflect on them in the same paper.
The main findings show that digital media are a natural presence in adolescents life (eg. mobiles are
always on, not only to pass time when bored or to send sms during the night, but mainly because
it’s a habit to have them always on - as said during a focus group “I forget to turn it off”), revealing
a very massive use for many purposes. Digital media are then a habit, somehow adolescents seems
to be used to them (they are part of their culture, as some students argued), especially in social life,
in two directions: with friends and peers, in order to organize their private and group time (via sms,
From this moment on, we will refer to this research as “Connected Youth”. Research report can be found in CREMIT
website (URL: http://www.cremit.it).
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Eight focus groups have been conducted. In the first part of the session adolescents have been asked to introduce
themselves and reflect together on the role of mobiles (uses, with whom, why); while in the second session they have
been asked to create an individual collage on the role of mobile phones in their social life (informal peer groups, closed
friends, family and relatives), inviting them subsequently to comment their choices and production and to explain their
collage within the group to make it possible to share opinions and personal representations. Adolescents’ verbalizations
and comments have been analysed and translated into categories that correspond to three main functions related to
mobiles (or to digital media in general): social, ludic, informative.
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through a miscall or a short chat session in Messenger which is considered as an easy and very
inexpensive way to get in contact with friends), to communicate and to strengthen their social
relationship (not only for an economical reason instant messaging devices and sms appear in
adolescents’ choices); with parents, especially regarding to mobiles, considering that adolescents
are perfectly conscious of the role played by this medium in order to get more freedom (to go out
and get back home later) even if this freedom implies a certain cost (not economical, but related to
privacy). Mobile phones act in this way as a control tool (from family to adolescents) and as a
freedom/autonomy tool (from adolescents to family). This double meaning is a clear evidence of
how mobile phones can represent a new area for family negotiation, something that deserves to be
deepened in future researches.
Another finding (interesting not just for what it says, but because of the crystalline awareness
expressed by youth) refers to the idea of digital media as protective screens between adolescents
and the addressees of their emotions, that’s what students reveal especially through focus group
sessions: social networks and sms are not only a prosthesis of our body, as McLuhan said, but also a
prosthesis of social competence. When we are not able to talk directly or when emotions are
touched, we use mobiles to get out of embarrassing situations. A fact that clearly reveals the
naturalization process in which technologies are involved: technology migrated in our private daily
life. Not only a screen, we can add, but also a sort of chance to extend the possibility to chat,
communicate, share thoughts and affirm youth’s identity among friends and new people with same
attitudes and interests.
Identity represents in fact a very important hint to reflect on the meaning of new media, considering
their social role: social networks, blogs and chat are social opportunities to introduce and address
emotions and personal experiences, to appreciate friendship, to recognize themselves in a public
setting. To be, and to be in, pass through the Web, which turns to be an environment where it’s
possible and amusing to express and communicate identity. That’s why publishing a personal
picture is not considered by adolescents as an hazardous behaviour, but as a common way to show
themselves and to be themselves.
Last, but not least, digital media are for adolescents’ families a sort of unknown presence, an
unlooked-for visitor (but probably not no unlooked-for as new media are not that new, this is a label
which actually tends to puzzle our ideas), something to handle with care. That’s for sure the most
challenging call for education and family education too. In case of emergency, as reported by
adolescents involved in our researches, they do not expect help from mummy and daddy, but on the
contrary they count on friends and peers for two main reasons: the first is related to competence, or
better to say “presumed” media competence, imputed to peers for the simple fact that they use new
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media (on the other side, it means that adults are not considered digitally competent); the second
reason is related to a sort of prevention attitude (prevention of family’s prohibition and punishment
for bad or dangerous behaviours online). That is to say, I do not ask parents for help or suggestions
because they do not know how to help me as “media unqualified” and as adults who can easily
discipline my online presence, and consequently my social life. For sure we need to support family,
to fortify dialogue and a cultural appropriation of new media, overcoming the first standard
instrumental approach common to many adults.
Concluding our short presentation, digital media are:
- a normal/normalized element in youths’ daily experience (see Figures 1 and 2, referred to young
people aged 11 to 15);
Less than 1 yr
1-3 yrs
4 or more yrs
Never used
Fig. 1: Mobile phone use in time
Less than 1 yr
1-3 yrs
4 or more yrs
Never used
Fig. 2: Internet use in time
- a social setting, where young people show themselves as they are (identity is an important clue) as
confirmed by declared uses (see Figures 3, 4 and 5).
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Not equipped
Games
Download
Sms
Never
Images
Sometimes
Photos
Often
Very often
Internet
NR
Film
Fig. 3 – Mobile phones: main activities
Contact with friends
Have fun
Talk
Save money
Get attentions
Loneliness
Get to know people
Find someone who listens to me
Fig. 4 – Social networks: reasons why young people have a profile in a social network
Personal portrait
Picture with my friends
Picture found in the Web
Picture of someone famous
Comics
Fig. 5 – Pictures and images used in social network as avatar
Digital media are, therefore, more than a tool/device, they are a social connector.
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