The asistematic appropiation of the new technologies: Informalization and contextualization among German youths

Abstract

How are new techniques appropriated and used by the youths? The use of mobile phone and Internet has become usual. Which social consequences have this flexible and "loose" dealing with the modern communication techniques? Since today it is taken for granted that we live with the network technique, it is important to know more about the way in which children and youths deal with it. It is clear that the contextualization of the "Web" and its options play a relevant role. It has to do with how software and Internet options are chosen and how they are integrated in everyday life. The embedding is a specific and subjective ability. To a degree unknown up to now, the use of technical worlds is oriented by motivations, since it mainly depends on the individual interest that precedes the use of the multimedia world. German youths appropriate the supply for surfing on the data highways in a playful way. The social forming that goes with this kind of appropriation of technique has been scarcely researched, even when it implies new risks. Here it is intended to reflect about this process and its possible effects, such as social inequity and exclusion (the so called "digital divide").