The new social experiences derived from digital technology

With the arrival of the internet, network technology changed the world. Some said the uses were not good, others spoke of addictions, but today, the right term is mutation. Social, psychological, economic, media, intellectual... and many other mutations.

"Born with digital, 18-25 year olds are more equipped, more connected than previous generations. They do not use the same tools to get information as previous generations. While the over 35s turn mostly to television (53%), the Internet (23%) and finally radio (17%) when they want to keep up to date with the news, the trend is reversed among the under 35s. The latter prefer the Internet (66%), via their smartphone, then television (26%). Among the under 25s, the use of the internet for information is even more pronounced, reaching 75% of them...

Although television is the primary means of information (46% are first informed by this means), only 21% of the under 25s watch the television news. According to the 34th Kantar Public barometer, three quarters of 18-25 year olds get their information first on the Internet, and in particular on their smartphones, to follow the news in real time. They can access personalized content, comment, evaluate, react and share information quickly and easily.

From then on, transitional media have no choice but to reach the young audience where they are, by proposing an editorial offer adapted to their uses. This is what some newspapers have understood by offering online content daily on social networks to reach young readers. For example, Le Monde has invested in short formats on Snapchat and Instagram. In 2020, the newspaper even jumped on TikTok, releasing content during the #BlackLivesMatter movement. As for Libération, its digital version, ranking among the most visited mobile news sites.

Source: Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube... How do 18-25 year olds get their information?
Le journal du dimanche - November 2021 -
https://www.lejdd.fr/Medias/snapchat-tiktok-twitter-youtube-comment-les-18-25-ans-sinforment-ils-4076485

Cognitive biases also emerged such as thinking that young people were vulnerable to fake news, but this was a projection by the elders of how they would have reacted without thinking that their children were not like them. If previous generations were affiliated with their parents', the new generations are disruptive, breaking codes and rebuilding the world in their own simple way.

"It has been said and written a lot, digital natives, immersed in the world of social networks, are particularly vulnerable to fake news (infox) and tend to inform themselves only from sources that support their opinions. This is notably the thesis of the American Eli Pariser, whose book Filter Bubble (2012) met with great success.

But various recent academic works come "to relativize or even invalidate these hypotheses," writes Julien Boyadjian, a researcher at Sciences Po Lille, in the journal Réseaux. He cites in particular the study by Nir Grinberg and his colleagues, published in the journal Science in 2019. According to this study, the biggest consumers of fake news are the oldest and most politicized Internet users (and mostly close to the Republican camp).

Referring in particular to the work of Pierre Bourdieu and François Dubet, Julien Boyadjian observes that "youth" is not a socially and culturally homogeneous category." To get a clearer picture of young people's relationship to information, he conducted a face-to-face survey of French students, some in selective courses, others in courses with a significant proportion of students from working and middle-class backgrounds.

A fact common to both audiences is "the drop in regular reading of the printed press, in all its forms" (including the free press).

On social networks, students from working-class backgrounds show "a low interest given to political and international news." In other words, "they find themselves more inclined to non-information than to misinformation. They are mostly interested in news, sports and "what's hot". And they are very little exposed to fake news.

Students in selective courses (apart from science courses, which were not studied) fall into two categories: the "passionate", politicized, and those who mainly have a "utilitarian" relationship to information. On social networks, the "passionate" multiply their sources of information. They are also "the most likely to follow media whose editorial line is not in line with their political positioning" - without reading them much or "sharing" them with their friends.

The others, those with a utilitarian relationship to information, see social networks primarily as a "watchdog tool" in connection with school injunctions. And they share much less. In general, the author concludes, the Internet has contributed to "liberalizing the market of opinions" of students in selective streams."

Source: Disinformation, non-information or over-information? - 2020 -
https://www.cairn.info/revue-reseaux-2020-4.html

Changes strengthen the strongest but weaken the weakest. Thus, the relationship to oneself and to the other is transfigured and can create psychological problems of varying degrees. The relationship to suicide is an eminently present example that can serve as a model for understanding this new world.

"In France, 15-24 year olds spend more than 30 minutes a day on social networks (2018 data). This practice modifies the modalities of access to information but also those of relationships with others, and particularly with their peers. Yet these new modes of socialization have also "contributed to the emergence of threats unprecedented in their nature or scale for the mental health of young people," writes a collective of specialists in suicidal youth in the journal L'information psychiatrique.

The dissemination on the networks of suicidal announcements and self-aggressive gestures staged in iconography or videos with a strong emotional charge is observed. And this content can "serve as hooks for the most vulnerable youth."

There are also cases of "more explicit malice" that can lead to "suicidal incitement through defiance." Especially since cyber-bullying, which "reportedly affects 10 to 40 percent of adolescents, doubles the risk of suicide attempts." This set of factors can lead to the constitution of "suicidosmes" from which "can result a phenomenon of collective co-rumination and reciprocal identifications likely to make the bed of the suicidal contagion".

Taking Care of Suicidal Youth to Social Networks - 20210 -
https://www.cairn.info/revue-l-information-psychiatrique-2020-5.html

It is important to be positive because not everything in this living picture is black. There are also very beautiful things, including the artistic and creative impetus instilled by new technologies and their uses. It is also the surprising emergence where we did not expect it of the concepts of collective intelligence, decentralized governance, and project-based management of professional life, which seem to be asserting themselves as the new norms of our world.

"The Internet and social networks are transforming the relationships that young people have with cultural creation, and this in a completely positive way. In the journal Latin American Problems, Argentine anthropologist Néstor García Canclini deciphers this complex evolution, drawing on surveys conducted since 2012 in Spain and Latin America. His point of entry is the transformation of urban life, in an economic context that institutionalizes precarious work.

"Creativity developed in a solitary way is articulated in groups and networks thanks to digital interconnectivity. Notions of intimacy and sociability are being transformed through Facebook and Twitter."

Néstor García Canclini cites his colleague Francisco Cruces, whose "observations run counter to the alarmist discourses that fear that advertising and consumption could subject the private sphere to the market." He shows how young people, armed with their smartphones and computers, bypass the cultural institutions inherited from the old world to become autonomous producers. In doing so, they embody the new "urban imaginaries," which "now pass through communicative nodes, flows, connections."

Thus, "young creators produce new cultural trends by working in projects, orienting their interests through the web, and circulating fluidly between formal and informal knowledge, on and offline relationships, work and festive sociability." These observations concur with the findings of Rosalin Winocur, author of a field study titled "Robinson Crusoe Now Has a Cell Phone": the cell phone helps to "conjure up the uncertainties of urban life."

Néstor García Canclini also makes the connection with the emergence in Mexico, Brazil and elsewhere of solidarity economy initiatives and protest movements orchestrated via social networks. And it is young people, the anthropologist believes, "who are participating most creatively in the expansion of digital technologies in almost all areas of cultural creation and communication."

Born "with the Internet in their bedrooms" (says one teacher interviewed), today's youth are "cosmopolitan, able to adapt to all kinds of functions, and they make extensive use of social networks to inform and cooperate by creating interconnected national and international communities where they find work and disseminate their productions." At the same time, faced with precariousness, they "manage their existence on a project-by-project basis, making the notion of a career completely obsolete."

Source: Cities and Networks: Young People Changing the Game - 2017 -
https://www.cairn.info/revue-problemes-d-amerique-latine-2017-2.html

Everything is affected by this new normal, right down to new acts of purchasing, both in form and in products. New world, new technologies, new tools, new desires, new markets. Farewell, the old benchmarks, the youth creates its own that seem made to last.

"Toward a new way of buying online

First finding highlighted...: Internet shopping trends are undergoing significant changes with Gen Z. Indeed, 13% of 15-24 year olds report making an online purchase every week (compared to 23% last year), a significant loss of 10 points.

This drop in frequency can be explained by young people's lack of confidence in e-commerce sites: nearly one in two young people (46%) say they lack confidence in these sites. A clear difference compared to the rest of the population, since 61% of the total population says they feel confident.

To overcome this mistrust, a new method of consumption is gradually emerging: buying/selling via social networks. 42% of 15-24 year olds say they have already used this practice on social platforms (compared to 31% for the population as a whole).

An ambiguous relationship with social networks

While young people are buying more and more via social networks, they are still rather wary about the protection of their personal data, and the ability of these platforms to regulate the content that circulates freely.

Thus, 54% of 15-24 year olds are skeptical about the protection of their data on platforms (-6 points in one year), and more than one in two young people indicate that they do not trust the regulation of content on social networks (51%), a drop of 9 points in one year. Note, however, that this age group remains more confident than the rest of the population about social networks.

In contrast, Gen Z seems to trust influencers: 70% of 15-24 year olds are subscribed to influencers, compared to only 35% for the overall population.

A generation attracted by new technologies

NFT, cryptocurrencies, metaverse, web3... So many new technologies that intrigue and fascinate the youngest!

In 2023, 43% of 15-24 year olds say they are ready to invest and buy cryptocurrency (vs. 27% for all respondents), and to make payments in cryptocurrency (44% vs. 26%).

NFTs have also appealed more to younger people, as they are 15% to own them (vs. 9% for all French people). Same observation on the side of the metaverse: 57% of 15-24 year olds say they are interested and ready to evolve in this new virtual world, compared to 35% for the general population.

At the heart of the news for several weeks now, with ChatGPT at the forefront, confidence in artificial intelligence is also higher among the younger generations: 65% of those under 35 say they have confidence in AI technology, vs. 54% for all those surveyed."

Source: Gen Z and digital in 2023: online shopping, social networks, new technologies... The Moderator's Blog - February 2023 - https://www.blogdumoderateur.com/generation-z-usages-numeriques-2023/

The world is evolving by leaps and bounds, but even if we don't feel it yet, we are evolving more or less quickly, more or less easily. The essential thing is not to resemble this new world, the essential thing is to understand it in all its depth and to be able to create bridges between all the actors, teachers, managers of places of education and the youth that we are entrusted with.

There have been other social ruptures in history, such as May 1968, and finally, who is still interested in the fact that girls don't wear pants? Very few people and even fewer educational institutions. No, we are not backward or out of step. We are all living in a special time in history with one foot in an old world that is about to disappear and a new world that is being born. It is a challenge. Above all, let's remain benevolent.

Illustration - Pixabay - Geralt