Engl. transl.: Adolescents' internet appropriation: between social reproduction and cultural changes

Besides generational divides between “natives” and “immigrants”, large differences in internet use and digital skills exist also between young people. Indeed parents shape their children’s relationship with digital media through their child-rearing strategies and even their own internet use. The qualitative research presented in this essay examined the relationship between internet appropriation and adolescents’ social background with a special attention to parents’ role. From the analysis of 53 interviews to adolescents of different social classes, it was possible to identify two patterns that elucidate links between internet appropriation, parental socialization and teenagers’ socio-economic and cultural background. The results show instances of social reproduction, but do not confirm a linear relationship between social and digital inequalities according to which the most extensive and innovative internet appropriation is found in the most privileged social contexts.

"The article addressed the issue of digital inequalities with a qualitative methodology: the empirical research highlighted, not the uses or skills, but the attitudes, discourses and meanings that a group of fifty-three students from different social backgrounds attributed to the Internet. The results allow to advance some considerations on the relationship between social belonging and use of the network. First of all, as to be expected, there is no single form of appropriation among adolescents, let alone among adolescents who attend the same type of school and are of the same social class. In the article, the predominant forms of appropriation across social classes and school types have been organized into two trends that, although they share the same underlying logic, include a variety of modes of use. The first trend called "cultural capital and distinction" distinguishes students who attend high school and come from upper or middle class families. These students put the Internet at the service of mechanisms of distinction designed to confirm a condition of social and cultural advantage. Consciously or unconsciously, they treasure their parents' advice on how to use the Internet, and their appropriation is in line with the parental model. In the trend called "peer culture", typical among students who attend vocational schools and come from families of low or medium socio-economic status, the possibilities of socialization and creative expression offered by social media are particularly exploited. Parental socialization here does not guide the network appropriation of students who, instead, emphasize the importance of self-learning and peer exchange." (Micheli, 2015, translated)