10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17328
The aim of this paper is to discuss the output of an empirical research on digital skills in order to develop a typology of skills circulation among young digital users. Relying on research on digital literacy in media studies and on users in STS, in this article we start criticizing the concepts of “digital divide”, “digital inequalities” and “digital competencies”. Then, we present the principal results of a research study involving 50 adolescents in Italy about how they acquired their competences in the use of digital media. This gave us the opportunity to focus on the digital skills of young people and the development of their abilities in using digital media. The research outlines the patterns of circulation in digital competences among young people in relation to family, school and peer group, defining four kinds of “flows”: parental flow (involving fathers and mothers), peer flow (connected to friends and people of the same age), educational flow (referring to formal education) and technological flow (involving technological devices, such as computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc.). The aim is to understand the interactions between digital skills and the social, institutional and technological conditions that influence the youth’s digital literacy for the everyday use of digital media.
application/pdf
2038-3460
17328
2
en
Claudio Riva
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
bricoleurs
Digital Literacy Circulation: Adolescents and Flows of Knowledge about New Media
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
7
Essays
2017-01-24
2023-06-21
2017-01-24
2023-08-21
81-101
TS
Claudio Riva
2016
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17328
81
Università di Padova
2038-3460
2
bricoleurs
en
101
Digital Literacy Circulation: Adolescents and Flows of Knowledge about New Media
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17328/16179
7
                                                                                               Essay
                                                                                                     81




Digital Literacy Circulation: Adolescents
and Flows of Knowledge about New
Media
    Cosimo Marco Scarcelli                                           Claudio Riva
              Università di Padova                                   Università di Padova



     Abstract: The aim of this paper is to discuss the output of an empirical
     research on digital skills in order to develop a typology of skills circulation
     among young digital users. Relying on research on digital literacy in media
     studies and on users in STS, in this article we start criticizing the concepts
     of “digital divide”, “digital inequalities” and “digital competencies”. Then, we
     present the principal results of a research study involving 50 adolescents in
     Italy about how they acquired their competences in the use of digital media.
     This gave us the opportunity to focus on the digital skills of young people
     and the development of their abilities in using digital media. The research
     outlines the patterns of circulation in digital competences among young
     people in relation to family, school and peer group, defining four kinds of
     “flows”: parental flow (involving fathers and mothers), peer flow
     (connected to friends and people of the same age), educational flow
     (referring to formal education) and technological flow (involving
     technological devices, such as computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets,
     etc.). The aim is to understand the interactions between digital skills and
     the social, institutional and technological conditions that influence the
     youth’s digital literacy for the everyday use of digital media.

     Keywords: new media; digital literacy; digital skills; digital inequalities;
     bricoleurs.

     Corresponding author: Cosimo Marco Scarcelli, University of Padua,
     Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology,
     via Cesarotti 10/12 – Padova. E-mail: marco.scarcelli@gmail.com.



                                                    Buying the right computer and getting it to work
                                                    properly is no more complicated than building a
                                                    nuclear reactor from wristwatch parts in a
                                                    darkened room using only your teeth.
                                                               Dave Barry, In Cyberspace (1996, p. 39)



TECNOSCIENZA
Italian Journal of Science and Technology Studies
7 (2) pp. 81-101 - ISSN 2038-3460
www.tecnoscienza.net                                      2016
82                                                           Tecnoscienza – 7 (2)

1. Introduction

    Commentaries about new media often stress the development and dif-
fusion of mobile and digital communication platforms and the increasing
availability of technological devices. On the one hand, these commen-
taries describe ICT as instruments that generate important changes in in-
terconnected and networked contemporary societies (e-vote, e-health,
smart energy, logistic, transportation, construction etc.). On the other
hand, these commentaries underscore the risks connected to an uncon-
trolled and incautious use of the web (privacy and copyright violations,
telematics frauds, child pornography, enticement, etc.). ‘Cyber-optimistic’
and ‘cyber-sceptical’ are terms that define divergent frames that counter-
poise democracy, participation, freedom and rebellion against control,
authoritarianism and manipulation. It is a debate that reveals the necessi-
ty to understand the distinctive forms of use of digital resources and also
the quality of the access itself, which allows users both to benefit from the
opportunities offered by new media and to avoid the risks that so alarm
public opinion. This is particularly relevant when we look at children and
adolescents and their styles of ICT consumption (Buckingham 2007; Liv-
ingstone et al. 2011, 2014).
    Our article proposes both theoretical and operational reflections on
the concepts of digital divide, digital inequalities and digital competen-
cies. Based on an international set of contributions (Hargittai 2002; 2010;
Helsper and Eynon 2010; Liff and Shepherd 2004; Van Deursen and Van
Dijk 2011), these concepts are the departure point to develop an empiri-
cal analysis around the skills of Italian adolescents and the improvement
of their digital capacities. In this paper we describe the principal results
of a research study involving 50 adolescents in the North West of Italy.
This study reconstructs the patterns of circulation of digital competences
among young people, in relation to family, school and peer group. The
objective is to understand the connections between digital skills and the
social, institutional and technological conditions which influence digital
literacy.


2. Digital Divide and Digital Inequality

    The term “digital divide” frequently assumes very different meanings.
The origin of this term is unclear (Norris 2001; Gunkel 2003); it is used
principally to express the problems connected with physical access to
ICT, different forms of access to information, quality of available tech-
nology, technical problems related to devices, etc.. In fact, the concept is
much more complex, as it relates to the different opportunities and uses
of communicative and informational resources, which depend on tradi-
tional sociological variables, such as socio-economic status, gender and
Scarcelli and Riva                                                          83
age. From this perspective, it has emerged that today the younger genera-
tion is generally more active than adults and seniors in its use of comput-
ers and the Internet. Due to the costs of connection, a portion of the
population cannot use the Internet, whilst those who are able to afford
these costs are generally part of a more advantaged class; people with a
higher level of education tend to connect to the web for longer periods of
time, using its resources to do a much wider range of activities than those
less educated; women are more excluded than men, etc. (Le Boterf 2000;
Bolt and Crawford 2000; Bimber 2000; Bertot 2003). Di Maggio and
Hargittai (2001) and Warschauer (2003) prefer to use the terms digital
inequality and digital inclusion to underscore the transition from those
who have and do not have the Internet to the analysis of what people do
with the Internet and what they are able to do when they use its re-
sources. Network society imposes the massive use of digital media, from
which to be excluded is of course a source of inequality. However, the in-
ability to use digital resources also represents a disadvantage. In line with
this reasoning, Hargittai (2002) identifies a second-level digital divide to
explain that the more people have access to digital media, the more im-
portant other factors become, connected to the ability to take advantage
of informative, relational and participatory potentiality. Beyond the theo-
retical point of view, it is necessary to deal with a range of competences
and skills, each related to technical aspects: the ability to move into digital
spaces, to select information, to have a critical and proactive approach to
the content mediated by digital media, to interact, etc. In this light, the
notion of digital divide becomes a continuum of different unequal levels
of access, usage and benefits drawn from new media. This continuum
connects two hypothetical poles: on the one hand, the absence of access
and, on the other hand, an efficacious use of technology. For understand-
ing the changing role of social and cultural factors, we adopt a multidi-
mensional and flexible definition of digital divide, declining it into the
plural form of divides.


3. Literacy and Competences Circulation

    As we have argued, the understanding of the digital divide as a con-
tinuum of inequality connected to a wide set of factors can help to encap-
sulate the digital revolution in terms of development, freedom and pros-
perity. Moving from this perspective, we should focus on the system of
diffusion of knowledge, literacy and digital education for the individual.
According to Van Dijk (2005), it is necessary that a more articulated abil-
ity to manage information and digital relationships is acquired, above the
more basic operational skills which are necessary when using technologi-
cal devices and software. Van Dijk discusses informational skills, con-
nected to the ability to select and process information, and strategic skills,
referring to the ability to use appropriate communication technology to
84                                                          Tecnoscienza – 7 (2)

reach specific goals. In relation to young people, as we will examine in the
next section, they are more familiar with digital media (Livingstone et al.
2011 and 2014) but there is the important problem of critical skills (Gui
and Argentin 2011). Such skills – cognitive, informational, creative, cul-
tural, ethical, social (Buckingham 2008; Jenkins 2006) – are deemed nec-
essary to select and evaluate available resources. In order to respond to
this wide and composite combination of abilities, skills and resources, the
concept of digital literacy has been introduced, borrowed from a literacy
concept that Aufderheude defined in 1993 as the ability to gain access,
analyse, evaluate and produce a message through different forms of mul-
timedia communication. Warschauer (2003) suggests that there are four
simple skill groups: computer literacy (a minimal knowledge of hardware
and software, operating systems and Internet surfing); information litera-
cy (skills used to manage information obtained from the Internet, con-
nected with an ability to look for, to select, to save and to archive infor-
mation, whilst evaluating usability, reliability and trustworthiness); mul-
timedia literacy (as highlighted by convergence demand, the ability to
manage, understand and produce a multimedia environment where codes
and languages interact continuously); and CMC literacy, representing the
skills and competences needed to communicate effectively online (using
e-mail, chat, Social Network Sites) and those needed to discern formal
and informal environments. It is, perhaps, an easy way to observe and
empirically track the ways in which digital media use may diverge across
users. Eszter Hargittai (2007) proposes a more articulated subdivision,
which explains the different levels of competency/incompetency that may
be experienced by individuals. It includes: the effective and safe ways of
communicating with others, a skill related to the ability to make adequate
communication (for example, the ability to limit the risk of not receiving
a response to an e-mail due to the object not being clear); the knowledge
of how to contribute to group discussion and share content and, there-
fore, how to comment on a blog, to construct a mailing-list, to share User
Generated Content and to contribute to the collective creation of a doc-
ument; the knowledge of the use of tools and what is available online; the
ability to access sources and judge credibility of messages, demonstrating
the ability to determine the reliability of sources and to avoid phishing.
There are then skills referring to online privacy and safety, which are the
minimum skills used to avoid risks related to the diffusion of personal da-
ta; the knowledge of where and how to seek assistance, a skill connected
to the capacity to ask for assistance with an online service and from other
users; customization, being the ability to adapt and to personalise infor-
mation. These models by Hargittai and Warschauer demonstrate how we
need concepts and instruments to be able to fully understand the specific-
ity of new media. It is necessary to explore and to engage flexibly with the
problems and the innovative technological environments, whilst being
able to read, select, interpret and evaluate information, also knowing how
to interact with other people in a constructive and responsible way. These
Scarcelli and Riva                                                          85
models include skills connected to access, analysis, evaluation and partic-
ipation, defining a new agenda for research and for policies. According to
Livingstone (2009), there are still many questions to be answered. For ex-
ample, can we determine the level of safety of communication? In a
measurable manner, what does it mean “to contribute to a discussion
group”? How can we evaluate the reliability of a source? According to
the social literacies approach (Street 1995; Barton et al. 2000), discussion
surrounding the level of literacy and skills acquired by individuals must
not disregard the role of social practices, as they are connected to the way
in which the individual resolves the problems with which they must en-
gage. We gain skills from the way we engage with certain challenges and
we explore beyond this. What we suggest is that people respond as social
actors, inserted into a specific point of social structure with determinate
resources (economic, cultural, and relational), connected to the experi-
ence of using technology, the accessibility of hardware, the use of soft-
ware, as well as the evaluation of these online services. This fits with the
well-known process of domestication (Silverstone and Hirsch 1992), a
term coined to describe the integration of technological objects into daily
life and, above all, the complex – circular and co-constructed – cultural
dynamics within which users appropriate technologies. Literacy is not on-
ly connected to technical and neutral skills, but is a set of abilities ob-
tained socially and culturally, producing a legitimacy and illegitimacy of
knowledge content as well. According to Sonck et al. (2013) and Ma-
gaudda (2011), there is a circular dimension of the processes for the con-
struction and acquisition of skills. Technology has inserted itself into ex-
isting social practices, adapting and shaping itself to the individual's
needs, all the while creating a sort of inter-dependence between device
and user. A relationship with a technological object goes inside pro-
cessing and involves the rethinking, readapting and modifying of the
technology, according to the contingent needs of the user. Fundamental
actors in this process are the designers who participate in the circular di-
mension of users’ literacy. From the beginning, the Internet expanded its
audience to involve larger groups, who stimulated further changes in the
use of the network. From primary software, which was less intuitive but
less complicated to use, we arrived at the birth of more complex software,
with the creation of applications and content, easily available information
and, thanks to web 2.0, the opportunity for user participation in con-
structing such software. Literacy is a set of abilities socially and culturally
obtained, connected to technical skills, producing legitimacy and illegiti-
macy of knowledge content as well (Winner 1980). So, the user is not an
isolated individual, whose relationship to technology is restricted to tech-
nical interactions with artifacts: he is a part of a much broader set of rela-
tions than user-machine interaction, including social, cultural, and eco-
nomic aspects (Oudshoorn and Pinch 2003). There is a circular process
that is, in some ways, co-constructed, made by innovations and the re-
shaping of practices and technology where users play a complex role. We
86                                                           Tecnoscienza – 7 (2)

would like to propose an observation of this process, regarding the role
played by those who are considered most involved: young people.


4. Digital Literacy and Youth

    Age is one of the most effective categories used in analysing the digital
divide and we take for granted that it is negatively correlated with tech-
nology adoption. The generation gap may be decreasing, but it still per-
sists. Older people rarely have the relevant skills or technical cognitive
abilities necessary to use digital media and they have a reduced interest in
learning or improving their knowledge relating to ICT. Born before the
explosion of the information society, they usually experience the techno-
logical revolution in a passive way, without being involved in on-going
processes and transformation.
    Children and adolescents are the actors upon whom we focus our re-
flections regarding participation in the information society, whilst it is
more usual to consider older people when speaking about e-exclusion.
Terms used to describe the relationship between youth and digital media
are varied: the web generation, the Internet generation, cyber-kids, etc.
One of the most commonly used is digital natives (Prensky 2001; Bennett
et al. 2008), used to identify those who grew up with new communicative
technology. In opposition to this idea, there are the terms digital immi-
grants, for those who only approach new media later in life, and late digi-
tal, for those who regard technology with a kind of technophobia. The
generation gap is constructed by specific skills requested by digital media.
In relation to traditional media (books, cinema, television, radio, etc.),
many adults would not favour the content consumed by young audiences
(Riva and Cefalo 2014). However, they are able to switch on these media,
they are able to use them and they could consume this content if they
chose. In relation to digital media, operational and critical skills transform
many parents into digital immigrants in the information society, where
their children live as natives.
    According to the media and popular opinion, digital natives and the
net generation (Tapscott 1998) are the result of the effect of cognitive
shaping, provoked by the spread and circulation of new technology. The-
se have generated new thought and new styles of communication and
learning. This view has merit, but as Mascheroni (2012) reflects, it over-
simplifies the issue for two main reasons:
    1. Studies and research on ICT use show that it is not age difference
alone that determines the use and interpretation of digital content. As we
stated earlier, these rather depend on classic factors connected to social
stratification, experience of using content and the presence of digital me-
dia in everyday life. Digital natives, more correctly, are those who have
used the Internet for a long time, for long periods of time and with com-
petence. Therefore, this does not automatically mean young people and
Scarcelli and Riva                                                         87
does not only include young people.
    2. Optimistic ideas that young people are naturally Internet experts
just because they are young lead to the de-legitimation of political and
educational actions aimed at educating young people about using digital
media with awareness. It is clear that not all adolescents and children are
able to cope with the risks that are presented by the Internet. Thus, it is
essential that the necessary skills are discussed in order to stay safe whilst
using digital media.
    When using digital media, young people adapt themselves to the ap-
propriate technology in a continuous and circular process, constructing
experiences that enrich their own senses. The expression bricoleur high
tech (Drusian and Riva 2010) proposes a different way to observe the ap-
propriation process of digital media. Young people are able to take ad-
vantage of new and traditional media and combine them. They are able to
move nimbly from SMS, to Facebook, to face-to-face communication, ac-
cording to what they want to say. Young people choose the device most
indicated to transmit a specific message in a determinate moment. It is an
open process of bricolage, which is typically flexible, extremely adapta-
ble, and that follows a never-ending succession of symbolic and instru-
mental changes. Where do these skills come from? How do they circulate
between young people and older people? What is the role of the school in
this process? What about technologies?
    In the following pages, we present the results of a research study on
the circulation of skills among young people themselves and among
young people, socialisation agencies, technology, and the skills that these
trends depict.


5. Methodology

    The aim of the study was to understand how digital literacy circulates
among young people and the reasons youths give for their choices and
practices. The research focused on adolescents’ everyday experiences and
adopted an “adolescent-centric approach”, where “methodologically and
conceptually [adolescents] must be free from the process of containment
that produces them as ‘other’ and continues to silence them” (Caputo
1995, 33). We chose qualitative methods to study the phenomena and the
experiences of subjects, starting from their points of view (Flick 1998).
Thus, the research adopted a semi-structured interview technique, with
computer and smartphone support. During the interviews, digital media
could be used by adolescents to better explain their experiences, using
examples, opening their SNS profile, etc. Each interview lasted from 60
to 120 minutes. The empirical group involved 50 adolescents (25 boys
and 25 girls), aged between 16 and 18, living in North West Italy and se-
lected by a theoretical sampling approach. The principal criteria used to
compose the sample were gender and age and we recruited participants
88                                                              Tecnoscienza – 7 (2)

thanks to schools that permitted us to present the project to their stu-
dents. Interviews were audio-tabbed and transcribed verbatim. The re-
sulting data have been analyzed by ATLAS.ti software, using thematic
analysis as a specific model of narrative analysis aimed at finding common
thematic elements across participants and the experiences they reported
(Riessman 2002).
    As previously explained, skills are not only related to technological
aspects, but merge with social factors, thanks to the possibility of involv-
ing people in the communication process (by UGC for example). By
combining the findings of previous studies mentioned in the literature re-
view section of this paper, which analysed qualitatively the skills connect-
ed to digital media (Hargittai 2007; Street 1995; Warschauer 2003), we
have been able to create a typology of skills, made up by three distinctive
groups:

     •       Technical and functional skills (connected to the use of software
             and hardware, to the ability to use a web interface, to use search
             engines, etc.)
     •       Consumption skills (connected to the ability to process infor-
             mation found on the web or content mediated by SNS, such as
             discerned information sources or the results of a query in a search
             engine.)
     •       Creation and interaction skills (connected to the ability to create
             content in a critical way, not just from a technical point of view,
             such as using Wordpress. Therefore, for example, posting a photo
             on SNS, evaluating the audience, the exposure of one's own data,
             etc.).

    These different types of groups do not represent a mere simplification
of more structured analyses, but attempt to establish a dialogue between
careful theoretical distinction and the interviewees’ narrations. The aim of
this study is not necessarily to evaluate skills, but to better understand
how adolescents create, modify, adapt and share these skills among them-
selves.
    The analysis of the interviews allowed us not only to identify these
three macro-groups, but also to define how digital literacy circulates (or
not) between adolescents and their parents, adolescents and their teach-
ers, and how it circulates in relation to technology. Looking at adoles-
cents’ everyday life, the analysis identified four different flows in the cir-
culation of digital skills:

         •    parental flow (involving fathers and mothers);
         •    educational flow (referring to formal education);
         •    peer flow (connected to friends and people of the same age);
         •    technological flow (involving technological devices, such as
              computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc.).
Scarcelli and Riva                                                              89


    We adopt this distinction between different flows to show the findings
of our research with the main aim of understanding how different skills
circulate through these four flow patterns among adolescents and also
with the purpose of recognising the existence of a broader system of
knowledge circulation influencing digital media adoption.


6. Managing Flows and Circulating Skills

6.1 Peer Flow

    According to the analysis, we can distinguish two different peer
groups: close peer group and extended peer group (Scarcelli 2015). The
first group includes peers that adolescents know in person, while the se-
cond group relates to subjects that young people may engage with exclu-
sively through digital media (people that upload a video on YouTube or a
tutorial on a website, for example). It is interesting to notice that, when
adolescents speak about the extended peer group, the generational barri-
er crumbles. Even though the person who posts a video tutorial on
YouTube or writes a guide on a specific website may be an adult, inter-
viewees consider him/her part of their peer group anyway:

        I looked for how to install a game on my computer on a website…
        [Do you remember which one?]
        No, I don’t remember… there was a tutorial, because I downloaded
    the game, it was not original. So I needed to understand how to crack it.
        [Who wrote the guide?]
        A guy…
        [How could you be sure that he was a guy and not a girl or an old
    man?]
        … I think he was a guy. Probably he was… Adults don’t crack
    games… They are probably not able to crack them either…
        (Pietro, 16)

    In relation to technical-functional skills, a small number of adoles-
cents, mainly males, are used to activating the flow with the extended
peer group in order to understand how to fix a problem or how to do a
specific task. They prefer to try to find the solutions they need them-
selves. No one claims to have ever made a tutorial, guide or other content
that could help other people on a technical plane. We can define this
kind of flow as unidirectional, because it moves only from the extended
peer group to the adolescent, without reciprocity. In relation to technical-
functional skills, adolescents only activate a bidirectional flow within a
small group, composed of boys whom they know in person and who have
more advanced skills in assembling and disassembling computers, con-
structing websites, cracking videogames, etc. Some adolescents who take
90                                                                    Tecnoscienza – 7 (2)

part in these kinds of groups told us about an important flow that allows
them to learn something new and to improve their skills:

          There are three of us. We love to “do experiments” with computers
     and to program them. Sometimes, we meet at my house or at Carlo’s and
     try to find a solution together, to fix a problem for example.
          (Marco, 17)

    Usually, those who have more advanced technical-functional skills be-
come a point of reference for the peer group, who ask them for help
when someone needs technical advice. Again, in this case, there is a uni-
directional flow. On the one hand, those who ask for help frequently do
not care about how to fix that problem in the future, because they know
that there is someone who can do it. On the other hand, those who have
advanced technical competences can close themselves off, preferring to
maintain their position and avoid sharing their knowledge. There is a per-
sistent gender segregation: interviewees speak about a male who has
helped them with a computer problem, but never refer to a girl.
    Peer flow in relation to content skill is absolutely poor. According to
interviewees, for example, it is not necessary to learn how to trust internet
contents. This is something that can be understood by simply comparing
different sites when in doubt. Usually, interviewees do not know how
search engines work and declare that it is a topic they never think about:

          I use Google. It gives you the results.
          [How is it possible?]
          What?
          [How does Google work, how can it give you lots of results and why is
     a specific result the first one?]
          Because it is the most correct.
          [So, imagine having to explain to me how to carry out research using
     Internet resources. I have to go into Google, fill in the form and I can use
     the first result to find what I am looking for?]
          Of course…
          [And there is no way to be totally sure that the information I find is to-
     tally correct?]
          Yes… you can open another two or three websites that Google gives
     you and you can compare those.
          (Luisa, 17)

    Some interviewees do not know who can publish content on a website
either:
        [Who puts the information on the website?]
        The owner of the website…
        [Can anyone write on the Internet ]
        No, first of all you have to buy the website… then you can write. But
     you can't write anything, there are some checks.
        (Christian, 16)
Scarcelli and Riva                                                              91

    Production-interaction skills take part in the peer flow using the peer
group as a judge of digital performance, mainly in SNS. In this case, the
close peer group becomes an important landmark to understand what
kind of behaviour is socially acceptable. We have to remember that, dur-
ing adolescence, the peer group is very important. On the digital platform
as in face-to-face interaction, symbolic sanctions become useful to define
the rules of how to interact and to expose oneself through digital media:

        You know what is better not to put on Facebook… Photo, video, etc.
        [How do you know?]
        You know… there isn’t anything written anywhere… but you can un-
    derstand it… There are some things you know that you shouldn’t do, like
    post your naked pictures. Then you know that, for example, when you are
    on Facebook chat, you shouldn’t write a really long message.
        [Can you explain? Give me an example.]
        [laugh] Some months ago, I wrote a message to a friend and I wrote
    something really long… she took a screenshot and put it on her Facebook
    page, writing something like “When you wait for five minutes for your
    friend’s response and then you understand why… Please Paola, take a
    breath!” She was not being rude, it was just a joke, but I understand…
    Then there are people that write phrases with just four words and then
    press enter [laugh]
        (Paola, 16)

   Sometimes, in the peer group, stories of “wrong behaviour” circulate,
which both define normal behaviours in the use of digital resources and
compose shared rules. It is a plot outline that adolescents frequently re-
peated during the interview, changing only the subject of the story, who is
usually someone that the interviewees do not know directly:

       There are some things that it's best you don't do.
       [Like what?]
       For example, send a video or a photo without clothes to someone…
    because then everyone knows you intimately [laugh]. It happened to a girl
    from Padova. Everyone has her video [laugh]. She doesn’t live in Padova
    anymore… she had to go abroad because everyone knew her and her vid-
    eo…
       (Gianni, 17)

   Peer flow, with the differences that we explain, remains an important
flow for adolescents who, except for the content skill, continue to refer to
the peer group (mediated and not mediated) as an important source for
their behaviour.

6.2 Parental Flow

    Another flow to emerge from the analysis of the interviews was the pa-
92                                                                 Tecnoscienza – 7 (2)

rental flow, which is connected to familial relationships and the way these
intersect with the circulation of competences and skills related to the In-
ternet. The research shows that it is a flow commonly neglected by the
adolescent. The research underscores the persistence of generational dis-
tance between young people and adults, which is based mainly on the
idea from both sides that digital media, especially social media, is some-
thing aimed solely at young people. In general, adolescents regard adults,
specifically parents and teachers, as unable to use digital technology at all.
This attitude is particularly prevalent when adolescents refer to their
mothers, who were considered to be the most technically un-equipped
member of the family by the interviewees. The discourse focuses more on
the technical aspect than on the other uses of digital media:

         If you look at people like my mother, you can see that they are unable
     to use a computer, smartphone, etc.
         [What you mean when you say “unable”?]
         Someone has to stop them using the computer [laugh]. My mum asks
     for help every five minutes. She can't use a smartphone, she doesn’t know
     how to send messages! Do you understand?
         (Michele, 16)

    The parental flow seems to be unidirectional: adolescents could teach
their parents how to use digital media in relation to technical skills, but
they rarely ask their mother or father to help them. The exception is rep-
resented by the request to solve a technical problem connected to mal-
functioning, which requires the intervention of an expert. In this case, we
cannot speak about the circulation of knowledge, because the flow stops
at the request. There is a gender difference in situations like this. Girls re-
fer to their father, because they consider him to be capable of eventually
finding a technical solution. In this case, we cannot refer to a fallacious
flow, because there is no sharing of knowledge and girls close the flow,
because they do not care. Some boys prefer to request help only if they
are not able to fix the problem themselves; however, they do not ask their
parent to fix it, but call a technician who is able to solve that problem.
Thus, it is a financial more than a technical request. However, some of
them are attracted by the knowledge of technicians:

          In my home, I am the technician. I fix computers, my parents’ phones,
     I explain to them how to use software, etc. If it is outside my knowledge, I
     ask my father.
          [Is he able to fix technological devices?]
          Obviously not! But he has money to call the professional technician. I
     liked it when he came to fix the computer at home, because I observed
     him and I learnt something new. At a certain point, he started to ask us to
     bring the computer to his laboratory… in my opinion, he doesn’t want me
     to learn more things, because he was afraid of losing a client.
          (Marco, 17)
Scarcelli and Riva                                                                  93
    As in the peer flow, we notice that some interviewees look at technical
knowledge as a set of skills that could remain hidden and not accessible
to everybody. In the rhetoric of Marco, for example, the idea that the
technician would avoid fixing the computer in his own home is connected
exactly with an imagined idea where technical knowledge has to be pro-
tected within the walls of labs. Only in a few cases do the adolescents
seem to activate a flow of knowledge connected to the content of digital
media. The interviewees that we can include in this group belong to fami-
lies with high cultural capital:

        Sometimes, I ask my mother for some suggestions when I look for in-
    formation on the Internet or we speak about where to find good news.
        [What do you mean by “good news”?]
        News that is true. My mum explains the more important news sites to
    me, such as Repubblica.it, Corriere.it. Sometimes I ask her to help me to
    understand if a news story is false.
        [How does she help you?]
        We check together on different sites, she knows the information world
    better.
        (Piera, 17)

    In this case, parents are useful to mediate the content connected to
school (research, information, news, etc.) but not connected to the sphere
related to the creation of UGC that remains private and, according to the
interviewees, has to be kept separate from parents.

6.3. Educational Flow

    According to our analysis, adolescents are inclined to keep the flow
connected to school closed too. This happens principally because the idea
of the “adult as not competent” in relation to technology persists. In this
case, one of the most recurring examples used by young people is related
to the electronic grade book:

        Have you ever seen a teacher? When they open the electronic grade
    book? Or better, I have to say, when they try to use it [laugh]. My History
    teacher spends half an hour opening it and filling it in! It is not a problem
    for us, obviously! [laugh]
        (Massimo, 17)

   According to interviewees, the scholastic curriculum does not permit
them to gain the knowledge needed for life in the information society1.


   1 As we are analysing the circulation of knowledge connected to digital skills,
we will not go into depth in relation to what adolescents ask to learn about digital
media. Briefly, we can say that the majority of interviewees declare that they
would prefer their school to teach them how to defend themselves from external
94                                                                Tecnoscienza – 7 (2)

The flow of knowledge is activated only in relation to technical-functional
skills. It happens only during specific classes: computer science, technical
education, and/or other classes into which a specific module is inserted
on the use of particular software. Those who attend technical school ob-
viously dedicate more time to the study of programming or technical is-
sues. However, with different levels of attention related to the kind of
school, the scholastic curriculum usually seems to focus on what we de-
fine as technical and functional skills:

         I am studying to become a programmer... They teach me to use soft-
     ware and to construct software, computer languages to program, etc.
         [Do you ever speak about other things, such as social network sites?]
         No, never… maybe they say “Facebook” to give an example of an ap-
     plication that we can create, but no more.
         (Federico, 16)

   Trying to improve consumption-interaction skills seems to be a pre-
rogative of some professors teaching Italian or History, who might talk
about a news source and the Internet. However, it is a rare occasion, ac-
cording to what interviewees claim:

         We never speak about computers or the Internet during class… just
     when we have to use Excel. Or a few years ago, Prof. *** [surname of the
     teacher] did a lesson about the difference between the newspaper and
     news sites. But just one lesson. It was interesting… I don’t remember any-
     thing. [laugh]
         [What did Prof. *** teach?]
         Italian.
         (Giuseppe, 16)

    Regarding creation skills and discourses connected to them, adoles-
cents describe school as a static reality. Formal education does not seem
to deem dealing with the experiences of youth (how they use digital me-
dia to interact or to communicate) as important. Therefore, it is limited to
the teacher’s judgement whether these issues are discussed, usually in the
form of commentary on news underlining the risks of the Internet or digi-
tal media, in general.
    Sometimes, interviewees report that this task has been carried out by
an external expert within a short project on media education. Teachers
barely speak about the digital media dealing with social aspects; more
frequently, they remain in the educational and normative sphere:

        Do you know about the girl that killed herself near here, in Cittadella?
        [Yes, I know.]



attack rather than from problems related to the sharing of personal data, always
on a technical level (use of anti-virus, anti-malware, etc.).
Scarcelli and Riva                                                              95
        Last year, the teacher spoke to us about what happened and asked us
    if we were using ask.fm. She said that it is not good to be anonymous, to
    offend people, etc.
        [And you? What did you do?]
        We listened to her… someone tried to say that that girl probably had
    problems, but she said that the problem was that some people are able to
    speak with each other anonymously… behind the monitor…
        (Carlo, 17)

    In general, interviews define the school flow as unidirectional. When
we spoke about parental flow, we described this characteristic as some-
thing that “pulls” the knowledge from the adolescents to the parents. For
school flow, the direction is inverted and goes from teachers to students,
following the traditional vertical socialisation process.

6.4. Technological Flow

    Interviewees rarely refer to technological flow in their narrations. Re-
gardless, it is important to mention what research allows us to notice, be-
cause, for the process of improving skills, this flow has an important role.
As we note, the different flows that we describe are frequently weak and
adolescents improve their digital media related skills through a trial-and-
error process. Technological flow involves mainly technical-instrumental
skills and creation-interaction skills.
    When the interviewees spoke about digital media and the interfaces
they use daily, they take for granted that they are able to use them, just
because they are able to use these kinds of technology on a technical-
functional level. It is important to consider two different aspects: the first
represents a platform created by a company, where the operations of the
user are limited, whereas the second is constituted by the possibility for
the user to modify some parameters. At the first level, one finds an ex-
tremely user-friendly interface, which teaches the user how to use that
platform in a unidirectional flow following the interface guidelines. In
this case, adolescents seem to easily understand how to use applications
or interfaces as they present themselves to the user. The second level
seems to be neglected by adolescents, who frequently look at it as some-
thing for experts. One of the more explicit examples could be one con-
nected to the privacy settings of social media. In this case, we can refer to
Facebook, which allows the user to modify their privacy settings and to
manage who can see what on their profile. Although they understand the
intuitive actions that the platform takes on their profile page, the inter-
viewees become lost when we talk about configuration settings:

       [Do you know that there is a specific section of the Facebook website
    where you can change your privacy settings?]
       Yes I know…
       [Do you ever change it?]
96                                                                   Tecnoscienza – 7 (2)

         No… it is difficult. I just “close” my page so strangers can't see my
     stuff, but that’s all. The other settings are probably for the people that
     know Facebook really well.
         [For example?]
         The programmer.
         (Enrico, 17)

    The majority of interviewees claimed to prefer finding alternative solu-
tions and to change their choice rather than change the setting of their
SNS or other applications. Frequently, they consider technology as some-
thing static and so prefer to modify their behaviour. For example, adoles-
cents usually do not create a specific list of friends on Facebook with
which they share certain content. Instead, they prefer to write a post us-
ing a sub-code that only those aware of it can fully understand:

         If I do not want some of my Facebook friends to have access to a par-
     ticular image, I simply do not post it on Facebook.
         [Do you know that you can decide who can have access to certain con-
     tent on your Facebook profile?]
         Yes I know, you can change the settings where there is the small
     wheel. But it is easier to decide what you want to post.
         [And what if someone posted that photo on your profile?]
         I'd kill him [laugh]
         (Giulia, 18)

   The technological flow is the one that can best explain how technolo-
gy and society are co-constructed and how users readapt the established
technical uses, re-shaping them according to their necessity. This kind of
flow explains that technology and users are two spheres that we need to
consider as entangled rather than separated (Oudshoorn and Pinch
2003).


7. Conclusion: Bricoleurs at Work

    The analysis showed that adolescents’ interpretation of their relation-
ship with technology still is largely overflowing with technological deter-
minism. Interviewees described a stereotypical image of technology as a
field dedicated to specific social actors, typically young teenage boys.
Young people's accounts reveal a fil rouge that insists on a specific defini-
tion of competences, framing them mainly within a technical domain.
Moreover, adolescents’ discourse marks a symbolic generational frontier
between adults and adolescents, in which digital media represent the wall
that divides the two groups. This symbolic separation defines the flows
that we called parental and educational, which are mainly unidirectional
and do not permit the spread or sharing of technical and social skills use-
ful for life in information society.
Scarcelli and Riva                                                         97
    On the one hand, the educational flow concentrates only on technical
and functional skills and frequently considers a vertical transmission of
knowledge based on formal education. Italian schools are still unprepared
for the new challenges that digital media present (Calvani 2010) and
adults’ and adolescents’ competences rarely merge in an educational flow.
On the other hand, the process seems to be inverted for the parental flow.
It is also based only on technical and functional skills, but envisages a
transmission that goes from the adolescent to their parents. The symbolic
separation between adults and young people could be functional for ado-
lescents seeking spaces of autonomy (boyd 2014). However, it shows a
broad gap, unable to consider the social side of digital media and its role
in the life of the adolescent.
    According to our analysis and in line with the studies discussed in the
first part of the article (Hargittai 2007; Street 1995; Warschauer 2003),
adolescents define, redefine, modify and improve their knowledge of digi-
tal media, mainly by direct experience and within the peer group. Tech-
nological flow, even if not explicitly mentioned by the interviewee, plays
an important part in adolescents' experiences. They are, on the one hand,
modelled by technology and, on the other hand, they redefine the tech-
nology itself. The technological flow shows explicitly one of the recurrent
topics in STS and media studies: the mutual co-construction of technolo-
gy and society that, as in the SCOT (Pinch and Bijker 1984) and the do-
mestication approaches (Silverstone and Hirsh 1992), puts emphasis on
user-technology relations. In the case of the technological flow, we find a
clear example of how users shape and negotiate meanings and practices in
technology use. Focusing on adolescent skills, we can see that adolescents
deploy different skills every day in conjunction with technology, which al-
low them to participate in a rich way in the today’s information society.
Adolescents’ experiences with digital media are based on a trial-and-error
attitude, which still seems to be the most important way to acquire skills.
Every day, scripts and instructions embodied by technology are reshaped
and adapted by adolescents for their needs, especially in the case of tech-
nical-instrumental skills and creation-interaction skills. Some problems
related to creation-interaction skills could emerge, as the adolescents’ in-
terviews showed little concern when using digital media to manage social
interactions or self-presentation. Young people frequently tend to take
the operation of digital media for granted. In this case, technology seems
to be interpreted as too difficult to understand and so it is frequently con-
sidered as more rigid and difficult to adapt to specific needs. Rather than
using technology and setting it to respond to their everyday needs, ado-
lescents prefer to adapt their aims, finding alternative ways to communi-
cate on the platform. In this case, the technological flow does not con-
tribute to fostering skills and the adolescents prefer to reshape their activ-
ities rather than technology.
    Even in this case, adolescents tend to interpret as the technical and
the social as separate domains. The latter emerge when we consider the
98                                                           Tecnoscienza – 7 (2)

peer flow, which mainly concerns the performance of adolescents
through SNS and face-to-face communication. Comments, jokes, teasing,
etc. function as activities that define the rules concerning how to interact
and to expose oneself through digital media. This kind of flow remains
within the peer group and extended peer group (Scarcelli 2014), estab-
lishing a common knowledge that becomes part of peer culture.
    Far from confirming a deterministic image of media-competent ado-
lescents, our analysis allows the figure of the bricoleur (Drusian and Riva
2010) to emerge. Adolescents use their own cultural and social instru-
ments to combine different flows of circulation of competences and to
create their own toolkits for using digital media. Taking into account the
different flows that we described and the variety of skills necessary for life
in an information society, our study looked closely at the relationship be-
tween technology and society as part of domestication theory and the so-
cial shaping of technology approach. Once again, contrary to the point of
view offered by deterministic perspectives on media diffusion (the most
cited example is the label “digital natives” – Prensky, 2001), we can de-
fine the sociotechnical construction of competences as something far
from being naturally embodied in adolescents. The four flows that we de-
scribed help to reveal how the circulation of competences is constructed
in social context and interaction. As we have shown, the relevance of the
competences’ circulation does not seem to have been interiorised and ac-
cepted, neither in public debate nor from the adolescent point of view.
The persistence of a view that considers digital media as a foreign entity,
either in school or in the family, and the idealised separation between
online and offline experiences, both increase the divide between genera-
tions and reduce knowledge flow that adolescents would understand.
    By using the concept of social literacy and focusing not only on how
adolescents use technology, but also on the circulation of competences,
one might gain a better understanding of the processes of appropriation
and use of digital media among young people. Research frequently focus-
es on the measurement of skills and institutional offers that permit ado-
lescents to potentiate their competences. The four distinctive flows we
described in this article could be relevant to better understand the circu-
lation of competences involving young people, in processes where they
are actors with agency, able to interact with other human and non-human
actors. According to Lievrouw (2014), analytically combining tools from
STS and media studies could be a fruitful way to embrace a more nu-
anced analysis, able to examine the circulation of competence in relation
to all actors involved. It could be useful to bridge the gap between the
technical and social, in public discourse, in educational practices and in
everyday life experience, in order to build a clearer assessment of the dif-
ferent flows of competence relevant in new media use. This would rein-
force the digital literacy of adolescents and help young people to compile
the resources necessary to actively take part in information society. How-
ever, understanding the gaps in such flows does not mean to trace a nor-
Scarcelli and Riva                                                            99
mative path based on an adult perspective, but to give relevance to the
bricoleur work of adolescents. It should be a co-constructive process,
where the knowledge of both adults and adolescents can merge, maintain-
ing their own specificity. In this way, social and technical expertise could
converge and start to respond to the new challenges of today’s infor-
mation society.


Acknowledgements

This study was a joint effort by both authors, though Claudio Riva wrote
paragraphs 1, 2, 3 and 4, and Cosimo Marco Scarcelli paragraphs 5, 6 and 7.


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