SUMMARY
respect of a social group. On the one hand young people’s media savvy is generally suspect, whereas on the other hand the expressive possibilities of information technology are also understood and in places used in a broad range of applications, for example in youth work. In addition to the discussion of good and bad, much is said here about significance. Familiarity with IT is an ever more important part of everyday life and a rather significant part of young people’s leisure time. IT opens possibilities for new kinds of expression and communication both on the informative and social levels. Attention is paid here not only to aspects having to do with hobbies, entertainment and well-being, but also to new forms of abuse and fears of IT. The technologizing of young people’s lives is connected to a broader change in society. In the Yearbook of Young People’s Living Conditions we investigate and interpret the ways in which young people live, act and think in a world of changing values and new technological possibilities. Consideration of increasingly technical youth is limited here to the possibilities of IT, since its influence on youth cultures and young people’s day to day lives is so allencompassing. In this book we consider whether this is a matter of maintaining speed, marginalization or opposition. Young people’s technologized life is considered in terms of school, working life, expression, hobbies, home life and leisure. Satisfying adventures, positive experiences, difficulties and fears are all considered here. Young people’s actions and views are approached in this book in terms of six themes: 1) learning, 2) innovations and employment, 3) technologized youth cultures, 4) community, generations and margins, 5) well-being and distress, and 6) technologized markets and young IT entrepreneurs. Through these themes a picture is formed of young people experimenting, acting, influencing, functioning and dabbling in the world of IT.
THE YEARBOOK OF YOUNG PEOPLE’S LIVING CONDITIONS. TECHNOLOGIZING YOUTH The theme for the Yearbook of Young People’s Living Conditions 2003 is technologizing youth. This concept refers to the deep effects and influences of information technology (IT) on young people’s lives, as well as attitudes and values related to IT. The yearbook consists of a statistical section and some articles. In the statistical section we look as young people’s use of information technology in Finland and the European Union. The article portion comes from the experiences and viewpoints of youth workers and researchers working in Finland’s various universities concerning technologizing youth and technological youth culture. The role of IT is often considered on an axel of good and bad, which is also reflected in the articles in this book. IT provides possibilities for new forms of social interaction and the development of new learning environments. It also makes possible access to the type of information and contacts with the type of people that parents and others involved in child raising would not consider at all appropriate for children. Playing with false identities in different network discussion groups is generally seen as a hazard for young people, while on the other hand a fictitious identity can, for some young people, be a means of learning about themselves and gaining the
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