L’appropriazione di Internet da parte degli adolescenti: tra riproduzione sociale e mutamento culturale

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.