Entre celulares, tablets, consoles e computadores: práticas digitais de adolescentes de uma escola pública de ensino fundamental

Abstract

This thesis was inspired by the following questions: a) what are the digital practices, in mobile phones, tablets, consoles and computers, of adolescents from 12 to 15 years of age? and b) what is the place of digital practices in the life of school adolescents? The objective is to understand the uses, senses and social relations that emerge from practices mediated by the digital media of adolescents of the third cycle of a full-time public elementary school. The investigation is justified by the scarcity of qualitative data about the subject in Brazil, in the age group studied, derived from the direct observation of the subjects. The research was characterized as an ethnography and involved participant observation of the digital practices of adolescents as well as workshops of digital practices in the school. The digital practices observed were, for the most part, banal, and had the predominant meanings for adolescents themselves, leisure and interaction, not innovation, questioning of school knowledge or the "serious" uses of digital media. Unlike digital natives, adolescents were far less literate or fluent in digital media than it has been assumed and not very qualitatively distant from the digital interests and abilities of the adults around them. Digital practices at school were practices of sociability rather than social isolation, with emphasis on sociability around digital practices. At home, digital practices seemed to be what remained when teens could not find friends to play or talk, due to restrictions imposed on their free movement through the city. At home and at school, when confronted with bans on access to devices and practices, with technical barriers or time limits, teenagers created ways of circumventing such restrictions, showing that simply prohibiting, censoring or demonizing digital practices does not keep these subjects away from such practices, nor does it help them to navigate more playfully, critically and competently in digital culture.