The young people who now enter the University are clearly a digital generation, with new habits of use of technologies that define new behaviors and new daily lives, indicates a study yesterday presented by professors from the Escola Superior de Comunicação of the Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon. The portrait of the habits and values ​​of these young people aged around 20 was the introductory motto for the afternoon panel on the second day of the 14th APDC Congress.
The study was carried out in two phases, the first with the analysis of a focus group, from which 12 dimensions were identified, which were then translated into a survey, covering a sample of 373 students.
Among the results obtained, the high level of possession of terminals and communication accesses stands out, with 98 percent of young people claiming to have a mobile phone, 97 percent had a computer at home, 80 percent had Internet access and 77 percent used a Messenger system.
The importance attached to the new technologies is quite high, giving the mobile phone and PC an average value of 4.5 on a scale between 1 and 6.
In terms of Internet use, research is the main motive (with 88%), followed by work (80%), conversations (77%) and games (33%). The conclusions of the study highlight the high number of hours spent in front of the computer and the low number of hours of daily study.
Internet addictionThe study also highlights the conclusion that young people are addicted to the use of the Internet and mobile phones and that awareness of this fact leads them to “take a vacation” from their intensive use. In addition to this data of techno-addiction, the fact that 59 percent consider that the Internet affects the family unit to realize that new forms of virtual relationships sometimes replace interpersonal relationships.
The same type of conclusions has been pointed out in other studies carried out internationally, which reveal new forms of isolation – and in extreme cases of closure – that must be combated.
This is the opinion of José Paquete de Oliveira, sociologist, who commenting on the study recalled that with the new daily lives we are deconstructing society and that the family, school and associations must try to build, obtaining rebalancing.
“We are facing a new world […] we only solve the problem by living in a new way ”, warns the sociologist.
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