Today, teenage interaction, engagement and consumption of technology is increasingly immersive, dynamic and complex. It has been argued that teenagers experience technology in a different way to their predecessors, a notion that can segregate the youth and fuel the hyperbolic attitudes of government industries, the media and society.
The convergence of technology and the human subject gives rise to conflicting concerns of young people’s involvement in this subject. What are the consequences? Is technology facilitating youth culture in its quest to be more connected, creative and experimental? Or is it giving birth to a generation of numbness, warping views of sex, enabling deception and the erosion of morals? Various societies are in a state of moral panic about what teenagers’ relationships with technology signify for the future.
This project explores how teenagers are developing identities and autonomy against the backdrop of an ever-changing technological landscape. It considers the context of these behaviours, from theoretical, psychological and philosophical perspectives. Raising questions around both the creation and use of technology, in parallel with teenagers’ current use of devices and communication platforms. Does technology exploit the youth? This study examines and evaluates developments in cultural and digital forces and investigates if there is a sense of self outside the digital network or whether the network now forms our identity and the two are intrinsically linked.
