Internet Appropriation Among Young Residents of the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area, Mexico

Abstract

The spread of the internet has been accompanied by generalizing discourses and assertions, which have been criticized for their tendency to oversimplify the complexities and socio-historical particularities that have shaped the development and social appropriation of this technology in specific contexts. Among these tendencies, the naturalization of the relationship that younger generations establish with this technology stands out; this relationship has often been assumed to be an inherent condition. In this regard, the widespread and uncritical use of generalizing categories such as “digital natives” has contributed to obscuring a context-specific understanding of the ways in which young people engage with digital technologies. In contrast to these trends, this article aims to analyze, from a qualitative perspective, the processes of technological appropriation among young people aged 18 to 24 living in the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area, Mexico, with the goal of understanding the meanings, practices, and experiences surrounding the internet. To collect data, ten semi-structured interviews were conducted to reconstruct, through the participants’ memories, the young people’s technobiographies. Data analysis was conducted using elements of grounded theory. The results show that the adoption of the internet is characterized by the normalization of this technology in everyday life; that the primary device used to access the internet is the cell phone; and that there is a tension between young people’s discourse on internet uses and the practices they actually engage in.” In conclusion, the study seeks to provide a situated understanding of the trajectories of the Internet’s incorporation into young people’s daily lives, highlighting the diversity of mediations, experiences, and social conditions involved in these processes and thereby helping to nuance the generalizing interpretations that have characterized much of the discourse on the relationship between youth and digital technologies.