ABSTRACT
Young people’s relationship with digital media is widely discussed, yet there is something significant about this relationship that merits sustained attention. During the teenage years, young people start to develop a sense of themselves as independent of family, with peers and social networks taking on far greater importance. Adolescence is a stage in life marked by biological, cognitive and social change. In the teenage years, young people begin to contemplate what their future might look like, as they try and test different identities and career pathways. These fledgling identities and dispositions have a certain fragility. Digital technologies have changed the arrangements and patterns of contemporary life. Much of this is to do with the explosive growth of the internet and its capacity to connect people, open markets, redefine boundaries and carve out new spaces for cultural engagement. The mutual shaping theory of technology sees technology and society as mutually influencing and shaping each other.
