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Digital technology as a vector and catalyst for new relationships between adolescents and libraries

72% of 15-24 year olds had visited a library in the past 12 months in 2016, 1.6 times more than those aged 25-69.If young people use libraries the most, what about teenagers?A survey conducted by the INJEP among teenagers and professionals in libraries of various sizes has attempted to identify the practices and expectations of young people with regard to libraries, to identify and analyze new approaches to teenagers, to identify and qualify professional practices, changes in professional and organizational cultures, and digital mediation practices at work in libraries.According to the authors of the survey, "the entry of digital practices into libraries has caused or accompanied a change in them, not only in terms of the offer intended for teenagers but also in the reflection on the spaces made available to them. The practices of teenagers are thus taken more into account".The survey, after a review of the cultures and digital practices of young people, and their limits, also seeks to understand how these digital practices of teenagers have influenced the offer of libraries and how they have organized themselves in front of this public. Various uses of the library Young people come to the library for a variety of reasons. "For many, it is less about accessing collections than it is about having a space, "having a corner of one's own while feeling part of a space". Teens travel, sometimes far, to go to a library where they can concentrate and feel like they are among other like-minded young people. In some neighborhoods, the library also serves as a safer place. The survey distinguishes two periods (before 15 and after) in the relationship of young people to libraries. "The13-15 year oldsandthe 15-17yearoldsdonothavethesameneeds.The13-15year old scometomeettheir friends,have fun,spendtime,the15-17yearoldscomemoretostudy/work,even iftheyalsomeettheirfriends. " The survey thus highlights an ambivalence among adolescents between the desire and need for "calm" ( "little corners to do nothing" ) and the need to meet up with their friends and exchange ideas. Some libraries are trying to change this representation "by adapting to the fact that adolescence is the age of noise, music, and groups, and by offering them places where they can stay in groups and express themselves, where they can adopt relaxed positions and read what is not prescribed in school, for example comics and manga, but also play video games and organize competitions with other libraries. The difficult search for a digital offer adapted to teenagers The question of how to organize the presence of teenagers in the library is not self-evident. "First of all , because teenagers often behave in a contradictory way. They are there and elsewhere at the same time, or as one librarian put it: "They are where we least expect them. They do school work in spaces not intended for it, invade spaces at exam time, which is not always well accepted."The survey thus highlights the ambivalence of teenagers towards the digital offer of libraries. Many of the teens we met have simultaneous use of the library's digital equipment and their own equipment. young people do not come to the library primarily to find digital materials, unless they do not have access to them at home "young people do not ask for digital resources but they appreciate offers related to their daily practices: access to wifi, possibility to play video games.... "(a library director) "While it is difficult to imagine what is "necessarily" attractive to teenagers in libraries," the study's authors note, "we can easily list what drives them away: mandatory registration, limited groups, strict hours, conditions for access, etc." Teens in libraries more active than we think Many of them, the authors of the study point out, "practice several digital cultural activities simultaneously (music, games, information, films...) ... They mix consumption, communication, sharing and creation activities. For them, digital does not represent a series of tools but a continuum and an environment in which they act.When the conditions are right, teenagers can even become driving forces. "They can propose workshops, new video games, creations, animations that librarians can use as inspiration for their offers. Some of them, even very young ones, appreciate being put in the position of facilitator of workshops or activities around the digital world.According to Anne Cordier, author of "Growing up connected", a digital offer is only relevant if it is proposed within the framework of a mediation: "The edutainment offer does not work in adolescence. The offer works when there is a mediation. The offer in catalog is not enough, what works better is when there is a workshop which supposes that the library opens on the city. There must be communication and a link with other structures.The place of teenagers in the library, conclude the authors, "should be considered in all its aspects, taking into account their presence in and around the library, their digital practices, their motivations for borrowing, and their interactions with librarians online and offline. This implies a reinforced complementarity with the other professionals of the territory who are concerned by education, youth, culture and social cohesion, putting in music all the specialities without diluting them, so that the whole makes sense for each teenager". Teenagers, an audience long considered difficult by librarians Adolescents are often the untraceable public of cultural institutions. Indeed, the particularities of this age, which is an in-between between childhood and adulthood, make them keep away from everything that is of the order of the institution, the rule, the obligation.In the midst of their search for identity, their way of life is collective (with their peers) and their membership in a group is based on both imitation and distinction.In the same way that students disappear from conservatories or visit museums by "poaching", the presence of teenagers in libraries is rather ambiguous.This "restless, noisy, unpredictable " public has long been considered difficult by librarians with the necessary "framing" of their presence and the maintenance of silence in the premises, which in a way continues the school universe and its constraints.According to a recent study (Roselli, 2014), " regulation by silence and by distinctive cultural codes (knowing how to behave, knowing how to search, knowing how to choose, knowing how to borrow) works against the attendance of teenage audiences and, discouraging profiles far removed from cultural concerns and books, produces an "abandonmentist" attitude."One of the reasons for these difficulties has also been a limited knowledge of adolescents and their practices. Librarians can often feel caught off guard when faced with a public that is difficult to grasp and that challenges their vision of the library as essentially book-based and "educational."The same study (Roselli, 2014) concludes, " Beyond age-related factors, the attractiveness policy of libraries constitutes another explanation for the progressive distancing of younger generations: the more libraries display orientations on the side of legitimate and coded culture (literature and elite genres), the more the new generations assimilate them to the adult and academic world."Adolescents have mixed feelings about libraries because they distance themselves from the institution in general and from formal practices in particular. The library reminds them of the school context, while their leisure practices develop a lot (in peer groups) of conviviality and exchanges.Cécile Delesalle, Chantal Dahan, Gérard Marquié and Mirabelle Gallego: Youth, libraries, digital and territory: towards new interactions

• Inclusion

Published on 03/09/19



Digital practices of young people in working-class areas

The National Institute for Youth and Popular Education (INJEP) has just published the results of a study devoted to Tastes, practices and cultural uses of young people in working-class areasThe study is based on interviews with teenagers in the working-class neighborhoods of Bourgoin-Jallieu, Villejuif and Dammarie-Les-Lys.One of the challenges of this qualitative study was to understand the articulation between cultural practices (music, reading, outings, libraries, amateur practices) and digital practices.This survey documents the effects of the digital switchover for working-class youth, " showing how the advent of social media, video-on-demand platforms, downloading and streaming have turned the place of television in modest households upside down."The study's authors qualify the decline of television among working-class youth. "Despite the internet and video-on-demand platforms, television remains central to cultural activities in working-class families. Watching television together is the important family and cultural moment. It is during these moments that opinions and discussions are exchanged around the choice of program, usually carried out by the parents (more often the father if both parents are present) and/or by the oldest child. In adolescence, young people watch television mainly as a family, or with sisters or brothers, very rarely alone. The programs are of contrasting registers: films, series, entertainment, reality TV and may also come from foreign channels (via DTT) linked to the parents' country of origin. These are all occasions that show a ritualization of TV moments for the family, which gathers around them.The survey underlines how much " teenage consumption is strongly determined by the offer put forward on the platforms, and certain "trendy" series and films become a must-see. Observed in detail, YouTube usage nevertheless shows clear gender specificities: while boys are big consumers of gaming videos and educational content (popularization, documentaries...), girls tend to turn to beauty and lifestyle content. The first overview offered by this survey is, however, necessarily reductive and does not allow us to grasp the complexity of YouTube's juvenile uses: above all, it confirms the interest of more in-depth surveys on these practices. Listening to music, a central practice of popular youth The survey highlights the types of consumption and listening that are most common among working-class teenagers. "Listening to music appears to be a central practice of working-class youth, and the only one capable of "uniting everyone" around common tastes and methods. At the heart of this musical consensus, rap dominates and structures tastes. Indeed, if many teenagers display a certain eclecticism (they listen to "everything" and do not reject any musical genre), it is rap that concentrates almost all the actual consumption by being the preferred genre of more than ¾ of the young people we met. Nevertheless, this consensus around rap should not mask subtle intra-genre distinctions and the permanence of distinctive relationships to music. The young people explain that not all raps are equal and state clear hierarchies between "violent" or "vulgar" rap, rap that is closer to their daily concerns and "thoughtful" rap, even mixed with pop and French song.The survey also points to the special place of libraries and media libraries in these adolescent outings in the neighborhoods. "In all three areas, young people frequent and appreciate these places, without necessarily taking part in the cultural activities they offer (borrowing books, reading on the spot, audiovisual uses, etc.). They invest them above all as places of sociability".In a separate chapter of the study, devoted more specifically to digital practices, Thomas Legon shows how access to digital technology is intertwined with family histories and organizations: he places digital practices " in the context of immigration stories, the varying degrees of competence of the different generations, the spatial organization of housing, and siblings who may or may not include 'older' children who will facilitate access for the youngest (by pushing for equipment, breaking down restrictions, etc.), but also with rules of use, prohibitions, and family judgments. ), but also with rules of use, prohibitions, and family judgments.He reminds us of " the impact of living conditions on the digital practices of young people: the modesty of financial means or the sharing of domestic space (intervenes) thus directly on the practices of adolescents. Thus, withregard to packages and terminals, a condition of access to an autonomous, intimate or even nomadic use, he reminds us that " the fact of living in an environment with constrained economic resources can thus lead to not being able to replace a broken phone or not having enough Internet "data" in one's package to be truly nomadic in one's use of digital technology". Social networks: relationships with oneself, relationships with others "All the respondents use, even if only occasionally, at least two different virtual social networks. (...) The first important distinction concerns the type of people with whom we interact. Thus, Whatsapp and Facebook are used by our respondents much more for family ties (especially intergenerational ones) than Snapchat, which is particularly used for close friends.""If the platforms used primarily for family ties are practical, or even essential, for the adolescents we met, they are never their favorites. The respondents always declare a stronger taste for social networks that connect them with their peers. Among these peers, above all strong ties ), which may explain the success of Snapchat among the youngest, since compared to other popular platforms, this network is mainly used to be in contact with a small number of very close people".The survey highlights " forms of learning how and what to post, for example, but also specific terms to designate practices, specific parts of the platforms (...) In particular knowing how to distinguish between "stories" and "the feed" for the type of content to be published, but also the role of certain informational resources to regulate one's public visibility (and thus, again, to regulate the type of content to be published)"."The learning of aesthetic self-development, which is a much more feminine learning than masculine, inclines girls more to think about how to share photos of themselves on social networks. "We can see that the learning of a "network culture" and the aesthetic enhancement of oneself is an interactional process," observes Thomas Legon."The "likes" are a way of using interaction to learn about oneself, in the manner of a democratic vote. This is undoubtedly a characteristic belief of the working classes, who want to see in the choice of the greatest number a credible indicator to orient themselves in the choice of cultural items (...) But this dimension is not the only one. Beyond the return of anonymous opinions compiled in a metric (likes), the interactional learning is also done thanks to the strong links to whom one trusts to show and tell everything about oneself, "behind the scenes" before appearing on the virtual social scenes. Presentation of oneself through social networks: knowing how to "hold your place Working-class youth must also learn to play within a specific set of social, gender, and sociability constraints when it comes to sharing things about themselves (or participating in what peers are sharing) on social networks.The articulation between cultural practices and digital practices does not only concern the consumption of cultural goods. Digital tools and platforms make it possible both to facilitate access to creation and then to distribute these creations to an audience(via virtual social networks in particular). "The interviews show above all the extent to which the distribution of creations online is a difficult exercise, very strictly framed by the "network culture". "We can't do "anything", "anyhow". By taking example on other amateurs, one can imagine and organize the artistic presentation of oneself (on a mode "and why not me?"), but also very quickly to be discouraged of the weak audience which one meets and to give up ".The socialization methods characteristic of working-class environments permeate digital practices: respect for the gender order, the primordial place of the family and strong ties in online and offline life, the "morality" of sociability. The fact that class socialization is maintained in digital practices does not mean that they remain "locked in" or "limited to" the social class shared by young people from working-class neighborhoods.

• Inclusion

Published on 14/10/20



Digital cultural practices: 14% of French people (and 29% of young people) have practiced audio and video editing during confinement

The period of confinement, by restricting access to the outside world and by limiting most leisure activities to the home, modified the relationship of individuals to culture, particularly in its active dimension. This period was, in fact, "conducive to a (re) investment in amateur practices": music, dance, graphic arts, photography but also audio and video editing.Thanks to the development of digital tools, the practice of audio and video editing has doubled in ten years, rising from 4% of French people aged 15 and over in 2008 to 9% in 2018. In 2018, it concerned 19% of 15-19 year olds compared to 4% of those aged 60 and over.During confinement, 14% of French people say they have engaged in audio and video editing (+5 points). The increase is even more marked among 15-24 year olds (+12 points): it goes from 17% to 29%.observe Anne Jonchery and Philippe Lombardo, both in charge of studies at the Department of Studies, Forecasting and Statistics of the Ministry of Culture. "More than one individual in five who teleworks has also developed this activity, teleworking presupposes being in possession of computer equipment, which is necessary for editing". "If the proportion of employees and workers performing audio and video editing is increasing (+4 points), the practice of executives and intermediate professions is slightly decreasing, even if they remain the most enthusiastic about this activity.exceptional waveCultural Practices of the Ministry of CultureThese results come for 2008 and 2018 from the Pratiques Culturelles survey and for 2020 from the Living Conditions and Aspirations survey conducted by Crédoc during the confinement.The survey measures the practice of audio-video editing since 2008. The practice of audio and video editing is the subject of a separate modality in the 2018 survey among the list of activities practiced as an amateur. For the survey collected in 2008, it is possible to approach this concept by using a question asked about digital practices, without the question being stamped "amateur practice."

• Inclusion

Published on 03/03/21