Research Paper On The Digital Literacy Among Adolescents

Abstract

Media and Technology have become an integral part of our adolescent’s lives. They provide incredible opportunities to communicate, create, gather information, entertain themselves and even build business.

However, if digital media is not used judiciously, it can become a weapon that can destroy the teen’s world. Hence digital literacy and ethics are extremely essential to keep them safe. The main objective of the study is to find out the digital literacy among adolescents. The researcher has taken adolescents in the age group of 15-18 studying in schools in Ernakulam district as the universe. One hundred and fifty samples were collected for the same. The researcher use convenient sampling for the study. The tool used for the study was questionnaire method for collecting the data from the respondents. The suggestions were drawn out and included based on the findings of this research.

Keywords: Adolescents, Digital literacy, safety measures, digital media, and Technical skills.

Introduction and Background of Study

Every educator is familiar with the idea of literacy—the capability to study and write. A man or woman who's illiterate, who can't examine or write, will inevitably battle to get alongside in society. It’s not possible to move directly to higher education or get an excessive-paying activity without the ability to examine and write. Even every day obligations, like analyzing a newspaper or filling out activity applications, are difficult for an illiterate person. In today’s global, literacy goes beyond just the fundamental potential to recognize text. Today’s college students will also need to grasp a brand new ability in digital literacy. Cornell University defines virtual literacy as “the capability to locate, evaluate, utilize, share, and create content using information technologies and the Internet” (Barlow-Jones, 2013, p. 5).

Digital literacy, via this definition, encompasses a huge range of capabilities, all of that are necessary to reach an increasingly more digital global. As print mediums start to die out, the ability to recognize data observed on line turns into increasingly more essential. Students who lack digital literacy competencies can also soon find themselves at simply as plenty of a drawback as folks who cannot read or write. Most students already know the way to navigate the internet, proportion pics on social media, and do a Google seek to discover records. However, proper digital literacy goes past those primary competencies. One of the most crucial components of virtual literacy is the capacity to no longer simply discover, but additionally to assess, statistics. This means finding the solution to a question or a chunk of wished records and then judging whether the source is reliable. Educators can, and should, teach college students how to tell whether or not information at the net is proper. The ability to weed out fake data and locate dependable assets is a key a part of digital literacy and critical lifestyles ability inside the 21st century (Mirror, 2016).

In the 21 st century, social activity has been mediated through digital facilities together with electronic mail, newsgroups, message forums, net telephony, chat rooms, instant messaging, and digital video conferencing, making digitally enabled communities a way of existence. Not only have social communities grown up, the Internet also gives infinite data. In this context, Martin writes that “out of all of the challenges offered through a digitally infused society, the question of ways individuals can understand and deal with the digital world will become a considerable one” It can be deduced that being digitally literate isn't always most effective being proficient in the use of computers however also having the abilities wished for reading and writing with them. Those who aren't digitally literate will be distinct disadvantage as the world is being significantly impacted on by digital technologies (Barlow-Jones, 2013, p. 5).

Media and Technology have become an integral part of our adolescent’s lives. They provide incredible opportunities to communicate, create, gather information, entertain themselves and even build business. However, if digital media is not used judiciously, it can become a weapon that can destroy the teen’s world. Hence digital literacy and ethics are extremely essential to keep them safe. Digital literacy refers to an individual's capability to identify, evaluate, and compose clear information through writing and other mediums on various digital platforms. Digital literacy is evaluated by an individual's grammar, typing skills, composition and ability to produce images, writing, audio and designs using technology. And it initially focused on digital skills and stand-alone computers, the advent of the Internet and use of social media, has caused some of its focus to shift to mobile devices (Jones, 2014). Digital literacy does not replace traditional forms of literacy, instead building upon the skills that form the foundation of traditional forms of literacy. Digital literacy overlaps with computer literacy, as most digital media technologies require some level of computer competency. Commenters on digital. literacy distinguish it from computer literacy as being a competency using computer assisted tools for medium which predate the ubiquity of personal computers. For example, computer literacy covers some topics such as computer information security, lean logic and numerical analysis which are important to computer literacy, but do not have a ubiquitous analog skill that predated them (Lynch, 2017).

Digital Literacy and Adolescence

Age is one of the most effective categories used in studying the virtual divide and we take for granted that its miles negatively correlated with generation adoption. The technology gap may be reducing, however it still persists. Older human beings hardly ever have the applicable skills or technical cognitive abilities essential to use digital media and they have a reduced interest in studying or improving their expertise referring to records and communication technology (ICT). Born before the explosion of the information society, they typically revel in the technological revolution in a passive way, without being concerned in on-going processes and transformation. Children and teenagers are the actors upon whom we attention our reflections regarding participation within the facts society, while it's far more standard to recollect older people whilst talking about e-exclusion. Terms used to describe the relationship among children and digital media are varied: the internet era, the Internet era, cyber-kids, and many others. One of the most generally used is digital natives used to discover folks that grew up with new communicative era (Scarcelli & Riva, 2016).

Growing Up in a Digital World: Benefits and Risks

Digital technologies have profoundly changed childhood and adolescence. The internet and the means to access it, such as tablets and smartphones, along with social media platforms and messaging apps, have become integral to the lives of youth around the world. They have transformed their education and learning, the way they make and maintain friendships, how they spend their leisure time, and their engagement with wider society. UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children 2017: Children in a Digital World report reveals that one in three internet users is younger than 18 years and 71% of 15–24-yearolds are online, making them the most connected age group worldwide. However, the so-called digital divide is substantial: 346 million youth are not online, with African adolescents the most affected (60% are not connected compared with 4% in Europe). Young people who lack digital skills, live in remote regions, or speak a minority language are also being left behind in harnessing the opportunities that digital technologies can provide. These benefits include access to education, training, and jobs, which can help break intergenerational cycles of poverty, and access to news and information sources that can help protect their health, safety, and rights. Along with the substantial opportunities the digital age brings, come a diverse range of risks and harms (The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, 2018).

Children in Digital World

The State of the World’s Children 2017: Children in a Digital World examines the approaches in which virtual generation has already modified youngsters’ lives and lifestyles chances and explores what the destiny might also preserve. If leveraged inside the proper way and made universally on hand, digital technology can be a recreation changer for children being left at the back of whether or not because of poverty, race, ethnicity, gender, incapacity, displacement or geographic isolation connecting them to an international of possibility and offering them with the capabilities they need to achieve a digital world. But except we enlarge get admission to, virtual technology can also create new divides that prevent kids from enjoyable their capability. And if we don’t act now to preserve tempo with speedy exchange, on-line dangers may additionally make susceptible kids greater prone to exploitation, abuse and even trafficking – as well as more subtle threats to their well-being. This record argues for quicker action, focused investment and extra cooperation to guard youngsters from the harms of a greater connected international – even as harnessing the opportunities of the digital age to benefit each child (Unicef, 2017).

Digital and Media Literacies

To be literate in today’s world involves skills that include fairly granular tasks, such as copying and pasting digital content, and more complex work, such as critical analysis and synthesis of information accessed through a variety of texts. Digital literacy takes under consideration with full range of skills needed to read, write, speak, view, and participate in online spaces. All of these practices require media literacy, which includes the ability to determine, understand, evaluate, create, and participate with media in all its forms ( Turner & Jolls, 2017)

Concern about the impact of media on children and adolescents had led to research that documents negative effects on young people’s health and well-being. However, developing digital literacies is one of the most viable intervention strategies to minimize media’s negative consequences and maximize its positive influences on beliefs, thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors. In other studies, researchers showed that interventions increased civic responsibility and democratic participation. In short, interventions that equip youth to critically navigate their digital lives have positive impacts that mitigate potentially harmful effects of participation in digital spaces. These literacies are helping youth to become critical consumers and creators in a digital world; sadly, large-scale efforts to develop these skills have not been adopted politically or educationally ( Turner & Jolls, 2017).

Method

The present study employed a quantitative research method. The study design is descriptive.

Participants

Convenient sampling technique was used for the selection of students. The present study involves a data set of 150 students from three schools of Aluva in Ernakulum district who had studying in 11th and 12th classes in the year 2018. The inclusion criteria adolescence among the age group of 15-18 enrolled in Higher Secondary and residing in the district of Ernakulam.

Instrument

The instrument of research was a questionnaire consisting of two parts. The first part is for recording the socio-demographic profile, describe the pattern of usage of the digital media, understand the knowledge of adolescents about the safety measures to be taken while using digital media, identify the problem faced by adolescents due to imprudent use of digital media and to know the technical skills needed for the usage of digital media and the second was a quiz to identify the knowledge of adolescents in the digital devices and also to improve them in the knowledge and skill of learning.

Procedure

Researcher used self-prepared questionnaire in order to gather information from the respondents. Therefore the researcher has employed questionnaire method to collect data. The result of the study were statistically analyzed using SPSS version 21.

Limitation

• Reluctance of school authorities in permitting the researcher to conduct study in schools.
• Time constraints of respondents who were busy with studies.
• Responses obtained were from students who had predominantly studied in an urban background.

The respondents were in the age group of 16-18. Almost 85. 3 percent of respondents were studying in plus one and nearly 44. 7 percent of respondents were males and 55. 3 percent of respondents were females. Majority of the respondents parents were working and 62. 7 percent of respondent’s mothers are unemployed. Almost 78. 7 percent of respondents had internet connectivity at their home and 33. 3 percent of respondents had owns a phone. Almost 69. 3 percent of respondents were using digital media from the age group of 10-15.

Almost 63. 3 percentages of the respondents responded that their first preference is entertainment while 23. 3 responded that theirs is education, 10 percentage of the respondents gave first preference for socialization and 2 percentage if the respondents responded that their first preference is shopping. Nearly 23. 3 percentage of the respondents responded that their second preference is Entertainment while 41. 3 percentage of the respondents responded that their second preference is education, while 14. 7 percentage of the respondents has socialization and 7. 3 percentage of the respondents who responded shopping as their second preference. Nearly 4. 7 percentage of the respondents responded that they have third preference for entertainment, while 8. 7 percentage has education as their third preference andn32 percentage of them has socialization and 24. 7 percentage has shopping as their third preference. There were however 18 percentage of the respondents who responded that Socialization was their third preference while 34. 7 percentage of them had shopping and 7. 3 percentage had education and 6 percentage of the respondents had entertainment as their fourth preference. Around 31. 3 percentage of the respondents responded that they had no preference for doing shopping while 25. 3 percentage of the respondents responded that socialization was not preferred by them and 19. 3 percentage of the respondents responded that they don’t prefer education and 2. 7 percentage of the respondents responded that they had no preference for entertainment.

Almost 43. 3 percentage of the respondents responded that they have Whatsapp as their first preference and 26. 7 percentage of the respondents responded that their first preference was Facebook while 9. 3 percentage of the respondents responded that they had Instagram as their first preference while 19. 3 percentage of the respondents responded that YouTube is their first preference. There are 24 percentage of the respondents who responded that Facebook and Whatsapp each was their preference as their second preference while 14 percentage of the respondents responded that Instagram is their second preference while 10. 7 percentage of the respondents responded that YouTube is their second preference. The third preference is Facebook for 12 percentage, while 2. 7 percentage of the respondent’s responded whatsaap, 28. 7 percentage of the respondents responded that Instagram and 12 percentage of the respondents responded YouTube as third preference. There were 7. 3 percentage of the respondents responded that their 4th preference was Facebook, while 14 percentage of them responded whatsaap and 14. 7 percentage of the respondents responded Instagram and 20 percentage of the respondents responded YouTube is their fourth preference. There were 30 percentage of the respondents responded that they have no preference for Facebook and 16 percentage of the respondents had no preference on Whatsapp while 33. 3 percentage of the respondents responded that Instagram was of no preference for them and 38 percentage of the respondents responded that YouTube was of no preference for the respondents.

Nearly 56 percent of respondents were using the digital media at evening and 49. 3 percent of respondents spend 1-2 hours in digital media. Almost 71 percent of respondents do not access digital media once they wake up and 84 percent of respondents access digital media before they goes to bed.

Almost 54 percent of respondents were not aware about the possibility of hacking their accounts that had used in digital media and 22. 7 percent respondents share their contact number with online friends and also most of them are not aware about the potential threats that caused by online friends. 11 percent of respondent’s social media accounts were hacked. Almost 53 percent of respondents are known to use report abuse button and 47 percent of respondents are not aware about it.

Nearly 66 percent of respondents were not aware about the keywords that had used in online searching. Almost 64 percent of respondents were not having much knowledge in retrieving the lost information and almost 50 percent of respondents know the basic tools and options of media player. Almost 34 percent of respondents are not aware about the basic tools and options of Microsoft word and 45 percent of respondents were not aware in Microsoft excel and 44 percent of respondents are not aware about Open office. Almost 56 percent of respondents do not knows how to book mark the website. 14 percent of respondents were aware about the website creating software and also 11. 3 percent of respondents created the website.

Discussions

Recognizing fluidity because the norm in our society is a key detail of digital literacy. Primary and secondary-school students today have grown up with the usually-on, usually-related life which the internet has enabled. Fads and fashions change on a nearly daily foundation, and information and rumor journey round the world at unprecedented speed, unmediated by using the traditional gatekeepers of information. With this, the conventional belief of privacy and the norms surrounding non-public records have modified past popularity, and the voices of authority in conventional media are wondered. The social implications of the digital society – surveillance and the decline of privacy, cyberbullying and so forth – are increasingly obtrusive but are not yet thoroughly found out. People more and more anticipate to be connected to the internet wherever they're inside the global. But they also want occasionally to take a step returned from era, to preserve a degree of social decorum and sense of recognize for others, for instance, with the aid of now not checking e mail or different updates at the same time as talking to others (Kavanagh, 2016).

Young people analyze by the examples they see around them and true digital practices via authority figures at faculty and at domestic will impact them. The reality, now greater than ever, is that younger human beings want steerage within the areas of treating others with admire, keeping off bullying, being safe and critically comparing facts determined online. This isn't to view digital gadgets and communique strategies negatively – the possibilities are honestly thrilling and full of promise, commencing up new worlds of human hobby and regions of scholarship. In this international it very vital to study the virtual media and digital foot prints of children because today’s kids is coping with the virtual global so engaging in this observe we will capable of realize the know-how of kids and teens in digital literacy. Is they have been privy to the terrible and effective accepts of digital media.

Whatever your viewpoint, digital literacy matters for education (Kavanagh, 2016).

Conclusion

The purpose of this research was to create a methodological tool to assess the level on digital literacy of adolescents. Therefore, we developed and validated a questionnaire with five objectives they are to study the socio-demographic details of respondents, to describe the pattern of usage of the digital media among adolescents, understand the knowledge of adolescents about the safety measures to be taken while using digital media, identify the problem faced by adolescents due to imprudent use of digital media, know the technical skills for the usage of digital media. And also conduct a quiz on the basic of digital devices.

Digital India, an initiative by Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi, for ensuring the Government's services are made available to citizens electronically by improved online infrastructure and by increasing Internet connectivity or by making the country digitally empowered. This could be achieved only through knowledge and understanding of digital medium. As today’s youth are tomorrow’s citizens they must be given adequate education and awareness to ensure that the services could be utilized fruitfully.

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