The use of digital environments for the satisfaction of fundamental human needs: the case of adolescents in a Purépecha community

Abstract

Digital environments help to satisfy human needs in numerous contexts, but such benefits often introduce significant risks. Indigenous communities are historically disadvantaged and must confront this reality through their personal circumstances. In turn, their experiences could influence how the adoption of technology facilitates or hinders the satisfaction of their basic needs. This study purposed to identify how adolescents in Indigenous communities use digital environments to fulfill their fundamental human needs. Quasiethnographic research was conducted in the Purépecha community of Santa Fe de la Laguna in Michoacán, México. The study results revealed that (1) the fundamental human needs that are mostly fulfilled through digital environments in the community are affection, leisure, and identity, (2) some actions committed by young people in digital environments were singular satisfiers and were even synergistic satisfiers, but many actions were also pseudosatisfiers, inhibiting satisfiers, and potentially destructive satisfiers, and (3) the individual resources (or conditions) that are pivotal to the impact exerted by digital environments apropos the satisfaction of the fundamental human needs of adolescents in Indigenous communities are digital literacy, emotional well-being, and active mediation by parents.

Keywords

• Digital environments
• fundamental human needs
• Indigenous Purépecha community
• adolescents
• digital literacy