Technology on social relationships among Young people: summer camps free of mobile telephony

Abstract

Today's society has suffered, in the last two decades, a real revolution in the way of communicating and relating through new technologies. If there is a sector of the population in which the use of new technologies has penetrated with special depth, this is that of young people. The mobile phone has become for them an essential tool, almost an extension of themselves, through which they are permanently in touch, exchange messages, share photos and videos and relate to each other through social networks. The main objective of this research was to find out the perception of a group of young people who have participated in a free-time socio-educational activity, - summer camp - by limiting the use of mobile telephony during a pre-established time interval. The chosen method has been analytical-descriptive of transversal character. The sample of the study is composed of 38 young people, out of a total of 50, in the framework of a summer camp lasting fifteen days. The range age of the participants is between 8 and 16 years. The data was collected by an ad-hoc instrument structured in two blocks: sociodemographic- mobile phone uses. Regarding the measurement techniques used, they were quantitative, focusing on the study of means, frequencies and standard deviations of the data obtained. Among the most outstanding results there is a low perception of risk regarding potential conflicts arising from the use of mobile phones. The answers found have allowed us to consider that more actions and recommendations are necessary to provide all children and young people with affordable access to new technologies.

Keywords

• alfabetización digital
• bienestar
• dependencia
• dispositivo móvil
• educación en valores
• educación no formal
• jóvenes