Digital Consumption among School Children in Villavicencio, Colombia

Abstract

This article is based on recognition of the crisis in the paradigm surrounding educationalinstitutions with respect to the emerging subjectivities of youngsters andtheir digital consumption practices, which calls for a thorough review of what theysay and do about information and communication technologies (ICT) and how theintervention of these technologies transforms the world at school, children’s patternsof interaction, and the ways in which they construct their own identity. The study wasintended to detect and analyze those practices and the discourses of urban school childrenin the city of Villavicencio (Colombia). The fieldwork included exploratory tasks intwo contexts: the school and the Internet, based on scrutiny and participatory observationby recording and sharing in the convergences of children in these leisure spaces aspart of an ethnographic exercise. The conclusions point to the existence of leisure spacesthat clash, both quantitatively and qualitatively, with formal learning spaces; thatis, times for play (socially considered unproductive and deficient) and times for formalizedknowledge, which should be approached with rigor, attention and targeting.In dealing with juvenile subjectification processes, the project made it possible torecognize that digital technologies allow for new ways in which children can identifywith themselves, with the environment and with others in an interrelationshipwhere subjectivity, intersubjective ties and historically constructed culture unfold.