Navegando por entre trilhas digitais com novas e velhas gerações

Abstract

The present research was orientated by three questions: How does the access of Internet and computer by young and old people take place? Which literacy practices are involved in this process? How do young and old people get used to virtual space? In order to answer such questions, it was important to comprehend the motivation that lead people from 14 to 24 and older than 60 years old to seek for places where they can have access to Internet. Two specific places were selected: one of them providing learning of computational and Internet tools and professional qualification, and the other providing unlimited Internet access, respectively Centro Vocacional Tecnológico (CVT) and Lan House. This research is based on the theoretical studies about literacy (Soares; Marinho), and work mainly focused on digital literacy, according to the studies of Buzzato. Once we are discussing a matter of different generations access to Internet, the question of aging is discussed from the perspective of social category (Bosi) because of the challenges of mastering digital knowledge (Kachar). Nevertheless, the young people category is connected to the diversity concepts of Dayrell. Finally, due to the necessity to support the discussion about society in the era of technology, communication, and information, further than the use of the concepts of digital exclusion and inclusion, this research works with the ideas of Marteleto and Ribeiro, Bretas, Warschauer, Castells, Touraine, among others. Concerning methodology, this research was built from the ethnographic perspective (Green), carrying out observations along the course of ten months. Data base were formed from the register on diary fields, questionnaire and semi-structured interviews with the users of Centro Vocacional Tecnológico, as well as observing such users when they were making use of Internet. Furthermore, this ethnographic perspective took into account some researches that auto- nominated themselves e-ethnography: Androutsopoulos, Georgakopoulou, Gómez Cruz, and Mayans i Planells. It has been noticed that the interactions among old and new generations, as well as communication technology within CVT classes, highlight the importance of such spaces as settings for social and leisure interactions. Within such spaces, individuals make use of technology to carry out communication and interaction activities, extending their network and ways to develop social affairs. This perspective support the evidence that classify individuals as excluded or included does not smooth the progress of comprehension of how people interact, understand, assimilate, transform, and perceive Internet and/or other technologies, because each group has got its own way to interconnect with technology, according to its capacity of moving around the different contact zones (Pratt) that are offered by society.