Everyday negotiations in managing presence: young people and social media in India

ABSTRACT

Young people’s lives are inextricably tied in with the digital, whether it is for education, engagement, leisure, or work. Studies from the Global North have examined children and social media from several perspectives, with discourse now veering towards a rights-based approach to foreground young people’s voices in a digital and social media world, something that is missing in countries like India. This paper drew on deep interactions with young people from a large Indian city to gain preliminary insights into social media practices and modes of engagement with particular reference to management of access, privacy, safety, and negotiating challenges or problem solving. Our study suggests that conversations about digital platforms, particularly social media spaces, in relation to children’s everyday life practices need to begin early, at the point when children begin interacting with these technologies. Critical digital literacy must recognize the agency of young people, their naturalized interactions with the digital world, as well as the complexities of family and school life that moderate such interactions. These contextual nuances become significant when framing regulatory policies, parental advisories and critical digital literacy and media education programs. This article adds to the slowly growing literature from the Global South that enhances and diversifies our understanding of how the ‘born digital’ generation lives with/in social media.

KEYWORDS:

• Young people and social media
• India
• digital identity and selfhood
• social media practices

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Devina Sarwatay

Devina Sarwatay is a Senior Research Fellow (UGC-NET) and PhD Student in the Department of Communication, University of Hyderabad, India. She researches young people and social media under the guidance of Prof. Usha Raman. She is a Graduate Student Member at the Media Education Lab, Harrington School of Communication and Media, The University of Rhode Island, USA and a Member of the Future of ICA Conferences Task Force. [email: [email protected]]

Usha Raman

Usha Raman is Professor, Department of Communication, University of Hyderabad. Her research and teaching interests include cultural studies of science, health communication, children’s media, feminist media studies, journalism pedagogy, and digital cultures. She is serving as Vice President on the Executive Board of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) from 2020 to 2024. [email: [email protected]]