New Media and Youths: a Challenge or an Opportunity? A study of youth new media use and schooling in The Netherlands

In this era of ICT, digital technology and globalization youths are getting increasing hooked up in new media both as producers and consumers. One could hypothesise that Youths’ increased interest in media technology has diverted their attention to personal computers, television and cell-phones, often at the expense of academic time management. This exacerbated with ownership of i-Pods, TVs, mobile phones and personal computers their time is heavily occupied with updating social networks and cyber-participation. Since new media provide exciting and interesting ways youths can use their skills and competencies, they are spending more time in the new media and school is losing priority. This thesis has been interrogated in the context of Dutch HAVO pupils in Calvijn and Comenius colleges in Rotterdam. The pupils are in the era where the level of Technology in the Netherlands has risen dramatically in the last five years and its possible for young people even as early as primary school to own new media commodities. The affinity ICT is creating for young people to annotate, create animations and share with friends all over the globe has enrolled the youths HAVO youths to this Net generation. The youths prefer to invest their time in the media and school to them seem out of sync with their modes of learning and communication. This coupled with the increasing gap between them and teachers and parents explain why it’s difficult for them to identify with school anymore and their academic performance has continued to deteriorate. ICT shows a shifting interest of the youths which education systems need to address as a deliberate curriculum aim or adopt computer-mediated learning activities otherwise academic performance is declining due to the youths’ shifting interest.