Assessing Rural and Urban Teenagers' Domestication of Technology: The Role of Digital Literacy

Abstract

This paper focuses on a qualitative analysis of the ways in which rural and urban teens domesticate digital technologies that are available to them. The study draws from 16 focus group interviews with teenagers in the southeast and north central parts of Nigeria using a child-centered approach. Anchored on domestication and technological appropriation framework, the paper explores the circumstances whereby technology assumes the meanings and uses assigned to them by the teens. From gaming, social connections, leveraging schoolwork, information and news, family connection, to self-learning and education, the findings foreground the idea of domestication whereby the teens metaphorically tame digital technologies to suit their realities as children in specific contexts. Analysis foregrounds barriers such as digital illiteracy and other factors limiting children's digital development. Recommendations are made on how to improve children's full digital participation in the local context.