SUGGERIMENTS I LÍNIES DE TREBALL PER A FUTURS ESTUDIS EN EL MATEIX AREA

By far the most common process of learning in this age range was through trial and error. However, this was often done in combination with and through many other mainly online practices and services, such as internet searches, social networks, forums or through communication with digitally mediated online peers. Participants often looked no further than the internet to help solve technical problems. Fay was a university student who had been producing visual content and a member of many online communities like deviantArt since she was a child. She typified several in this age range by learning the majority of her digital technical skills from the internet, and realised the value of online forums and searches.

Fay 18–28: The best place to go is the internet. […] I mean there are a lot of things that you can do through Google. If I don’t know something I’ll Google it before I ask anyone else because often someone else has had the same problem. […] If you have some knowledge people don’t keep that kind of knowledge to themselves anymore, they put I on the internet for other people to find. When my computer broke I didn’t know why, so I went and trawled the internet and go, “Oh my mother-board’s dead” so then you can go, “Well how can I fix that?” […] I’m now a bit loathed to go to a computer company to find out why it is broken when I can find that information myself.

This has also instilled an air of confidence in Fay although she understood that, from software and coding perspective, this way of learning had disadvantages by leaving gaps in her knowledge.

reason. So that is why I’ve got huge holes in my knowledge because everything I’ve learnt is because I had a reason to use it. […] It’s all been learned through trial and error. I’ve never been on a computer course or to a computer class. I’ve never done anything like that. I mean generally I’m usually quite good with computers but I think it has become also without the fear. It’s just some code. If I try it and it doesn’t work then what’s the worst that can happen? – It doesn’t work.

Nancy was a participant who had no formal video production training. Since August 2010 she has had a YouTube channel, which hosts her self-created fashion and beauty videos. As of August 2013, she had 14,459 subscribers and 719,361 views of her 173 videos.

Nancy 18–28: [I’ll be] editing a video and [my family] will go, “Well how are you doing that?” and I’m like, “I just play around with the iMac and I’ve kind of figured it out for myself”. […] I’ve never been on one of these training courses to actually learn anything, I tend to pick things up fairly quickly […] and it’s a lot of learning from other people as well. I didn’t go to any lessons to learn how to edit videos I just played about with it [until] it looks nice. […] I find it simple to use but that’s because you can just self-teach yourself. It does have a little tutorial beforehand that shows you how to do things and what iMovies can do for you.

In addition to a trial and error approach to learning, she also uses her online social networks for technical help and for web services suggestions.

Nancy 18–28: Especially on Twitter if I need an image hosting website and I can’t find one if I just ping out something I’ll get 10 replies really quickly from all these different places. So obviously that is how you are learning as well.

Carl, who similarly self-taught in video production, has published over 400 self-made videos to his YouTube channel since July 2006. By August 2013 he had amassed 5,282 subscribers with 8,783,359 video views.

Carl 18–28: [I learnt how to make the videos] all by myself just tampering and having a go with it and I think that is a generational thing as well. We’re used to just exploring Windows to see what happens when you delete that load of system files and then your computer doesn’t work and then you have to restore it. All those things I’ve gone through where you’ve had to reformat your hard drive because you’ve made a mistake and you know not to do it again and that’s true of everything.

He believes that many of the skills that he learnt from using analogue technology, such as video cameras and analogue tapes have made it easier for him to transfer to digital. Carl also believes that experiencing the early digital and online technology while growing up has been beneficial to learning.

Carl 18–28: People my age just coming up to 30 now are the people that have grown up with analogue technology and we were the ones who also saw the dawn of webcams and instant messaging. You’d think it was all the youngsters the 14, 15 year olds, but it’s not it’s the people who are 25 to 30 who were first wowed by the instant messaging and “Wow, you can speak to someone straight away” or a text message. So I think that this group of adults now are quite adept with technology and finding things out for themselves.

Learning by trial and error and learning from friends has also been a common dual process. Darren considered his friends as influencing his learning but was also influenced by what he sees businesses producing online.

Darren 18–28: You see your friends [creating and sharing content] and think, “I should do that as well” and you see corporations and big studios doing it and think, “that’s the way to do it. Let’s try and get to their level”. And it’s cheap and easy. But I learn a lot from video tutorials now. I learn a lot from them sharing their digital content.

As Mandy explained earlier, she overcame her initial reticence and fear of using digital technology and web media and has now embraced the web and its associated

technologies. She developed a trial-and-error approach to learning with the help from her friends and colleague.

Mandy 18–28: I learnt the basics like with most things I tend to learn the basics sort of fairly slowly and it takes me quite a while to understand them but then I tend to do things and figure stuff out for myself until I can do them much better on my own. […] [I learnt digital editing] through just doing it. Steve (part of her comedy collective) was the one who learnt how to do it first and I went over to his [house] and he gave me a few pointers. Basically you just have to figure it out for yourself [through] trial and error.

Mandy explains how this approach came about.

Mandy 18–28: I find [learning digital technology] easy now, yeah. I just sort of look around and look at everything and learn by doing. Before, it would just confuse me. […] Because that’s the thing, I used to be scared of doing something wrong because I’d think, “That’s it, I’ve broken it”. But now if you do something wrong you can just click ‘undo’ and try something else so it’s easier. […] I think that was a breakthrough because then I tried doing more stuff. [Before] I think I’d still got that in the back of my mind that it’s a tangible thing that can break. But now I’m getting to understand that it isn’t.

Mandy’s last sentence reveals something that is common throughout all of the age ranges. The fear of breaking something can be a barrier to learning in the digital domain and one that needs to be overcome in order to commence the digital, computer and internet learning process.

5.4.5 18–28 Summary

While all age ranges struggle to some extent with learning to use new technology, be this hardware or software, this age range appeared to adopt technology as a matter of necessity and compulsion, and not necessarily through awareness or familiarity with the digital technology. Their main form of learning is through trial and error

platforms, particularly YouTube. The first place several participants looked for help with learning new technology and solving technical problems was not conventional books or college/university courses, but the internet. This has given them a level of independence and a ‘culture of autonomy’ from conventional learning establishments and practices.

The instances given above indicate that participants place less reliance on formal education with regard to learning digital technology. Initial introduction in a school setting appears to be important as a starting point for further self-initiated, self- motivated learning. Evidence of this is shown in different forms. Again, as with the previous age range, some participants regarded themselves to having a ‘natural aptitude’ towards the use of technology. Meanwhile, others were discouraged from using digital technology through a combination of cultural reasons, lack of resources or disinterest. In Mandy’s case this was due to a perceived irrelevance in her life, which may have been subconsciously suggested though her learning environment. Some participants in this age range displayed characteristics consistent with the concept of the ‘digital natives’, such as using the internet as their primary source of information and learning. Some found the idea of training courses an anathema and a culture of exploration prevailed in several of the participants. The result of this learning process was that they tended to learning the basics of what they needed to know rather than having a comprehensive knowledge of software programs.

While these were expressed as positive experiences it should be not be assumed that all participants’ conformed to these characteristics. Conversely, and significantly, several participants found the adoption of digital technologies less easy or were indifferent to them. This was often due to either a lack of access to and importance placed on the learning of digital technology and the internet in some schools or disinterest and a perceived lack of relevance in their lives. Nonetheless, in the latter cases this changed as they became aware of the self-publishing reach of sharing their content online.

What participants in the 18–28 age group revealed about their recent education and learning technology has been fivefold.

1. Varying levels of computer education and accessibility exist in secondary schools, which has both helped and hampered development of learning digital technology to use computers.

2. Adopting learning by trial and error was the most common way for the participants in this age range to learn technology. This includes participants who struggled with or were apathetic to technology and the internet at school. 3. Several solved software problems through peer recommendations and use

different forms of online services like internet searches, social networks, and forums, or through communication with digitally mediated online peers and friends.

4. Several found using social media, video/picture sharing sites and linking numerous web accounts as a natural practice that did not need to be formally learnt.

5. Several considered growing up during the transitional period of change from analogue to digital had given them greater understanding of digital technology.