Nineteenth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

This study involves 120 students, boys and girls, ranging from 7 to18 years old, all living in the town of Komotini placed in North-Eastern Greece, both mainstream and minority. In this case, Muslim students aim to identify differences or similarities of the ICT use among them. We approached this research with two communities sharing the same area for living but having different social backgrounds. We wanted to identify if differences in the way of living affects their use of ICTs, which have the capacity to influence new characters for humans and new models of living. The age range was chosen for being pre-adolescence and adolescence development periods, when children usually attend secondary school and start claiming their independence from their parents. During this time, radical attitudes can place them at risk, and some situations can harm their underveloped psychological world. Their responses were categorized by religion, gender and into four different age groups during the analysis, as a means to separate pre-adolescents from adolescents, in anticipation of different interests and dynamics from the four age groups. Our findings identify the different ways in which children technically negotiate their use of ICTs, and reveal the varied meanings and uses of technology such as Internet safety for children, the impacts of use of ICTs and addiction to Internet in their daily lives. It also captures the degree to which parents are aware of their ICT use and their surveillance of their children.