Abstract
Norwegian authorities’ policy aims at securing an information society for all, emphasizing the importance of accessible and usable Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for everyone. While the body of research on young people’s use of ICT is quite comprehensive, research addressing digital differentiation in young people with disabilities’ use of ICT is still in its early days. This article investigates how young people with disabilities’ use, or non-use, of assistive ICT creates digital differentiations. The investigation elaborates on how the anticipations and stereotypes of disability establish an authoritative definition of assistive ICT, and the consequence this creates for the use of the Web by young people with disabilities. The object of the article is to provide enhanced insight into the field of technology and disability by illuminating how assistive ICT sometimes eliminates and sometimes reproduces stereotypes and digital differentiations. The investigation draws on a qualitative interview study with 23 young Norwegians with disabilities, aged 15–20 years. I draw on a theoretical perspective to analyze the findings of the study, which employs the concept of identity multiplicity. The article’s closing discussion expands on technology’s significance in young people’s negotiations of impairment and of perceptions of disability.
Highlights
Norwegian authorities’ policy aims at securing an information society for all, emphasizing the importance that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can be used by everybody, Future Internet 2013, 5 including people with disabilities [1,2]
The potential of ICT in young peoples lives has to be studied in its social envelope, which includes the sets of expectations, contexts, and social practices that surround it
Sometimes the assistive ICT assigned to the participants did not work as it should, sometimes it was not compatible with the ordinary ICT, and sometimes it was rejected by the participants due to its inherent symbols of restriction, difference, and dependency [29]
Summary
Norwegian authorities’ policy aims at securing an information society for all, emphasizing the importance that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can be used by everybody, Future Internet 2013, 5 including people with disabilities [1,2]. Achieving this goal involves making ICT accessible and usable according to the individual person’s needs and preferences. This article highlights the Internet-connected computer as a social medium, and it illuminates emerging differentiations in this kind of ICT use among young people. The article’s closing discussion expands on technologys significance in young peoples negotiations of impairment and perceptions of disability
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