The Millennial Generation: A Study on Digital Consumption of Portuguese Youth

Abstract

The research project "Digital Rights: A password for the future" is framed within the context of an 18 lecture series in district capitals of Portugal on consumptions, digital literacy and rights. The project aimed to identify digital literacy as well as practices and media consumption, understand perceptions of new media, explain risk situations on the Internet and provide information about of rights and duties in the digital world.In this paper we present the results of the project "Digital Rights: A password for the future", developed by a group of researchers from the Autonomous University of Lisbon in partnership with DECO, and describe indicators of digital consumption of young Portuguese students. By analysing the most common activities online, digital practices, digital consumption and behaviour on social networks, our aim is to describe the 'Millennial Generation' in an era of screens and mobility.

Consumption of musical content and movies/series online in Portugal

“…A significant relationship between gender and frequency of Internet use in the access of movies and series online was also confirmed. The link between education and frequency of Internet use in accessing music (or music videos) online, suggested by [9], was not confirmed. Also, the hypothesis that the Portuguese consumers are not homogeneous concerning their intensity of Internet use to access music and movies online is validated.…”

“…Other study shows that, (1) the consumers with a higher education tend to use the Internet more often and with a greater variety of use, (2) the employed workers tend to have higher frequency of Internet use than students, (3) gender is significantly relevant in all types of Internet use other than email; and, (4) urban users are prone to greater frequency of Internet use [9]. Thus, it is intended to test the following hypotheses:…”

“…A group of authors [8] examined the consumption of online news video in six countries (Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom and United States) and the findings reflect the power of social media platforms in influencing news consumption habits. Regarding the music online habits, other authors [9] explored whether there are country-specific differences in users' listening behavior on music platforms, based on the data from consumers of 47 countries. Their study results show the existence of country-specific differences in music listening behavior with respect to the degree of deviation from the global mainstream.…”

Transmedia in Geosciences Education

“…Although currently, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students are somewhat more familiar with digital technologies, at the time of the implementation of this research, this type of technology was very little used. On the other hand, according to several studies [4,59], young people preferentially use the Internet on their mobile phones for activities related to entertainment. Activities like uploading content and sharing hashtags are unfamiliar to students and needed in transmedia activities, which conditioned participation in this study, since transmedia involves active participation in order to contribute to the narrative itself.…”

“…The development of the activities was based on the application of transmedia storytelling and the Science-Technology-Society (STS) perspective. Considering the prevalence of the school textbook in Portuguese basic education [3], this approach emerged as an attempt to make the resources used in geoscience education more attractive to students, using digital technologies, and taking into account their presence in students' everyday lives [4]. Since nowadays society is increasingly digital, this study also aimed to contribute to the use of digital technologies to promote the development of literacies and skills related to digital technologies, since they can contribute to citizenship.…”