Based on the premises stated above, the research Youths Online, carried out at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro ( PUC-Rio),1 Brazil, had as its main objective the identification, among youths recently entering university, of the Internet’s fields of representation and their meaning to this group in contrast with the representations of the book and television. This research was a social inquiry, using, as the main tool, an extensive questionnaire about the relationship between young people and the use of computer and Internet. The group studied had 973 students, representing 75% of all youths recently entering university, registering in February, 2006.2 This group statistically represents youths coming from middle to higher classes and those coming from lower income classes who have access to university through the ProUni3 program. The group’s profile was totally balanced as regards gender.
In terms of age, the higher percentages were between 17 and 19-year-olds, with 18-year-olds being the largest (42%), followed closely by 17-year-olds (31%) and 19-year-olds (12%), which is understandable, since this is the expected university entrance age in Brazil.
We verified that the selected youths can use the computer, with 97% of students own- ing a computer and 13% accessing computers either at friends’ houses, at school, or at community centers. The variation between middle to higher income students and lower income students can be explained by the fact that the former have more than one computer at home, as well as personal laptops, while the latter have no more than one computer per household and predominantly have a dial-up connection to the Internet, rather than broadband.
This difference, however, does not produce significant differences in the opinions of both groups as regards the value of computers and of the Internet and their social representation.
In relation to the activities young university students engage in in their free time, most in both groups highly enjoy computer activities, whether to play games or to communicate, in this case through the Internet. However, lower income students watch television more than they use the computer in their free time, which is cer- tainly due to the widespread use of television, all over Brazil, by all social classes, mainly the lower ones.4
The same situation happened when the students were asked which medium they mostly use to stay informed. Most pointed to the Internet and to television, with less favored students once again showing a higher percentage as regards the use of television.
When asked which representations they made of the computer even at a time when they still could not use one, between 54% and 75% affirmed that they were curious
about and attracted to this technology, highly expectant of it, mainly because they believe in the efficiency of the computer, and that its use can solve most problems!!5 We can notice here the myth of the “philosopher’s stone,” which, for Wolfram von Eschenbach, in his novel Parzival, was considered to have been thrown from the skies by celestial beings and to have unimaginable powers.
Another representation of the Internet extracted from the students’ statements is that of a mask which protects one’s true identity. This was alluded to by 58% of youths, while among those from lower income classes the number goes up to 77%.
One can notice here that the so-called protection the Internet confers upon its user is being taken for real by the youths, who are actually unaware of the possible traps the Internet, like Theseus’ labyrinth, can pose. Such an idea that the Internet has a great power to hide also appears, albeit in another form, among the representations of several teachers, however with a negative connotation, when it is regarded as an unreliable learning tool, since it can conceal the source of information or the true identity of the purported author.
Young people are not aware of the navigation plan and the difficulties of the journey.
To them, what is attractive is the ability to open new windows, always “discover- ing” new territories, “strange lands,” as fascinating as a labyrinth. The labyrinth is appealing for what it hides; it incites an incessant search for the “infinitely lost object” which is chased after but never actually found, but which, while searched, reveals a myriad of other paths where other objects can be found, thus sustaining the illusion of conquest. The magic of the Internet, as a labyrinth with several paths, allowing crossroads and impasse which is sometimes hard to solve, is defended by youths. To them, the representations of the Internet have a positive connotation, as some of their statements reveal: limitless communication; connects the world;
access to the world; best tool ever invented; an invention that changed the world;
widening of territories; reaching several places without leaving home; how did I manage to live without it; infinite possibilities… infinite!!
Actually, these representations by the youths contain not only the metaphor of the labyrinth, but also the symbol of the spiral. The spiral stands for the appearance of a circular movement starting at an original point, maintain- ing and extending this movement infinitely, and, therefore, is related to the labyrinth in that it represents both evolution and involution. It symbolizes extension, development, cyclical, albeit forward continuity, creational rota- tion. It denotes permanence of being within the fugacity of movement. It should be noted that young people’s enchantment by the Internet also lies on these qualities.
Nevertheless, that which is attractive to youths—the search for what’s new—is experienced as scary by many teachers, since it reflects the typically human sensa- tion of being lost and of not knowing how to or not being able to return. Such is the
representation that quite a big group of teachers make of the Internet, in this sense represented by a tress labyrinth.
In opposition to a spiral, an open and optimistic symbol, a tress is a closed symbol, a prison, without any chances of escaping, symbolizing, therefore, involution.6
The Internet, in order to be seen simultaneously as a spiral and a tress, requires that those browsing it define their identity very clearly, for otherwise they will get lost in it. This is what many teachers fear, as well as some of the youths from our research, as evidenced by these statements: depending on its use, great; useful if well utilized; necessary but alienating; must be used with moderation and care; use it but avoid becoming addicted; sometimes stressful; a source of control of our lives by others; ingenious, though not being used constructively.
Attractive or dangerous? What should really move the one who enters the labyrinth? Find the path that leads to the center and to what is to be revealed.
How about the danger? It lies in not knowing how to return. The labyrinth only accepts those who set out to discover the plans it contains, those who can bravely forge ahead without fear of getting lost. Because of the threat of getting lost, the labyrinth can be rejected, but, with Ariadne’s Thread given to Theseus, assuring the return and the possibility of, upon returning, going back in, it is desired and traversed. Ariadne is the figure that stays outside but is also inside, represented by the conducting thread given to Theseus.
On the Internet, we are inside, while also being outside; we are all Theseus with Ariadne’s Thread, a synthesis of both, when we use the search tools on the Internet, when we get the answers to our queries, “solve” our riddles, just like Theseus who killed the Minotaur hidden in the labyrinth of Crete built by Dedalus. Herein lays the importance of those who patiently lay out their strategies and, once in the labyrinth, move form node to node, confident in their navigational charts and in the marks of their identities.7
If both teachers and learners adopt this pondering posture, if they become aware of the true value of this invention, it seems certain that the learning environment can only gain, for teachers can make use of it without losing their main role of guiding their students’ construction of knowledge.
The analysis of the data showed that there is no significant difference between uni- versity students from different social classes as regards the importance and the use of the computer. A more detailed analysis of the representations of the computer and the Internet reveals the interdependence and the articulation of values and problems while building a judgement of the media, a space for the production and reproduc- tion of a moral culture which, in the end, defines human experience.