Social arts

In this Insights essay, we propose a new concept of offlineness that builds on current language around digital practices, yet addresses an element of young people’s experience that is not adequately represented in current research or educational discourse. This work is informed by a recent cross-national arts-based research project that highlighted the limitations of the discourse ascribed to the nature of young people’s engagement with digital literacies. We propose a (re)theorization, which builds on a critical review of current conceptual research and digital commentaries. Theorizing offlineness as a continuum between online and offline practices is tantamount to a paradigm shift toward more nuanced understandings of young people’s digital practices. It offers researchers and educators a more precise way to speak to young people’s digital experiences, providing a productive tool to (re)construct learning and inquiry spaces in literacy research and education.

It’s taken for granted in many if not most school environments today that digital technology should be integrated throughout the curriculum to enhance not only communication and creativity but also equal access to resources and opportunities.

Digital skills are considered critical for youth navigating the world — and for gaining mobility. Mobility is understood to mean both the nimbleness to communicate and enter into cross-cultural forums or dialogues (into new kinds of cultural “spaces” through internet platforms or digital technologies) and the capacity to move across socio-economical and cultural groups in everyday life.

A young person’s representation of their digital day.
While it’s critical for literacy educators to support student inquiry through digital media, is it the case that because young generations grew up as “digital natives” the tools of technology are inherently preferable today for fostering creativity? And when digital technologies foster mobility into new spaces, how do youth experience this?

As researchers who study what it means to be creative and literate today, we wanted to explore these questions and to gain insight into how young people think about digital media and their young digital lives.

In a climate where our pedagogical practices are increasingly digitized across all levels of schooling and public pedagogies, this article draws on a study on the nature and scope of young people’s engagement with the “screen.” Across two cities in Scotland and Canada, 30 youth took part in a participatory arts-based project guided by the question: To what extent do the digital practices of these young people reflect common assumptions about access and engagement to digital and global literacies? This chapter presents the findings of this study, shedding light on the complexity and diversity of digital engagement and the misconceptions of “screen-obsessed” youth. The authors argue that by focusing on the “digital” in education, we are working with an outdated perspective and as a consequence, very often missing more urgent, relevant, and productive questions of educational space, ethics, safety, curriculum content and engagement in an era where “offline” is an historical and redundant concept.