ICT Use, Cultural and Leisure Lifestyles and Social Structure of Romanian Youth, in Central and Eastern European Context

• Main Author: Valér Veres
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Expert Projects 2017-09-01
• Series: Sociologie Românească
• Subjects: ICT use; lifestyles; culture and leisure consume; youth; social structure; community
• Online Access: https://arsociologie.ro/revistasociologieromaneasca/sr/article/view/4

In this paper we analyse the cultural and leisure lifestyle and internet and computer technology (ICT) use of the Romanian young population according to their position in the social structure, focusing on frequent ICT users and so called “screenagers”. The empirical source are the EUROSTAT statistics between 2008 and 2016 and a random survey (ANSIT) for Romania, from 2008, out the 18-35 age group, with 998 cases. First we characterised the Romanian youth situation in EU and CEE context. We observed a serious social and digital gap between Romania and the most CEE EU member countries in 2008, which was improved partially until 2013-2016. Then, only for Romanian case, we have created four consumer groups by means of factor analysis representing ICT related cultural lifestyles. These groups are the following: ‘screenagers’ who consume culture through computers and the internet, being informed from these sources, communicating with their help, ’clubbing and sport’ lifestyle, ‘high culture’ and ‘home literature readers’. We have also analysed the socio-demographic background of ICT frequent users: high educational level and a residence in a big city predict frequent ICT use for various purposes. Screenager lifestyle is strongly associated with the upper and upper-middle class status, but also other lifestyles are present among middle class youngsters in Romania, while the youth from lower class and deprived are under represented in all lifestyle groups.