Tensions between digital imperatives and digital needs among young people

The paper examines how young people negotiate the imperatives of digitalised and deeply mediatised societies and how these socio-structural demands are translated into “digital needs” and everyday practices. Building on the concept of deep mediatization, we understand digital media not as an external layer of social life but as infrastructural conditions of participation, learning, work, and relationships. These conditions generate structural pressures – such as constant connectivity, availability, responsiveness, and technological competence – that are often experienced as self-evident rather than explicitly articulated. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, we conceptualise digital imperatives as internalized normative expectations that condition what counts as being a competent, responsible, and included subject in contemporary society. In contrast, digital needs are approached as practical responses and negotiation strategies through which youth seek to maintain autonomy, belonging, and well–being within these conditions. By focusing on this relationship, the paper asks how young people experience these imperatives in everyday life, what tensions emerge from them, and how these tensions are expressed through young people’s digital needs and practices.

Empirically, the study is based on in–depth group interviews conducted in 2024 in Slovenia within the Digital Maturity of Youth research project. We analysed semi–structured focus group interviews with 41 participants aged 16–24 using inductive thematic analysis. Sample is demographically diverse, including high school students, university students, and employed and unemployed youth who have already left formal education with variation across gender, urban/rural location, and educational level. We followed the principles of research ethics in the process of recruitment (informed consent, in case of minors also parental consent) and during data-gathering, management and analysis (pseudonymization and anonymization).

The analysis identifies three recurring tensions through which the relationship between digital imperatives and digital needs becomes visible. First, young people navigate the imperative to remain informed while facing information overload, negative news cycles, and uncertainty about credibility; this tension is managed through selective monitoring, avoidance, and heuristic assessments of trustworthy sources. Second, young people encounter digital competence as a taken-for-granted requirement in education and the labour market, alongside limited institutional support for developing the skills they consider relevant (e.g., privacy and security, financial and platform literacy, and credibility assessment). This tension contributes to the individualisation of responsibility and to self-initiated learning via platforms, peers, and paid courses—often described as abundant yet fragmented and difficult to navigate. Third, expectations of constant connection and affective availability in friendships and family life coexist with a need for digital disconnection; young people develop micro-strategies of limiting notifications, tracking screen time, deleting apps, and selectively disengaging, even while acknowledging that everyday infrastructures increasingly require digital access.

Conceptually, the paper advances a socio-cultural understanding of digital well-being and digital harm as emerging through situational, relational, and culturally mediated practices rather than as purely psychological states. By foregrounding negotiation as a central analytic lens, we contribute to digital media scholarship by clarifying how young people’s digital needs are formed within, and not outside, the imperatives of digitalised societies.