Abstract

Innovations such as the internet and devices such as Smartphones have revolutionised the way individuals communicate, interact, play, and access knowledge. The impact of this innovation has resulted in a fundamental change in human communicational culture. As a result, individuals increasingly layer social tasks, interacting in co-presence and through technology simultaneously. Young people now inhabit new social spaces which straddle ‘real’ and virtual’ worlds and use technologies to communicate in new ways which are more suitable to their preference. While the literature suggests that technologies are having a significant impact on the co-present face-to-face ritual interactions which bond our solidarity as humans, the youth work field has, as yet, failed to express how the profession should respond to these changes. What has been produced from the field essentially offers guidance of how practitioners can utilise new technologies to enhance practice and increase young people’s media literacies. This guidan