IJFS - Interdisciplinary Journal of Family Studies

Young people daily use the media and the new media - social networks and TV series, music and videogames, cinema and comic strips, etc. - to find the resources they need in their everyday life. Adults, instead, tend to view technological change with anxiety as, not being part of their culture, they are unable to fully understand it. The outlook of young people, who take media presence for granted, is opposed to that of adults on those media which, despite being deeply-rooted in social life, are more often seen as risks than opportunities. Furthermore, they can sometimes become scapegoats for deviant behaviour or social problems. These outlooks are differently competent, they highlight the existence of a generation gap, which too often becomes a boundary between adults and young people, produced and reiterated by the media but made deeper by the simplifications of common sense.