"Stay at home, stay online". Internet and social networks during lockdown

The aim of this paper is to give a comparative analysis of the way in which young people coming from different European Countries had been using the Internet during the “lockdown period” imposed by national Institutions between march and april 2020 to cope with Covid-19 Pandemia. In the first paragraph the focus is on the informative uses of the Internet. More in details, we observed how old and new media integrated in the “digital diets” of young people during the crisis period. In the second paragraph the attention shifts on social network uses; in particular we observed their impact on young people’s information search, on their emotional status and on their possibility to get in touch with other people, giving and receiving concrete – albeit online – support. In the third paragraph we analysed the relationship between young people and some services provided by the Internet had become pivotal during lockdown (e-commerce, food delivery, entertainment). Finally we examined the relationship between young people and the “digital translation” of some relevant dimensions in everyday life such as work, studying and religion/spirituality.