Teenagers, AI, and digital literacies: Emerging practices in formal and shadow education settings
Submitted by:
Nikos Papadopoulos
Abstract:
Abstract
The growing integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into everyday life is reshaping teenage literacy practices (Proctor & Rish, 2025). From AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants to generative text and image applications, young people interact with AI-driven technologies in ways that influence how they create, interpret, and engage with digital content. While existing literature highlights the evolving nature of digital literacies in this technological-communicational landscape (Lacković et al., 2024), it also raises concerns about the emergence of a “new autonomous model of literacy” (Koutsogiannis, 2007), which emphasizes the transformative potential of digital tools but overlooks the complex historical and socio-cultural dimensions of literacy, communication, and learning. Within this context, the present study examines how seven teenagers (aged 13–17) in Greece engage with AI technologies in both formal and shadow education (Bray, 2011) settings. It explores the literacy practices, identity work, and engagement strategies that emerge in these contexts, focusing on three key aspects: (a) the types of literacy practices fostered by AI tools, (b) the competencies teenagers develop through interactions with AI-generated content, and (c) the broader implications for contemporary literacy education. Employing a qualitative, collaborative ethnographic approach (Guerrero et al., 2023), data were collected through recordings of teenagers’ digital interactions with AI (e.g., chatbot conversations, AI-generated texts and images), supplemented by field notes and reflective informal conversations. Each example is analyzed as a nexus point (Elf et al., 2020), where discourses in place —such as technological advancements and perceptions of ‘newness’— intersect with technological affordances and human – non-human agency (Godwin-Jones, 2024). Findings indicate that teenagers use AI software both creatively and pragmatically. On one hand, they engage in multimodal content generation, leveraging AI for creative expression. On the other, they use AI pragmatically to streamline academic tasks, such as generating essay drafts or automating routine schoolwork (Selwyn et al., 2020). While these practices demonstrate their technical fluency, they also reveal challenges in fully harnessing AI’s pedagogical potential. Ultimately, the study underscores the crucial role of contemporary schooling in fostering literate agents (Kalantzis & Cope, 2025) who can engage mindfully, critically, and ethically with AI technologies.
References
Bray, M. (2011). The Challenge of Shadow Education: Private Tutoring and its Implications for Policy Makers in the European Union. NESSE Report.
Elf, N., Bulfin, S., & Koutsogiannis, D. (2020). The Ongoing Technocultural Production of L1: Current Practices and Future Prospects. In: B. Green & P.-O. Erixon (Eds.), Rethinking L1 Education in a Global Era (pp. 209-234). Springer.
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Short Bio – Nikos Papadopoulos
PhD Student, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Email: nikospap59@gmail.com
T: (+30)6979951860
Nikos Papadopoulos is a secondary education Greek language teacher and a PhD Candidate in Educational Linguistics at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He holds an MA in Applied Linguistics, and his research explores teenage narrative practices in and out of school through sociolinguistic and discourse-analytic perspectives. His study examines how narrative is taught in school compared to how teenagers engage with storytelling in everyday postdigital contexts, focusing on literacy experiences, semiotic repertoires, and identity roles. His research interests, conference presentations and scientific publications span narrative studies, educational discourse analysis, genre studies, sociolinguistics, and New Literacy Studies.
Short Bio – Anastasia Topalidou Laskaridou
Email: anas.top-lask@outlook.com
T: (+30)6982868817
Anastasia Topalidou Laskaridou is a secondary education Greek language teacher with an academic background in linguistics and semiotics. She holds two MA degrees from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, one in Applied Linguistics and one in Semiotics, Culture, and Communication. Her research focuses on sociolinguistics, New Literacy Studies, genre studies, and social semiotics. She has presented her work at international conferences and contributed to scientific publications, exploring the interplay between meaning-making and communication in diverse social contexts, with a particular interest in multimodal discourse and the evolving nature of literacy in digital and educational contexts.