Youth Experiencing the Algorithmic Flow: The Shared Understanding of Contemporary Social Media Consumption

Abstract

This article investigates how young people experience and cope with the algorithmically curated streams of content that characterise platforms such as TikTok. The study aims to expand current understandings of adolescents’ practical engagement with social media, introducing new nuances to what it means to be “competent” in such environments as defined by their own perspectives and practices. In doing so, it moves beyond deficit narratives of youth as passive consumers, instead emphasising their situated agency in navigating algorithmically shaped spaces.

The article builds on theoretical frameworks from youth studies and critical digital literacies, extending recent debates on algorithmic flows and agency. These perspectives offer tools to understand how datafication, recommendation systems, and evolving digital literacies intersect with identity formation and peer culture in networked media environments. By focusing on how adolescents internalise and tactically negotiate these flows, the study contributes to reframing digital competence as adaptive, reflexive, and socially distributed.

Empirically, the research draws on qualitative data collected through class-level group interviews with approximately 100 Italian high school students aged 17–19.

Findings indicate that adolescents perceive algorithmic flow as always-on, ephemeral, seamlessly adaptive, and closely tied to personal and social identity. Within this dynamic, they develop tactical practices, such as selective scrolling, skipping, liking, or saving, that co-construct their feeds. These practices highlight how algorithmic agency is understood, appropriated, and embodied as a dimension of contemporary youth culture.