“It lives all around us”: Aspects of data literacy in teen's lives

In this paper, we examine young people's data literacy in terms of their awareness of data and the rhetoric that surrounds it, as well as their knowledge of data flows. This is the first phase of the Exploring Data Worlds at the Public Library research study research study, a two-year research study that explores the ways that libraries can address data literacy programming by helping teens understand, create and manage the digital traces of their data in meaningful, efficacious, and ethical ways. In this first phase of the study we explored the question What do young people understand about data within the context of their everyday lives and in relation to personal data management. We present here the findings from a series of semi-structured interviews with young people, ages 11 to 18, that examined teens' perceptions and general knowledge of data in their lives. Results suggest that the teens in this study had varying interpretations of the nature of data and a broad understanding of the lifecycle of data, but most found it difficult to connect with data at a concrete and personal level, with the notion of a personal data dossier either non-existent or abstract.