Teaching and learning in all its complexity takes increasingly place in heavily mediated environments; especially young people lives are replete with Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). ICT penetrates into all niches of young peoples’ world affecting aspects of their cognitive-, social-, and emotional- selves, as well as their styles of learning (Tedesco 1995, Don Ihde 2002, Sancho 1996). My purpose in this paper is to explore how ICT is changing youth’s life styles and which repercussions ICT has especially for young people’s health and learning. More specifically, I will explore the following set of questions: Is the introduction of ICT promotes sedentary life style? What can we learn from these new life styles? How do they affect young people health? What implications can be drawn from those changes in relation to schools? How to reduce the distance between the school and the new social practices and geography of youth? And finally, how could educational research contribute to reduce the distance among institutional education and young peoples’ lives? In this paper I expose my research as a doctoral student in the Research Group of Formation, Innovation, and New Technologies (FINT) pertaining to the University of Barcelona. This research belongs to a National Research Project 2007-2010 (SEJ2007-67562) called “Policy and Practice regarding ICT in Education: Implication for educational Innovation and Improvement” in which I collaborate as a research assistant.

The complexity and social nature of the research problem situates my approach with a social-constructionist paradigm (Guba y Lincoln 1994). Following these positions I develop a methodological approach based on Ethnography (Hammersley 1995) and Narrative Inquiry (Connelly and Clandini 1995). The methodology includes three components: A) Literature review and state of the art B) Ethnography in two secondary schools during one year. In addition, focused participant observation/shadowing of four tech-savvy students during one year (one day per week). A narrative approach will be used to make visible the whole ethnographic (research) process including both the researcher and the participants. C) Guided interviews with selected members of the school community. Focus groups will be held to deepen, contrast and triangulate the data.

This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of life styles of young people that develop in conjunction with ICT. The overarching goal thereby consists in reducing the distance between the world of schooling and the everyday life world of today’s youth. Expected outcomes: - Identifying the changes brought about by ICT on life styles of secondary students (age 12-16). - Insights on how these changes are related to health issues and new possibilities of learning. - To further elucidate the embodied dimension of the ICT and its repercussion to the health. - The final aim of this paper is to share concerns and reflections that were generated during my experience as a junior researcher and doctorate student.