Research we have carried out over the last 12 years has led us to propose that learning is contextual, biographical, and embodied. It is not bound to time or space and is intensely mediated by what Barad (1996) calls intra-actions between people and the materiality of the world they are part of. This research trajectory has also led us to identify that young people's learning ways in all the ecosystems through which they move are embodied, nomadic and linked to affect (Hernández-Hernández, 2017). That has led us to focus the (name) project on the individualised monitoring of young people's learning trajectories.  Our purpose is to understand (1) the changes that are taking place in young university students concerning the meaning they give to learning and knowing, (2) the strategies they use to move between studying and learning, and (3) the learning contexts (Jornet & Erstad, 2018) through which they move inside and outside the university. 

During the preparation of the research project (name), we conducted a state of the art in which we explored: a) how young people see themselves; b) how researchers and media see them; c) how young university students are supposed to learn. This review reveals that many university students consider themselves post 20th century (McCrindle & Wolfinger, 2011). Not only were they born after the Internet and the WWW, in an increasingly digital world, but they have grown up in a VICA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) context. In a multifaceted social, political, economic, and technological milieu, manifesting themselves with a strong presence in social movements (Seemiller & Grace, 2017) and at the same time showing themselves to be more fearful and conservative (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2018; Twenge, 2017). These young people, who are considered the first Homo Globalis or citizens (Broennimann, 2017), have grown up connected to virtual environments and access to more information than any other generation (Seemiller & Grace, 2017). In the time not of "experts but the era of user-generated opinion" (McCrindle & Wolfinger, 2011, p.102), in which "data is cheap, but making sense of it is not" (boyd (sic), 2014, np).

This generation has different motivations and practices than its predecessors, the Millennials (Seemiller & Grace, 2016; 2017; Twenge, 2017). Digital by birth,  contemporary young people use multimodal forms of communication and information search (McCrlinde & Wolfinger, 2011), giving preference to platforms of a non-textual nature (Geraci et al., 2017). They have shown to prefer the role of observers, looking for real practical examples before applying their learning and the need to understand such applicability to get involved in the process (Seemiller & Grace, 2017). Many of them show great interest in social justice issues, showing themselves capable and involved in changing the world, and have proved to be much more receptive to gender identity issues (Broenniman, 2017). However, as Livingstone (2017) points out, many of the interpretations that are made of these generational data can lead to hasty conclusions, especially concerning the use of digital technologies. All this considering the unwanted consequences of the use of digital media, the possible problems of dispersion, superficiality (Carr, 2010), and the addictions promoted by persuasive technologies (Fogg, 2003). From this background, we are developing research in which the general purpose is exploring how university young people learn, considering their educational paths and their relationship with different learning environments (analogic and digital). 

To achieve the research the purpose of, we held four intensive conversations with each of the 50 participants from universities in Catalonia (28) and the Basque Country (22), following the collaborative approach developed in Hernández-Hernández (2017). Of these, 30 are women, and 20 are men, a proportion close to the distribution observed in Spanish universities in the 19-20 academic year (55.6 and 44.4). This paper focuses on a first meeting where, after introducing the research, signing the ethical protocol, and filling in a form with some sociological data, we invited students to dialogue with the representations depicted by sociological and psychological research on young people's attitudes. These representations were organised into 17 statements. The first ten referred to characteristics that could be considered positive, and the remaining 7 to those that could be considered negative. This dualism was strategically designed to make it easier for young people to identify themselves and their peers. Before starting these encounters, we met two students who helped us adapt the sentences to their language and understanding. In this paper, we have taken those considered negative, which are reflected in the information reviewed in the first part. As this paper has an exploratory character, we have chosen the contributions of the 13 students with whom we, the authors of this paper, have met. The analysis procedure we have followed is based on the transcription of the interviews. We have organised a table with two axes. The vertical axe contains the students' names and degrees, and the horizontal the keywords of the seven sentences. In the crossroads between the two axes we have placed students' sentences related to a) the difficulty in maintaining attention; b) straggle of following a complex text; c) feeling comfortable following pre-set tasks; c) feeling insecure if they have to take risks; d) being more interested in doing than in thinking; e) the constant use of devices such as mobile phones or virtual networks makes them superficial and to delve deeper into academic subjects; f) being more individualistic, alien to criticism; g) feeling uncomfortable with situations that generate contradiction because they question their points of view. After finishing this task, we thematised students' comments (Vaismoradi & Snelgrove, 2019). Some of the results of this analysis are referred to in the following section.

When we asked students participating in our research about their relationship with the statements derived from academic studies on youth, while they identified the issues, they questioned the robustness of the conclusions and opened up nuances, as we see in the following selection of findings: In relation to lack of attention, although they recognise that it is an issue that affects them, almost all of them consider a relationship between the difficulty of maintaining attention and the immediacy and speed of the response they must give to the messages they receive. The difficulty of reading complex texts depends on the purpose of the reading and when and how they must account for it: "It is not because of the difficulty of understanding a text, but because we are used to changing activities quickly.". Concerning whether they prefer to follow a patterned task, the predominant response was ambivalent, as Lisa points out: "Sometimes I've appreciated it because it's less work for me; if they tell you how to do it, it loses a lot of fun". Finally, about the preference for doing rather than thinking, students question this dichotomy because "they are different phases of the same process: they occur at the same time and alternate". The studies we chose for state of the art were carried out mainly in the United States and anglo contexts. That implies a limitation and the need to consider that when applied to other realities, we must consider the biases of the context. That entails the need to ponder cultural and social nuances and those related to the studies being carried out. That is an invitation to explore the issues we pay attention to in research with students from different cultural and social backgrounds and academic traditions.

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