Neither with you nor without you my sorrows have no remedy, with you because you kill me and without you because I die. Antonio Machado. Spanish poet (1875-1939)

Today's societies are heavily permeated and configured by digital technologies, and education is no exception. Higher Education students are now "post-20th century" (McCrindle & Wolfinger, 2011). They have grown up connected to virtual environments and have access to more information than any other generation (Sancho-Gil, 2021; Seemiller and Grace, 2017). This fact has brought McCrindle & Wolfinger (2011, p. 102) to argue that our era "It's not the era of experts but the era of user-generated opinion". In a world where "data is cheap but making sense of it is not'' (Boyd, 2010; Sancho and Hernández, 2018).

The multiplication of communication tools and codes, more and more available for young people, means an increasing tendency to use multimodal forms of communication and information search (McCrlinde & Wolfinger, 2011). Young people seem to prefer non-textual content platforms (Geraci et al., 2017), show a predilection for the role of observers, seek real practical examples before applying their learning, and need to understand such applicability to be involved in the process (Seemiller and Grace, 2017). At the same time, the old trend of copying and plagiarism has considerably grown (Abbas et al., 2021; Diaz et al., 2021). The recent emergence of chatbots such as ChatGPT -to which development the tycoon Bill Gates seems ready to invest 10 billion dollars (Fabino, 2023), is representing new challenges for meaningful student learning and universities (Cochrane, 2022; 2023 Huang, 2023; Illingworth, 2023; Kramer, 2022).

There is a long-time predominant discourse of celebration and applause of any technological development, mainly digital. However, as discussed for decades, technological development impacts nature, social systems and individuals. And the consequences are not always positive and desirable (Morozov, 2013; Shallis, 1984; Mumford, 1938).

In our world of apparently unlimited digital technology and information, everyone seeks people's attention, which is essential to think and making informed decisions. Everybody knows that without attention (which implies time and concentration), friendship, love, family, followers, business, work, and learning are impossible. Human relations, publicity, media, educational institutions, and churches are all trying to obtain this limited human attribute. For Lankshear & Knobel (2001) and Lanham (2006), the scarcest product is attention in the new economy. As human beings' capacity to produce consumer goods, information, etc., widely surpasses peoples' capacity to consume them, the need to attract attention is becoming the focus of productive activity.

This growing and seemingly unstoppable phenomenon is giving rise to an exploration of the collateral and detrimental effects of the impact of digital technologies on young people (Twenge (2017; Desmurguet, 2020; Alter, 2018; Sampedro, 2018). Due to the excessive and unwise use promoted by persuasive technologies (Fogg, 2003).

One of today's paramount issues is educating over-stimulated people who often feel bored. In this context, contemporary universities are confronting the colossal challenge of capturing students' attention and interest and, even more, guaranteeing meaningful learning processes for all students beyond passing the exams. For their part, students are confronting the need to evade the persuasive "siren calls" of digital technology. We need to understand how they deal with the technological world; they can see it as an ally or a monster. What strategies are they using to make the most of their situation, and how do they value what digital technology gives and takes out of them? This controversial and entangled situation has been one of the main issues of the [anonymised] research project.

This communication builds on the project [anonymised], whose aim is to explore the learning trajectories of young university students to situate their conceptions, strategies, contexts and relationships with technologies, adopts a participatory and inclusive research perspective (Bergold & Thomas, 2012; Nind, 2014; Wilmsen, 2008). It involves the academic community (students, academics, managerial bodies) to contribute to a better way to meet contemporary students' learning needs. In the first stage have participated 50 university students, 28 from Catalonia and 22 from the Basque Country. Thirty were women, 20 were men (55.6% and 44.4%, close to the distribution observed in Spanish universities in the academic year 2019-2020), and seven had special needs (14%). Throughout four meetings, we explored and built with them their learning lives (Erstad & Sefton-Green, 2012), placing special attention on their university experience. In the first meeting, we made sure we had conveniently explained the research scope and aims and the compromise it entailed for them and us. We signed the ethical protocols. Then, we shared a set of contradictory views about contemporary youth. In the second meeting, they shared a reconstruction of their learning lives from childhood to the present through textual, multimodal and rhizomatic narratives; they highlighted moments, places, people, activities, objects, technologies, timeframes, turning points, etc., which they considered crucial to their learning paths. The third meeting focused on learning moments, methods, tools, and strategies they identify as relevant for their daily learning, including academic and non-academic activities undertaken inside or outside the institutional walls. In the final session, researchers, after dialoguing and conceptualising the information generated with the participants, shared a draft of their learning trajectories to contribute to the final version of the text. All meetings were audio-recorded and transcribed. This paper focuses on the role of digital technologies in higher education students' learning and everyday life. In particular: (1) their ways of describing their use of digital technologies; (2) their perceptions about how these technologies influence their learning; (3) their beliefs and conceptions about digital technologies and their social impact. To review these reflections, the researchers' team conducted a first thematic analysis of the transcription of the interviews with the 50 students. They highlighted statements and observations about their experiences and considerations regarding digital technologies for each student. This first database underwent a second thematic analysis to evidence common discourses and patterns.

Participants' reflections and experiences showed that the interviewed students live in a constant ambivalent feelings regarding the role of DT in their lives. This ambivalence is reflected in all areas of their lives: personal, interpersonal relationships, and learning. Regarding their personal lives, DT has allowed them to gain comfort and optimise their productivity. However, they also expressed their concerns related to the dependency generated by DT and the feeling of wasting time absorbed by them. Many students feared that DT could make us lose fundamental cognitive abilities, such as the capacity to focus, pay attention and concentrate. However, some of them remarked how by freeing us from specific mental loads (e.g. memorising), DT could offer us spaces to develop other forms of thought. Some of them also considered the relationship between DT and mental health. According to some students, DT had a detrimental effect on their mental health, e.g. lowering self-esteem or depriving them of a moment of absolute rest. According to other students, digital technologies offer benefits in raising self-esteem and allowing resources for rest and escape. Their comments about the impact of DT on interpersonal relationships also reflect these mixed feelings Regarding the impact of DT on learning, students also showed puzzling opinions. They referred to DT at the same time as learning triggers and distractors. For some, how digital technologies have reshaped learning ecologies has provided them with much information and diversified learning resources. This new landscape offers them opportunities to access information "just in time", deepening into themes of interest, widening their knowledge and entering into contact with new ideas and worldviews. However, the overabundance of information makes it challenging to go deep into something and build profound knowledge; they often "just read diagonally" and are used to rapidly switching their themes of interest.

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