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236 Manuel Castells et al.On the other hand, we defined a “Young Catalonia” segment of the population,using as an indicator those people who started their primary education in1980, the year that the Catalan Statute was approved that enshrined the autonomyof Catalonia in the new, democratic Spain. We also included in this group,of course, those who entered school subsequently. This is equivalent to the15–29-year age group in our study. When we consider this group, the percentageof current and future high-school graduates and college graduates is close tothe European Union average, and similar to that of France. And so is the percentageof Internet users, and the demographic distribution of frequency and intensityin Internet use. Thus, Catalonia is experiencing an extraordinary change incultural and educational terms, to the point that the digital divide is in fact aneducational–age divide, as a result of the history of Catalonia and the heritage ofFrancoism, an historical period characterized by educational and cultural backwardness.The challenge for the new Catalonia will be to avoid social fractureby age, given the high life expectancy of the population and the fact that morethan 22 percent of Catalans are over 60 years old. In fact, not only are 39 percentof Catalans not connected to the Internet, but they are also determined never touse the Internet because they see no use for it in their lives. As we will analyzebelow, the critical matter for the majority of the population is the lack of anyappealing offer of Internet use that fits into their lives.In broader terms, while the age gap in terms of education and use of theInternet is less dramatic in North America and Northern Europe, we suspectthat, worldwide, Catalonia is more representative of what is taking place in thediffusion of the Internet, and its associated culture, than, let us say,Scandinavia. That is: in most societies, the new generations are growing up inan Internet-based world, in a culture of multimedia and global communication,and in a new technological paradigm, and find that all around them is a societywhose institutions and organizations are in the hands of elites andmanagers with little openness to technology and great reluctance to culturaland organizational change. Thus, the digital divide is not only a matter ofsocial inequality but of a differential openness to the Internet and its organizationalcorrelates. If we understand the Internet as a culture of autonomy basedon a technology of freedom, our findings suggest that social conservatism andtechnological stalemate go hand in hand in Catalonia, and, probably, in mostof the world.NETWORKED SOCIABILITY IN A HYPER-SOCIALCULTUREWe know, from the available evidence, that sociability, in the age of theInternet, neither dwindles nor surges, but transforms itself, under the form of