Chapter 5: Young Adults' (Re)Negotiation of Gender and Sexual Identities Across Mobile Apps in Portugal

Stemming from a critical approach towards technology (understood as a producer of meanings, subjectivity and agency, and, thus, shaped by power relations) and taking into account the role of broader societal norms and structures in technological uses and gratifications, this chapter explores the (re)negotiations of gender and sexual identities among Portuguese young adult app users. It focuses on if app usage allows these users to break heterocisnormativity and hegemonic notions of masculinity. For that purpose, the study conducted six focus groups involving 31 participants and 25 semi-structured interviews with young adults (18–30 years old). The scripts were designed to collect data about mobile app usage practices and what meanings interviewees attribute to used platforms, navigating through imaginaries, meanings, appropriations, incorporations and mostly negotiations. Analytically, this study contributes to an enhanced understanding of how apps might change young adult lives concerning gender and sexual identities and to challenging uses and gratifications theory, which, after almost 80 years since its first formulations, has gained new impetus with the ongoing digitisation process and the so-called interactive technologies that integrate it.