## 2 Background  
The potential of ICT in young people's lives has to be studied in its social envelope, which includes the sets of expectations, contexts, and social practices that surround it. Virtually all young Norwegians are active computer and Internet users. The majority, 91 per cent, frequently engage in online communication, mainly with offline friends and acquaintances [8, 11]. Online communication and surfing the Internet for fun and leisure are the most popular digital activities among young people in general [12, 13, 14]. A comprehensive body of research finds that young people's use of online communication and online activities are highly integrated into their offline relationships; it also finds that the real and the virtual are no longer separate worlds but are permeable and influential upon each other [15, 16, 17]. Former socio-economic differences related to ICT have evened out during the last years, especially when it comes to the Internet as a social medium [3, 7, 14]. However, young people are expected by their peers to be digitally connected, and if they are not, they are not able to participate in their peers' communities [13, 17, 18].  
Previous research on people with disabilities and ICT has mainly focused on adults' perceptions and use of ICT [19, 20, 21]. Past work in this area illuminates how adults with disabilities, especially those who have a hard time meeting other people, benefit from online self-help groups and disability-related websites. Even though disability and kinship remain the principle bond online, the possibilities offered by the Internet have great personal significance for many people with disabilities [21, 22, 23]. In line with other studies that find age to be the most consistent difference in use of ICT [8, 16, 23], this article illuminates a different picture of ICT's impact on young people with disabilities.  
The Norwegian government uses two different strategies to promote access to ICT and ICT assistive technology for people with disabilities. The first strategy, which emphasises the universal design of ICT, has focused thus far on public websites, open standards, and open sources [24]. The second strategy is a rights-based national assistive technology diffusion system. Every Norwegian county houses an Assistive Technology Centre that provides assistive technologies, free of charge, to people whose ability to function in everyday life is considerably and persistently reduced. These centres provide assistive technology solutions for people of all ages for use at home, school, work, or leisure. Common ICT assistive technologies include various hardware and software, ICT tools, and equipment for handling the computer and communication aids [25].  
Assistive technology may be defined as any item, piece of equipment, or product that is applied to secure, increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities [26]. Moreover, assistive technologies are technologies used to improve, expand, or extend people's performances, actions, and interactions, and thus they are often experienced as an extension of the body [25, 26, 27]. This implies that using assistive ICT involves more than overcoming environmental barriers. Assistive technologies are loaded with collective cultural traditions, symbols, and values, and subjective feelings and meanings assigned the technology [26, 28]. While young people find use of ICT to symbolize competence, belonging, and independence, they find use of assistive ICT to symbolize restriction, difference, and dependency [29]. This contradiction makes the combined use of ICT and assistive ICT of special interest to the cross-disciplinary field of disability and technology studies.