## 5 Findings and Discussion
### Inherent Symbols of Assistive ICT
Even though screen magnifiers provide partially sighted persons with better access to the visual interfaces of the web, five out of seven partially sighted participants in this study completely rejected the screen magnifiers assigned to them. The reason they gave for their rejection of the ICT assistive technology was its unsuitability for digital interaction with peers. When they describe their experiences with the ICT assistive technology, feelings of restriction, difference, and dependency emerged. These feelings were reflected in expressions that typified their perceptions of the ICT assistive technology: \"too much bother,\" \"no point,\" and \"stupid,\" \"difficult,\" \"boring,\" and \"annoying\". Not surprisingly, the vocabulary of young people differs from that of adults and academics. Their expressions reflected a sense of assistive ICT as drawing attention to restriction, difference, and dependency, characteristics that were associated with a medical understanding of disability and with an identity as deviant [40]--an identity that was rejected by all the participants in the study. Other participants, such as the blind participants, who are dependent on a screen reader, and those with upper limb movement difficulties, who is dependent on the keyboard BigKeys, do not have the luxury of rejecting assistive ICT if they want to participate in the community of their peers. The importance of this participation forces them to adopt the assistive ICT. Even though using assistive technology identifies them as disabled, it is also their only opportunity to participate and display their individually chosen identity. This opportunity seems to overshadow the risk of being identified as disabled. Disability is not an issue for the participants; their impairment is a natural part of their everyday lives. When questioned directly about how they experience their impairment, they typically answered: \"I do what ordinary people do, hang out with friends,\" \"It's nothing,\" and \"I just talk to my friends like everybody else about everyday stuff.\" As for most young people, it is very important for young people with disabilities not to stand out as different from their peers [6, 43]. In discussing impairment, the reticence these participants demonstrate is not uncommon for young people with disabilities [40, 44]. The participants do not perceive themselves as different from other young people just because they happen to be partially sighted or blind or have mobility difficulties. Like many young people with disabilities, the participants construct their self-identity in such a way that impairment is negated as an identifier [45]. These young participants demonstrated how using ICT involves more than accessing technical equipment: of equal importance is using the appropriate technology and the way in which it is used. Thus these young people with disabilities preferred being poor ICT users to being disabled ICT users. Young people with disabilities find themselves caught in a bind between concealment and disclosure. In a culture of consumption, the symbols of youth and disability exist in a relationship of profound tension, as do the symbols of ICT and assistive technology. While youth symbolises potency, vigour, and strength, disability symbolises restriction, difference, and dependency [29, 34, 40]. Thus, youth and disability, like mainstream ICT and assistive ICT, constitute two very distinct and incompatible identities that clash with and recoil from one another [34]. This age-related incompatibility makes it even harder for young people with disabilities to negotiate a preferred self-identity. Even though using assistive ICT may ease their access to ICT and their participation in the peer group, using assistive ICT also discloses their impairment. This disclosure makes them feel portrayed as deviant and disabled, an identity from which they distance themselves.