Introduction

While migration describes physical cross-border movement, the experience of migration is increasingly mediated by the virtual (Triandafyllidou, 2025). From interacting with the state to building community, digital technologies mediate immigrants’ entrance into a new society and success within it. The same is true of Israel, where many migrants’ first experiences with the state are not through a person, but through a screen. This paper analyzes how digital technologies mediate the migration experience of Argentine olim (Jewish immigrants) living in Israel and the social representations they construct around those technologies in their everyday life. While “digital technology” is broad, this paper focuses on three domains that repeatedly structured participants’ accounts: social media, “digital bureaucratic infrastructure,” and artificial intelligence. We use “digital bureaucratic infrastructure” to describe the technological systems that mediate access to state and institutional services, from government portals to financial or healthcare apps. We additionally examine the uses and social meanings participants attribute to AI tools in everyday problem-solving, communication, and navigating institutional and linguistic demands. Together, these domains act as a lens to understand the role of the digital in olim’s social lives and their ability to function as active participants within Israel’s bureaucratic and systems.

This paper aims to identify the social representations Argentine olim construct about these categories of technology as they emerged within the migration and acculturation process. This requires (i) understanding the role of technology in the acculturation process, (ii) identifying the social representations Argentine olim construct when interacting with these technologies, (iii) and analyzing whether there are evaluative differences in these representations by age, gender, and year of arrival. Ultimately, this analysis can provide actionable recommendations for the Israeli Ministry of Aliyah and Integration and other bodies concerned with the successful integration of Argentine olim into Israeli society.

Theoretical Foundations

This study relies on several foundational concepts in its design and analysis: social representation, acculturation, and digital inclusion.

Social Representations

Social representations refer to the conceptual framework that organizes meanings, guides, behaviors, and enables communication in everyday life. They play a dual role in both making the unfamiliar familiar and providing a shared code to name and classify aspects of the world, thereby guiding action and interaction.

Moscovici describes social representations as constructed through the two interdependent processes of objectification and anchoring. Objectification refers to the mental transformation of abstract notions into concrete images, or “figurative nuclei” that become socially naturalized. Anchoring is the process by which schemata are inserted into pre-existing frames of values and practices, thereby integrated into a larger mental framework that guides and shapes behavior and interpretation of the social world (Mora, 2002).

Structurally, the theory proposes three analytical dimensions: information (the group’s organization of knowledge), field of representation (the hierarchical structure of content), and attitude (the favorable/unfavorable evaluative orientation toward the object), with the latter being the most visible in practice (Mora, 2002).

Acculturation

Acculturation is the process of cultural and psychological change that occurs when people and groups of different origins engage in continuous contact, with both collective and individual effects (Sam & Berry, 2010). At the individual level, acculturation depends on (1) the extent to which one wishes to maintain their heritage culture and identity, and (2) the extent to which one seeks contact/participation in the daily life of the receiving society. Sam & Berry (2010) identify four acculturation strategies: integration, assimilation, separation, and marginalization. These strategies are dynamic, situational, and context-dependent and are linked to a person’s psychological wellbeing and sociocultural competence.

This paper uses acculturation, rather than integration or adaptation, because it is expansive. It allows for diverse behaviors within a multicultural setting that may not conform to the narrower and more linear alternatives. Furthermore, it recognizes the dynamism of a culture and a person’s relationship to it, while a term like adaptation implies a stable entity that can be adapted to. While acculturation is used to describe the bidirectional impacts of multicultural interaction, this paper focuses on the perspective of the immigrant, even while their host society is also changed by their presence.

Digital Inclusion

According to Cabello (2017), digital inclusion extends beyond the ability of individuals and communities to access digital technology. In addition to access (including infrastructure and devices), digital inclusion requires the ability to use digital technologies in multiple ways for multiple ends, as well as meaningful participation in the digital environment, both rooted in positive subjective disposition (e.g., empowerment to participate online) and involvement in digital civic and techno-cultural activities. These dimensions of digital inclusion intertwine, making an increasing in digital inclusion possible only through simultaneous progress along all the above axes.

In this study, Cabello’s dimensions of digital inclusion provide a tool for analyzing the interactions between participants’ tech usage and acculturation. For example, high digital inclusion may relate to a greater ease in cultural acculturation, while low digital inclusion may predict a more difficult acculturation process.

Literature Review

Israel is a country with high technological development, with high levels of digitalization in both the public and private spheres and strong technological penetration into daily life. It is recurrently described as having a strong innovation-intensive private sector and public policies that promote the digitalization of state services and the social adoption of technologies (Senor & Singer, 2012). Institutionally, the digital government agenda describes an administration oriented toward user-driven design and the expansion of online procedures (OECD, 2025), and the State records sustained improvements in e-government indicators and the ambition to continue constructing technological infrastructure and pursuing technological innovation (INDA, 2022). In the broader sociotechnical environment, comparative measurements of digital quality of life rank Israel highly on pillars such as e-government, e-infrastructure, digital security, and Internet quality, helping explain the penetration of digital platform use in everyday life (Surfshark Research, 2025).

Within the migration context, digital spaces and platforms play significant roles within the migration process. Beyond the formal governmental platforms, digital spaces act as informal infrastructures of information and support for migrants. Amit’s report (2024), focused mainly on Ukrainian migrants to Israel after 2022, documents that Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, and YouTube were support systems that accompanied Ukrainian migrants throughout the migration process. In the early period after arrival and in daily routines, groups and channels provided guidance for procedures, housing searches, access to banking, health, education, and mobility, as well as informational and emotional support. Additionally, they were the medium for maintaining transnational ties with people from the migrants’ home country. Amit’s research described both the digital competency of migrants, that enabled them to use these digital platforms, as well as the language barriers and inequalities rooted in applications and portals oriented toward Hebrew speakers, which created a need for robust accompaniment and translation services to help migrants interact with public offices and service providers.

A key element in this digital support network is the set of community groups on social media that connect newcomers with experienced residents, professionals, volunteers, and officials, enabling circuits of consultation, recommendations, and co-problem solving. Local press reports that these groups, focused on housing, employment, legal advice, or procedures, function as mechanisms of practical integration, reducing information costs and the uncertainty typical of the initial stage (Sokol, 2018).

Research on immigrant populations in North America suggest multiple psychosocial effects of social media use by this population. On one hand, social media can buffer culture shock, enable individuals to maintain a relationship to multiple identities, and provide informational and emotional support. On the other hand, consuming content based on consumerism and materialism can decrease subjective wellbeing (Cleveland, Iyer, & Babin, 2023). These dynamics suggest that migrants’ social representations of technology will not be homogeneous, and they may vary based on factors like age, gender, and year of arrival (Amit, 2024; Cleveland et al., 2023).

In addition, from the perspective of technological development, the benefits of digitalization, “digital dividends,” do not emerge automatically with mere technological availability. Rather, they depend on analog complements such as digital literacy skills, regulatory frameworks, and mechanisms for transparency and accountability (World Bank, 2016). Without them, digital access may reproduce or widen inequalities. Within the context of immigration to Israel, digital dividends to continued growth in technological access may be tempered if migrants lack the language or technical skills needed to use those technologies.

Overall, Jewish immigration to Israel is limited to several tens of thousands of people a year, with 31,068 reported olim in 2024. Immigration numbers from Argentina are relatively modest, with 532 Argentinian olim in 2024 (CBS, 2025). This still makes Argentina one of the top countries in Latin America by number of olim (Lesser, 2016), and, historically, this number fluctuated depending on political and economic circumstances in Argentina.

Method

This study employed a qualitative research design to explore the social representations of technology among Argentine olim in Israel. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews conducted online via Zoom between March and September 2025.

While the sample size of ten participants is relatively small, it was deemed sufficient for this exploratory qualitative study based on the concept of 'information power' (Malterud et al., 2016). In qualitative research, the adequacy of the sample size depends on the aim of the study, the specificity of the sample, and the quality of the dialogue rather than statistical representativeness. Given that the study focused on a highly specific group, such as Argentine immigrants in Israel finding through personal networks and online advertisements, sharing a common cultural background and facing identical bureaucratic structures, the sample held high specificity. Furthermore, data collection continued until indications of thematic saturation were observed, where no new major codes or patterns were emerging from the interviews (Hennink & Kaiser, 2022). This aligns with findings by (Guest et al., 2006) and reaffirmed by recent meta-analyses (Vasileiou et al., 2018), which suggest that in homogeneous groups, high-level themes are often identified within the first six to twelve interviews.

Moreover, interviews were conducted in English, Hebrew, or Spanish, depending on each participant’s language preference, to ensure comfort and depth of expression. The conversations were recorded with consent, transcribed, and interviews not conducted in English were translated into English for analysis.

Data analysis followed a thematic analysis approach (Braun & Clarke, 2006), supported by coding in ATLAS.ti. The coding process was both inductive and interpretive, identifying recurring themes and patterns that reflected participants’ conceptualizations of technology in relation to migration, bureaucracy, and everyday life.

To protect participants’ privacy, anonymity was ensured throughout the research process. Identifiable information was removed from transcripts, and only general markers such as age, gender, and initials are included in this paper. Given the language differences and that several participants were not speaking their native language, contextual information is occasionally included in brackets within quotes to provide additional clarity.

The research team possessed a diverse composition that facilitated a multifaceted analysis of the data: one native Argentinian, one native Israeli, and one international researcher. This combination created a unique "insider-outsider" dynamic (Dwyer & Buckle, 2009) that strengthened the study’s rigor.

The Argentine researcher shared a cultural, linguistic, and experiential background with the participants. This "insider" status helped establish immediate rapport and trust, allowing participants to express their feelings more easily about the acculturation process without fear of judgment (Berger, 2013). However, to prevent "over-identification"—where a researcher might assume they understand a participant's experience without digging deeper—the analysis was counterbalanced by the other team members when two other colleagues interviewed the participants in English.

The native Israeli and the international researcher provided an "etic" such as an outsider perspective. The Israeli researcher contributed essential insights into local cultural norms and Hebrew-language bureaucratic structures, while the international researcher maintained a neutral analytical distance. During the coding process, this diversity required the team to engage in rigorous debriefing to resolve differing interpretations of the data (Dodgson, 2019). This ensured that the findings were not solely a reflection of the Argentine researcher’s subjective experience, but a validated interpretation of the participants' narratives located within the specific Israeli context.

Results

Technology Use

Participants reported using a variety of technologies from both of the studied categories: social media and digital bureaucratic infrastructure technologies. Participants nearly all stated the omnipresence of technology in navigating Israeli society. In the words of one, “Israel is very, very, very technological. If you don’t go through this thing [use technology], you’ll stay outside of many things…It’s a part of our life…Well actually, it’s impossible to live without” (Female, Retired Academic).

Concerning social media, participants reported using several social media platforms, however few were active on them. One exception was WhatsApp, which all participants described using on a regular basis. Participants also reported using digital bureaucratic infrastructure technologies often, although the specific platforms and applications varied. For banking and healthcare services, for example, participants used those that correlated to their bank and healthcare provider.

Otherwise, all participants had smartphones, which they used either exclusively, or alongside other digital devices, to access these two types of technological platforms.

Digital Bureaucratic Infrastructure

Participants used several digital interfaces to access government and institutional services. Among their reported uses were scheduling doctor’s appointments, accessing health insurance information, making financial transactions, setting appointments with governmental and institutional bodies, navigating themselves to those bodies and institutions, and even taking out bank loans. According to one participant, “A lot is automated with apps. You have an app for almost anything” (Male, age 41, immigrated in 2019).

For some, the dominance of digital interfaces to manage bureaucratic matters was convenient. As one participant succinctly put it, “It’s practical” (Male, age 43, Frelance). In the words of another, “It’s good because you can get almost whatever you want and you don’t have to go talk to anyone. It’s something in the mentality here…you don’t want to talk to anyone about anything, you want things to happen” (Male, age 41, immigrated in 2019). These technologies can even reduce the amount of time and effort spent on bureaucratic matters: “I do everything, the bank, with the offices, everything from the online. I almost don’t go to offices” (Female, Retired Academic).

However, for others, this digital element made bureaucratic matters more difficult to manage. One participant expressed her frustration with technical issues and an online system that assumes the user knows to operate it independently:

“They [the government] made me download “My Aliyah” [platform], and it doesn’t work. You have to create a profile, and it’s not very practical; it’s hard to understand. Plus they send text messages, and I’m not used to checking SMS…To go to the post office, you have to download an app to book an appointment. Everything is like that: if you don’t have someone to ask, it’s hard to figure out on your own” (Female, age 26, Psychologist, immigrated in 2024).

These technological bureaucratic hurdles also prevented her from accessing other services: “The silly thing of having to use an app to book a doctor’s appointment…I haven’t even gone yet [since coming to Israel]. I know I have to be assigned a doctor, message them first, and then make an appointment there. Too many steps form something that could be simpler”. Similarly:

“With that [banking], I’m terrible. Even now I don’t know how to use the banking app. I barely use the health insurance app to do pregnancy checkups. But it was hard. Yes, it was hard for me. I didn’t really understand it, and it was complicated for me. I’m not very good with technology…I’m okay, but it was hard” (Female, Health sector).

For other participants, the challenges they experienced with technology were deeply intertwined with their language barrier. In the words of one participant, “To do any paperwork here you have to download an app. I think it’s ridiculous. It’s inconvenient that for everything you have to enter your phone number and then everything arrives via WhatsApp and in Hebrew. It’s just a lot of information (Female, Psychologist).” When another participant was asked about her comfort using bureaucratic apps, she emphasized the language rather than the technical barriers: “Now it’s fine, but at the beginning it was really hard - everything was only in Hebrew” (Female, age 33 , Doctor, migrated in 2017). Similarly, another described, “With WhatsApp and all the emails, with all that stuff, in Spanish I can read without effort, but in Hebrew, I just don’t have the energy” (Female, Health sector)

Social Media

Regarding social media, several participants remarked on the importance of social media to operating in Israeli society. In the words of one, “You must be connected…If you’re not connected, it’s going to be super hard for you in the world….On the daily life here in Israel, [everything] is happening on social media, WhatsApp, Facebook” (Male, Business Owner). Another participant who is involved in political activism described WhatsApp as one of key loci for activist community building: “All my political involvement, apart from going to the street a little…is through the WhatsApp” (Female, Retired Academic).

Several participants cited groups on social media platforms that provided useful information. These included Facebook and WhatsApp groups like “Latinos in Tel Aviv” or “Argentines in Jerusalem.” However, none of the participants reported being active users of these groups, except for one who used a Facebook group for Argentinians to get recommendations for doctors in her area. (Female, age 33 , Doctor) Furthermore, most participants did not use these groups to meet other Argentinian olim. In the words of one participant, “At one point, I started talking with some Latin Americans from nearby cities [on social media], but what happened was that I quickly realized it didn’t work because people work a lot” (Male, worker, migrated in 2016). He goes on to say that the relationships he maintained were those that culminated in in-person connection: “I prioritize face-to-face meetings whenever possible, obviously. If distance doesn’t allow it, then fine…there’s no other option but to do it this way [strictly online]. It’s all good, I do it” (Male, worker, migrated in 2016).

Despite the minimal use of social media for building connections with Israel, social media did play an important role in connecting participants with their friends and families in Argentina. WhatsApp was the primary medium for this connection. For example, one participant described the benefit of WhatsApp over other social media: “With my family, I’m talking to them almost every day with my mom and my dad through WhatsApp. And I think that basically that because I don’t like to use that to share my life on Instagram or Facebook. I don’t agree to share my private life, so mainly WhatsApp” (Male, Business Owner).

Another participant, who came to Israel before the advent of social media, described the power of social media in reviving relationships that were difficult to maintain prior: “I remember when I had to call my mom in 1992, I had to go…to the city center and to make a call and it was a fortune to pay…[Now] it’s much better. So with my brothers, for example, my sister, I speak every day regularly” (Male, Academic, immigrated in 1992).

However, some participants also struggled with social media. One described the sheer quantity of social media content as overwhelming: “All the WhatsApps and all of the things, there are a million messages. I can’t keep up with reading and following everything…Sometimes I miss a lot of information and things because I can’t keep up” (Female, Health sector).

So we can understand that, WhatsApp emerged as an almost unavoidable communication infrastructure: rather than an optional social network, it functioned as the baseline channel for everyday coordination and sustained contact, both with ties in Israel and, especially, with family and friends in Argentina. By contrast, other platforms such as Instagram and Facebook occupied a more secondary and ambivalent role. On the one hand, they could serve as spaces for information-seeking and recommendations through groups; on the other, participants often described them as more attention-demanding environments, strongly shaped by entertainment and easy to become absorbing. In this sense, while WhatsApp was associated with direct and functional communication, Instagram and Facebook were more frequently linked to passive consumption, time management concerns, and, in some cases, deliberate limitation to avoid overload.

From a relational standpoint, this preference for WhatsApp over broader social media platforms suggests that digital tools may be especially effective for maintaining bonding capital (ties to Argentina, particularly family and close friends) rather than for building bridging capital (new or broader ties within Israel). This can connect productively to the acculturation discussion: digital connectivity may support emotional sustenance and everyday coordination without necessarily translating into an equivalent expansion of local social networks.

Challenges and Support

Some participants described similar feelings of being overwhelmed, both because of social media as well as digital bureaucratic infrastructure technologies. According to one, “It’s a lot of information. For example, I got a debt notice and didn’t pay attention because I thought it was just some bill. Everything comes through different channels – email, messages – and it’s hard to process and stay alert amid all the bombardment” (Female, age 26, Psychologist, immigrated in 2024) Similarly, altogether, these interfaces use up significant digital space. During one interview, the participant expressed with frustration that even “today I had to begin to clean [my phone] because it was over passing [the storage was full]” (Female, Health Sector.)

The stressors, however, were attenuated with in-person support. While many participants expressed challenges with moving to Israel, they also described the importance of a strong network. For one person, this was her husband, “My poor husband, he did everything. I arrived without the language and he already knew it. So in the beginning he did almost all the [bureaucratic] errands” (Female, Retired Academic) Others, however, described a wide variety of people and institutions that acted as this network. These included a kibbutz one participant moved to, the Israeli army, Israeli friends, Argentinian friends living in Israel, the Jewish Agency, family members, and the following nonprofit institutions: The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (Keren Le’yedidut) and Nefesh B’Nefesh.

The novelty of AI

When exploring various technologies, social networks, and applications, the use of artificial intelligence repeatedly emerged in most interviews. Given its novel and often polarizing nature, we found it relevant to approach it as an object of social representation. Within this framework, we began documenting relevant aspects of representations surrounding AI and digital technologies in the context of adaptation experiences. One initial pattern was that the most frequently evoked idea was that of AI as a tool. Indeed, AI was consistently mentioned in an instrumental register: a tool to learn English, to check Hebrew, to communicate, and more broadly, a tool for exercising citizenship in specific ways; in some cases, also as a professional tool. In contrast, anthropomorphized views of AI or attributions of independent agency to the technology did not emerge; concerns were centered around its uses, effects, and limitations.

From this perspective, the dominant representation of AI focuses on its functionality and efficiency, objectifying it as a resource available to resolve everyday and bureaucratic frictions in a highly digitalized society. The idea that “it’s a device that’s there for you 24/7” came up multiple times, positioning AI as a constant resource and a time optimizer. For instance, a 30-year-old woman describes ChatGPT as “great” because it’s “available 24/7” and she uses it for “everything,” from meal planning to finding recipes based on specific ingredients. This perspective casts it as an everyday, accessible, and immediate resource.

In more intellectual or professional settings, the use of AI is associated with efficiency in information retrieval and linguistic correction; critical aspects for migrants. A male worker who migrated in 2016 states he prefers “going straight to ChatGPT” instead of using Google for research, as he finds it “more direct” and capable of answering “complex questions” that a traditional search engine tends to “beat around the bush” about. Similarly, a 43-year-old man integrates ChatGPT and Grammarly into his work to “look for content” and “edit in English,” which helps him “improve [his] writing”; thus, it also functions as support in overcoming the language barrier. In these accounts, AI does not appear as a substitute for another human being, but rather as a technical mediator that facilitates specific tasks, speeds up processes, and reduces the time and effort required.

However, this utility coexists with representations of conflict and concern, shaping an ambivalent stance. AI is seen as something that, while enabling, also threatens established social structures, especially in fields where authorship, effort, and evaluation operate as normative principles. A retired academic woman perceives the consequences of AI use as potentially “very negative” in university settings and questions whether students’ work is “AI-produced.” At this point, the ambivalence does not deny the effectiveness of the tool, but introduces a moral and social reservation regarding which practices it enables, which boundaries it blurs, and which criteria of legitimacy it calls into question.

In the same vein, the most clearly expressed concern was the idea of becoming dependent on the tool; a form of “cognitive dependency.” The image evoked is similar to that of someone who might “atrophy” their ability to walk by becoming accustomed to using a cane. This reveals a conscious attitude of risk and dependency management: although digital technology is seen as inevitable, some interviewees try to limit its use to prevent it from becoming an “enemy.” A male worker expresses his desire to stay “far from being dependent” on technology, exemplifying a fear of using an advanced tool for tasks that his own mind can still handle. This stance suggests that the adoption of AI is not presented as full acceptance or rejection, but as a practical negotiation in which an effort is made to strike a balance between utility and autonomy.

We might interpret the absence of anthropomorphized representations as being linked to the way technology is experienced as part of everyday infrastructure. Interviewees commented that for many daily services, they need to use apps: booking medical appointments, buying medication, parking, renting a car, handling bureaucratic procedures, applying for loans, etc. In a daily life shaped by “apps as tools for,” AI (e.g., conversational chatbots) is presented in the same way, often integrated into more traditional or bureaucratic applications. In this context, AI does not emerge as an exceptional figure, but as one more piece of a technologized environment, smoothly integrated into existing repertoires for completing tasks and managing daily life.

Finally, the idea that “if you need it, you press a button and it happens, you don’t have to talk to anyone” was mentioned repeatedly, linked to a daily life in which it’s possible to resolve issues without face-to-face conversation. Analytically, this opens up an interpretive hypothesis: in certain cases, technology may appear as a way of avoiding dialogue with another person, rather than as an “alternate version” of something anthropomorphized or conversational. In sum, the representations captured tend to objectify AI as an everyday tool, marked by an ambivalent attitude that combines the recognition of its concrete utilities with reservations, particularly around dependence and the reconfiguration of established social frameworks.

Discussion

Social Representations of Technology: Necessity, Saturation, and a Double-Edged Tool

In the interviews, technology is constructed as a structural component of everyday life, not a matter of choice. Through processes of objectification, what might be seen as “modernization” or “digitalization” becomes visible in concrete forms, mainly apps, portals, and messaging channels that mediate basic activities. On this basis, a triad of meanings emerges across the section: necessity, saturation, and a double-edged tool.

First, technology is anchored in the idea of necessity, understood as a practical condition for inhabiting the environment and “being able to do” everyday tasks. This notion appears repeatedly in the vast majority of narratives, even expressed literally as a “necessity” and, in some cases, compared to something vital like “air to breathe.” What is noteworthy is that this necessity is not presented as a homogeneous evaluation: it can be accompanied by relief, usefulness, or comfort, but also by fatigue, pressure, or discomfort. This necessity is associated with a regime of urgency and constant availability that structures expectations and behaviors.

“The main thing is the pressure, the ‘lachatz’ [stress], as they say here in Israel… that ‘lahatz’ of everything being fast. Now, now, now… I think that was the hardest part… you need to, you must stay connected, you know? If you’re not connected, it’s going to be super hard for you in the world” (Male, 20s, restaurant business owner).

Here, necessity refers not just to access to devices, but to the obligation to maintain constant connectivity to avoid being excluded from essential services and coordination.

As shown in the findings, this necessity is objectified through digital bureaucracy: a chain of mandatory platforms and apps that mediates everyday institutional life through profiles, verification, and standardized steps. Rather than being experienced as simple facilitation, digitalization functions as a condition of access, where getting things done depends on sustaining technical and linguistic competences and, often, on having support networks to navigate systems that are not always legible. In this sense, technology marks a practical boundary between moving forward and getting stuck.

Secondly, technology is also represented as saturation. Instead of simplifying things linearly, digitalization is experienced as an accumulation of demands, alerts, and attention efforts that pile up on the phone and on one’s available energy.

“By trying to make things easier with technology, they overload your phone. It’s too much” (Female, 26 years old, psychologist).

This saturation also manifests in the fatigue of maintaining understanding when the interaction takes place in a non-dominant language.

“In Spanish I can read effortlessly, but in Hebrew, I just don’t have the energy” (Female, 30s, public health sector).

In this context, saturation acts as a form of cognitive and emotional burden that can weaken daily autonomy, even when digital infrastructure is available.

Saturation becomes particularly significant when digital bureaucracy acts as a gatekeeper for access. It’s not just that the procedure is digital, but that the ability to resolve it depends on knowing how to navigate that environment or having someone who can translate, guide, or unblock it.

“To go to the post office you have to download an app to book an appointment. Everything is like that; if you don’t have someone to ask, it’s hard to figure it out on your own” (Female, 26, psychologist and volunteer).

In terms of anchoring, this dependency is not interpreted as a technical detail, but as an experience of exposure, loss of control, and practical inequality compared to those who can navigate things with ease.

Thirdly, the synthesis of this ambivalence is captured in the idea of a double-edged tool, which works as a particularly expressive objectification: a simple image that captures the simultaneously enabling and obstructive nature of technology.

“Technology, if you know how to use it, is a friend. If you don’t know how, it can be an enemy… I think it can have that kind of effect: people becoming dependent on it” (Male, 40s, worker).

In this framing, the convenience of technology is not denied, but is conditioned by practical competence, and the risk is not just “not understanding,” but becoming dependent on others or on the system itself to manage daily life. Statements of this nature reflect a cross-cutting pattern in the material: no narratives were observed to be entirely techno-optimistic or entirely techno-pessimistic. Instead of linear accounts, what emerges is cognitive polyphasia: when usefulness is mentioned, saturation is also present; when necessity is acknowledged, dependency is also mentioned; and when efficiency is praised, the cost of sustaining it is pointed out at the same time.

At the same time, technology can also be anchored in comfort and efficiency when there is stable appropriation of procedures.

“It’s impossible to live without it… I do everything with the bank, with the offices, all online, I hardly go to offices anymore” (Female, 53, retired academic and researcher).

This contrast does not imply two separate representations, but rather a single social representation with two faces: technology as a necessary condition for participation and resolution, and as an environment that can saturate, block, and generate dependency.

Technology's Role in Acculturation Strategies

The participants' use of technology reflects the dynamic acculturation strategies described by Sam & Berry (2010). The engagement with digital bureaucratic infrastructure is a non-negotiable aspect of participating in the host society, aligning with a strategy of integration or assimilation. However, the difficulties encountered can foster feelings of marginalization, as participants feel "outside of many things" if they cannot navigate the digital sphere. The critical role of in-person support networks overcome these digital hurdles highlights how acculturation is mediated not just by individual competence but by social capital.

As shown in the findings, participants relied on a clear platform hierarchy in which WhatsApp operated as an almost unavoidable infrastructure for everyday coordination and for maintaining strong ties with family and friends in Argentina. This pattern can be read as consistent with an integration strategy, insofar as it sustains cultural identity while participants navigate participation in the new context, yet it also suggests that digital tools are used more effectively for maintaining bonding social capital (close ties to Argentina) than for building bridging ties within Israel. Notably, although participants were aware of local Facebook groups, they did not actively use them for community building, often prioritizing face-to-face meetings, which contrasts with accounts that emphasize these groups’ role in practical integration (Sokol, 2018; Amit, 2024). Importantly, this does not imply that digital connectivity prevents integration; rather, it helps explain how intense transnational connection can coexist with a slower expansion of local networks, particularly when attention and energy are already consumed by navigating institutional digital demands.

The Nuances of Digital Inclusion

Cabello's (2017) multidimensional model of digital inclusion offers a powerful framework for interpreting the findings. While all participants met the first dimension, access to devices and infrastructure, they faced significant barriers in the other dimensions. Their ability to use the technologies was hampered not necessarily by a lack of technical skill, but by language barriers and unfamiliarity with the systems. This finding strongly supports the World Bank's (2016) assertion that the benefits of digitalization depend on "analog complements" like literacy and accessible design. Without these, digital access risks reproducing inequality.

Consequently, participants often failed to achieve meaningful participation. Instead of feeling empowered, they felt overwhelmed by "a lot of information" and frustrated by systems that were not "very practical." The reliance on others to complete digital tasks is the most telling sign of incomplete digital inclusion. While they are technically "online," their digital citizenship is mediated and dependent, preventing them from fully autonomous participation in the civic and bureaucratic life of the country.

Finally, the analysis did not reveal distinct patterns in participants’ social representations of technology or in perceived acculturation ease by age, gender, or year of arrival. While prior work suggests these factors can shape digital practices and well-being (Amit, 2024; Cleveland et al., 2023), two considerations may help interpret this null finding. First, several constraints in the Israeli digital environment appear to operate as cross-cutting barriers, especially Hebrew-only interfaces and the design of “digital bureaucracy”, which participants described as difficult regardless of personal profile. In this sense, what varied was often not the presence of obstacles but the availability of support to navigate them. Second, given the exploratory nature of the study and the small sample, subtler demographic gradients may not have been detectable. Future research with a larger and more socio-demographically diverse sample could test whether demographic differences emerge once linguistic accessibility and institutional guidance are accounted for.

Limitations

This study's findings should be considered in light of several limitations. As a qualitative study, the research is based on a small sample size of ten participants, which means the results are not statistically generalizable to the broader population of Argentine olim in Israel. Furthermore, the recruitment method, which relied on personal networks and online advertisements, may have introduced a selection bias. Despite these constraints, this study provides insights into the lived experiences of this specific group, which can lay the foundation for future, large-scale research on the topic.

Conclusion

In a context where access to public and institutional services is increasingly mediated through portals, apps, and messaging, digital technologies become more than tools. They operate as a practical condition for participation, while also generating saturation, dependency, and obstruction when systems are difficult to navigate. For Argentine olim, this ambivalence is shaped less by the mere presence of devices or connectivity and more by whether they can autonomously complete key procedures within a digital environment marked by language barriers and complex digital bureaucracy. As a result, being “connected” does not guarantee meaningful inclusion. The recurrent need to rely on others to accomplish digital tasks reveals a form of mediated participation that constrains everyday autonomy and reproduces inequalities in access to institutional life.

For this reason, digital inclusion should be understood not only as a technical or integration issue, but as a matter of rights and substantive citizenship. Drawing on multidimensional approaches to digital inclusion (Cabello, 2017) and on the idea that digitalization requires institutional and in-person supports to become socially effective (World Bank, 2016), our findings suggest that when the state functions through digital channels, digital exclusion becomes a form of citizenship exclusion. Concretely, it limits migrants’ capacity to understand institutional demands, exercise rights, and participate fully in the bureaucratic and social infrastructure through which citizenship is enacted in everyday life.

From a policy perspective, these results point to actionable institutional responsibilities. First, public and semi-public services should prioritize linguistically accessible, user-centered digital infrastructures through multilingual interfaces, plain language, and guided workflows for high-frequency procedures. Second, absorption and integration services should incorporate digital support as a standard function rather than informal help, for example through onboarding sessions for essential platforms, step-by-step assistance for critical procedures, and easily accessible help desks. Third, peer mentorship programs can formalize supports that currently depend on uneven social capital, reducing dependency and strengthening autonomous participation. Finally, given WhatsApp’s dominant role in everyday coordination, the platform can be leveraged as a complementary channel for official outreach and orientation for migrants, for instance through verified information streams and referral systems, while ensuring it complements rather than replaces formal institutional pathways.

Overall, this study shows that ensuring digital inclusion for migrants requires more than access. It requires institutions to guarantee that digital systems function as gateways to participation rather than barriers to citizenship, so that integration is not contingent on personal networks but supported as a condition of substantive citizenship.

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