This positional paper opened a symposium within the Information Technology in Educational Management (ITEM) strand of the IFIP KEYCIT conference in Potsdam, Germany, on 2nd July 2014. The key question asked, across the seven papers presented and included as chapters in this book, was: how do digital technologies support life transitions? The argument within this initial positional paper asked a pre-requisite question: what are life transitions, and how might they be connected to digital technologies and learning? Life transitions can occur at different times across a lifespan, and different technologies may be used by those involved, not only according to the age of the learner, but also according to their needs. Temporal shifts as learning technologies develop make their influences on life transitions difficult to generalise or even to monitor; affordances and facilities that learners can use over time, and which they can apply to their life transition needs, change, as digital technologies are diversified. This paper considers features and factors that affect learners in their uses of digital technologies in life transition settings. A framework for exploring the ways learners might use digital technologies within life transitions will be developed; other papers within the symposium explore factors and features in a variety of more specific settings and detail.