Youth and the Internet: Balancing Risks and Opportunities

From reading daily news stories, it could easily be assumed that the internet’s main impact on young people has been the corruption of impressionable minds via exposure to worrying forms of violent or sexual content. While each headline may accompany a legitimate news story highlighting the risks to youngsters’ well-being, they reveal more about the media’s response to new technologies and, perhaps more intriguingly, the public’s fascination with scare stories about the internet’s supposed dangers for children.

One possible reason for the moral panic surrounding youth internet use is that young people are often presumed to be more expert users than their parents or educators. This divide is often characterized as “digital natives” (those who have grown up with technology) versus “digital immigrants” (those who adopt it later in life), suggesting that all children born since the early 2000s are equally skilled at using technology. This assumption is damaging in two ways. First, it perpetuates the belief that the older generation can’t keep pace with young people’s digital habits. Second, it overlooks the significant variations in internet use and access among children. Although smartphones and tablets provide near-universal internet access to youth in Western nations from an increasingly young age, disparities in usage and access persist. Youth services must ensure they cater to all, rather than adopting a “digital-by-default” approach.

Another issue with media scare stories about internet risks is that they overshadow the benefits of digital technology use. Young people today use digital devices for numerous purposes, including supporting their education, social lives, communication with family, creativity, and identity development. Risk and opportunity often coexist, and while evidence shows that the most vulnerable individuals are more likely to encounter online risks, those most confident in using the internet also face more risks. As with other life areas, taking risks is often essential for young people to expand their activities and experiences.

Given this context, policy interventions must support strategies for managing risks rather than simply avoiding them. Building young people’s digital resilience can help them handle problematic content they may encounter or understand the risks of seeking it out, rather than relying on blunt measures like internet filters. It’s crucial for young people to learn and practice positive online behaviors, which requires more than just ICT or media literacy training. Personal development lessons should educate young people about the risks and myths of pornography and the responsibilities involved in creating personal sexual images, while citizenship education should address the challenges of countering online hate speech and bullying. Youth services can play a vital role here, acting as trusted intermediaries who support young people through difficult life events.

The focus on harmful online content risks also overlooks the new types of risks that digitalization introduces for young people. The extensive personal data we share on social media can be risky, despite GDPR protections. Society is just beginning to understand how concepts of privacy and a private life may change due to our voluntary surrender of vast amounts of personal data to big corporations. Regulatory efforts to prevent algorithmic biases from influencing key decisions about our futures may still struggle to address the ways in which our online experiences are tailored based on profiling. Additionally, we haven’t yet figured out how to manage the transition from adolescence to adulthood when a public record of youthful mistakes, controversial opinions, and regretted behavior is always accessible. How these risks will affect life opportunities remains to be seen. Efforts to monitor and mitigate these risks must focus not just on individual encounters but on the broader economic context of digital experiences. The logic of “platform capitalism” underpins the opportunities digitalization offers young people but also contributes to these new risks and is likely to resist efforts to limit data-sharing activities.

In this world of new risks and opportunities, the role of youth organizations is more crucial than ever. Research suggests that some traditional civic organizations have been slow to adapt to the needs of digital youth, while competition from grassroots organizations, often operating beyond local boundaries, engages many young people in social movements online. The rise of virtual organizations like Occupy and Anonymous, and platforms like Kiva, highlights the immense opportunity for youth services to harness young people’s energy and motivation to act. However, youth services must remain relevant, exciting, and use the communication channels young people prefer; setting up a Facebook page won’t suffice if the audience is on Snapchat. Youth services have traditionally provided support, mentoring, social activities, and personal development for young people. If well-designed for the digital age, they can also harness the energy and desire to make a difference that other online organizations thrive upon. Ideally, youth services in the digital age can do more than support young people; they can help them change their world. If they can achieve this while ensuring support is not redirected away from less skilled or confident “digital natives,” youth services will continue to contribute to immense social good.

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