“We observe a paradigm shift in today’s society: young people, and even more so the youngest, adolescents, have normalized sharing their privacy publicly.” The sociologist and researcher at the Reina Sofía Fad Juventud Center Alejandro Gómez assures that, without judging whether it is good or bad, this is one of the realities revealed by the study on the risks associated with youth uses of TRICO (the technologies of relationship, information, communication and leisure) prepared by this entity.
During its presentation, Gómez emphasized that, in general, young people know the online risks, they are worried about being victims of scams, the dissemination of compromised photos or videos without their permission and identity theft, but they have lost the taboo of show off and show your privacy.
“Young people, and especially adolescents, share themselves publicly, manage their social relationships at school, new friendships on the networks… It is normal for them to put photos and private things from their daily lives on the internet; they know that it is illegal passing photos of others without their consent, or that it is wrong to send photos of a sexual nature, but they consider it normal, they do not see the problem of doing it, they do not know what consequences it may have for them or for another person in the medium and long term,” he explains . And he points out that it is girls, especially in the younger age group (the survey was carried out on the 15-29 year old group), who are most affected by this phenomenon.
In this sense, at least one in five young women surveyed claims to have received messages, photos or videos of an erotic or sexual nature without their consent in the last year, or to have had to block profiles on their social networks because they harassed or insulted them. In addition, more than half claim to see harassment between colleagues on social networks very or quite frequently, sending intimate images without the consent of the person involved or even harassment by adults of minors.
And when they are asked about the risks of digital technologies that concern them most, 43% of them mention precisely that compromising photos or videos of theirs are disseminated without their permission, suffering online sexual harassment, being the target of scams or fraud, or that impersonate your identity. Furthermore, concern increases as they age and become aware of the consequences of these actions, with a variation of more than ten percentage points between the group aged 16 to 19 and those aged 25 to 29.
From all this it can be deduced that young people are aware of the risks they experience in their daily lives due to TRICOs, and also of their online overexposure, since more than half consider that they spend too much time on the Internet and admit that the use of these technologies take away their time for other activities, especially sleeping (42% admit this) and studying (40%). 23% admit that online activity also takes away time from being with friends, 16% admit that it neglects work and 15% that it steals time as a couple.
In this sense, the majority of those surveyed say they have felt saturation or fed up and the need to “disconnect” in the last year, but almost half feel obliged to always carry their cell phone with them and four out of ten to constantly check if they have it. notifications.
But, despite this, they attribute mostly positive feelings to the use of social networks, such as fun, joy, confidence and excitement. Negative sensations are in the minority, the most frequent being overwhelm or stress.
On the other hand, young people see themselves as digitally skilled, they know that much of the information they receive online is false (in fact, almost half believe that they see dubious content quite or very frequently), but they admit that they do not always contrast it.
And a third of those surveyed say that they do not talk to anyone about what they do on the Internet, four out of ten do not receive recommendations from their environment about how to behave online or how to improve their online security, and those who do do so basically resort to to their friends, to a lesser extent to their parents or other relatives, and very few to their teachers, despite the fact that they observe many cases of harassment and hate messages in the school environment.
In view of these data, both Gómez and the general director of Fad Juventud, Beatriz Martín Padura, stressed the need to focus less on prohibiting the use of mobile phones and, instead, intensify support and supervision of it from both families. as from the school environment and other areas. “Digital technologies are part of the identity of children and young people; separating them from them generates anxiety, so we have to go in other ways, we cannot nip in the bud something that is important in their daily lives,” Gómez concluded. .
