Youth and Digital Media: Risks and Opportunities

Everyday relational and communicative practices are increasingly shaped by digital media, and the Internet has become pervasive in young people’s daily lives (Riva and Scarcelli 2016). According to Eurostat data (2017), more than 90 % of youth in the EU aged 16–29 accessed the Internet on a daily basis in 2016, which was substantially more often than the population as a whole. This youth demographic predominantly accessed the Internet from mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablets, netbooks, and laptops. However, the consequences of the learning practices, behaviors and social interactions resulting from Internet use are still under debate (Pattaro 2015, Guzzetti and Lesley 2016, Pandolfini 2016). Indeed, discourse about the opportunities and risks of youth using the Internet has attracted considerable attention among researchers from different fields (such as education, sociology, and psychology), and teachers, parents and policy makers seek to identify which factors may encourage beneficial uses of digital media and mitigate its associated risks. On one hand, the Internet offers education, communication, community engagement, creativity, self-expression and entertainment; on the other, it can also expose youth to pornography, self-harm, violent or hateful content, inappropriate or harmful contact with others, harassment, and problematic conduct from peers, such as bullying or invasions of privacy (Vanderhoven et al. 2014, Mascheroni and Ólafsson 2018). This chapter investigates the relationship between young people and the use of digital media by exploring its risks and potential effects on youth socialization, sociability, and identity formation (Bennato 2011, Livingstone et al. 2012, Paccagnella and Vellar 2016, Pattaro et al. 2017, Romeo 2017, Merico 2018, Mascheroni and Ólafsson 2018).