Study Suggests That The Internet Makes Youth 'More Engaged Citizens'
from the that's-a-good-thing,-right? dept
Following on our recent post discussing Clay Shirky's views concerning social media's role in helping to politicize people who were formerly not all that interested in politics, Shocklee points us to news of a recent study that has found, indeed, that high school students who use the internet to research key interests "were more likely to become involved in 'civic and political issues.'" And it appears that this greater involvement goes beyond just posting about it online, but really becoming more involved in certain causes. This seems to counter the claims of some that online interest in civil and political issues is more just people screaming in front of their computers. It actually does seem to have a real impact.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: activism, engagement, internet, politics, social media, studies, youth
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
In the Internet, you can engage/listen to other people from across the globe, who have totally different opinions and live in totally different realities. You get to see how much better/much worse the world is, far away from where you live.
This makes you more informed, and information is power.
Politicians learn this quickly. That is why they try to shut down the Internet: to dumb people down so that they just shut up and accept the lies they feed them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Facebook shows political ads of whatever view it thinks you will hold, as well as filtering out political posts from friends it thinks you will disagree with based on what comments you have "liked" in the past. Pretty much giving any dumb teenager the impression that the whole world agrees with their ill formed political views. Not much exposure to different views there.
At least when kids didn't get told by their peers what to believe on social media every day, they actually had to form their OWN opinion once in a while.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Score one for the DUH column
DUH is the only comment that really comes to mind.
Maybe when people stop thinking of the internet as a small TV screen and more like a BIG smartphone, things will start making more sense.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Score one for the DUH column
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Call me old-fashioned...
(Actually, those all would be highly ineffective. As you were, youth of today.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Call me old-fashioned...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Study rings true
I don't think most people understand today's youth. For one thing, they are pretty much off the radar of most polling systems.
There is also a tendency to put down young people that gets in the way of understanding them. Frankly, we even see that in some of the comments already posted in this thread. I have worked with young people my entire career, and the generation that is emerging is different than the others. Most of them are not interested in some of the traditional hot-button issues, and they are an independent bunch of people who are not going to be easy to herd into one of the traditional liberal or conservative labels.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Study rings true
Yeah isn't it great. A generation of people who are going to shock the crap out of the political system in a couple years. People that believe global warming is happening, politicians are corrupt, that monopolies rule the political system and need to be taken down a notch or removed. And thats the view point of my friends 12 year old.
What most people do not understand is this generation is a profound change from previous ones. They can actually quickly find like minded individuals to connect with. That allows for the rapid growth of ideas, and speedy concensus, and rapid implementation. I think politicians the world over are just beginning to see what is happening in the world of communication. You just gotta love the Party Of We, Anonymous, Chinese human flesh search engines, flash crowds, recent government collapses, Critical mass. By the time they actually understand, it will be to late ... their world will have changed.
and to quote Anonymous ...
"We are Anonymous,
We are Legion,
We do not forgive,
We do not forget,
Expect us."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It is great that they are better informed. We just hope that they are in fact better informed, and not more easily mislead.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
People who are exposed to only one point of view often think they are informed, when they are not.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Engaged Youth
[ link to this | view in chronology ]