Informing young people in times of confinement
2020
Informing young people in times of confinement
You keep sliding your finger on the glass screen of your mobile phone, you need to see if any of your friends have updated their status, any note, a short story on Instagram, or check if any of your colleagues uploaded a new funny music video clip on TikTok that makes you smile. Faced with an unwanted confinement in your home, without being able to enjoy the rewards that you sometimes feel when you are with your group of friends and colleagues, or laugh with them, or have fun or hug them. While also, fearing for the future of your studies, will there finally be exams or assessments of the subjects you are enrolled in? What will happen in the following academic year? Have I chosen the right subjects? Will I be able to find a decent job after graduation? What future awaits me now in these times of uncertainty? …
You are connected with others through your smartphone, which allows you to call them when you feel lonely and share a few laughs. And you know very well that by typing a few words, you will get an enormous amount of content, videos of your favourite YouTubers, music from the coolest playlists, and much more information of all kinds; mixed in gossip, political, cultural issues, etc... You browse through these links and, sometimes, you get tired of not finding something that is worth your while, or that can amuse you during this forced confinement.
You’ve not visited us yet, but a mission that we try to fulfill at the “Youth Information Centers” is to facilitate access to information that is most useful for what you are looking for, although we do not have all the answers. We know that sometimes you find it difficult to express what you need. Another thing is what, on the other hand, you are able to find. I will explain it to you with an example: a writer named André Schiffrin stated that "A good bookstore is one in which I do not find the books I want to read, but the books that I did not know existed". Well, differences aside (we do not sell books, although we like them), something that surprises us is that many of the young people who visit us, apart from receiving our pertinent response to their query (we put a lot of effort into it), confess that they did not expect to find as much diverse information from what they were looking for, and that opened up other possibilities that they had not previously considered to be among their interests.
And, probably, this is one of the tasks that gives us the most satisfaction: listening to young people, responding to them with the greatest honesty and showing them, at the same time, that other options exist, which are within their reach, and can be important in the course of their lives. We are committed to delivering accurate, complete, updated and verified information to young people, as indicated in the European Youth Information Charter.
While we listen to your queries and highlight your passion and desire to enjoy life, our profession ensures that we continue learning and updating ourselves through multiple studies and research reports that show the trends of young people, their needs, their living conditions and their social backgrounds. In this way we intend to anticipate the possible questions that you are going to ask us at some point in your lives.
One of those recent reports is the one published by the famous Harvard University: "Youth and Digital Citizenship + (Plus): Understanding Skills for a Digital World". This publication talks, nothing more and nothing less, about how young people can achieve an effective “Digital Citizenship + [Plus]”. Perhaps this sounds strange, or pretentious, and especially to those who dominate your devices. But this matter has its substance. This is about the skills necessary for young people to fully participate in school, social, ethical, political (yes, this too) and economic spheres in our constantly evolving digital world. A set of capabilities which are essential.
This includes, among others, such striking aspects as the ability to understand and apply computational concepts, practices and perspectives in our tasks. What's this about? Namely, how people take advantage of their knowledge and techniques as they program (either to upload a video or make a montage with photos), that is, experiment, mix, or create something from current ideas or projects, which you locate through your connections with others and with the technological world in general. Likewise, there is talk of the ability to use digital tools to explore elements of your own personal identity (we all try to create our image in the best way) and understand how the communities, the people, your friends, with whom you connect, are part of your identity as a person.
This study indicates the ability to protect your personal information online and that of others. And an understanding of the “digital trail” that we leave as a result of the activities that each of us carries out, the short and long-term consequences of this trail, and the proper management of its virtual footprint. Although we also know that many of you already have a lot in mind. Adding to this is the ability to counteract the risks that the digital world can present to protect our physical and mental well-being, and avoid the online risks that we see in harassing behaviours and violent or aggressive content, or fake news.
It also highlights the ability to understand the algorithms involved in platforms based on Artificial Intelligence with which one interacts technologies (yes, yes, these are the famous algorithms of social networks, eg), and ethical conversations that occur around the development of these platforms. The ability to use the Internet and other digital tools effectively to find, evaluate, verify sources, create and reuse information, along with the ability to interact with the legal frameworks for such use.
There is also talk about the ability of young people to produce digital content, in parallel with the ability to participate in public affairs of social interest (eg, LGBTQ equality rights, in peace-building, addressing discourse hate, defence of the environment, etc.) and defend issues that interest you, using digital and non-digital tools, to improve the quality of life in your community.
All these skills are not learned overnight, they require your learning time, and surely several of them you have already practised at some point, in your educational center, or with your friends or colleagues, even if you have not named them that way. But their usefulness and mastery, which are essential to your future and your present, requires that you put them into practice on several occasions. You should not put limits on these matters, because you are going to need them. In fact, it is all of society that is going to need young people to develop these skills for the common benefit.
In Youth Information Centers we will not train you as "experts" in all these skills. But with our answers, with information on various activities and with specialized guidance on some topics, we can offer you some clues that will help you find what really matters to you. In these moments of confinement in your home, it may be a good opportunity to try to be better "digital citizens". Today, April 17, 2020, is the European Youth Information Day. with the slogan "Climate Changes, Truth No. Find out, check it out for yourself". And, if you need something, you are close to us, here in Murcia at a click: www.informajoven.org
Gabriel Navarro Carretero
Head of Informajoven Centre. Murcia City Council.
(I appreciate the review of the English version of this translation by León Navarro Hilfiker)
Original source: https://www.eldiario.es/murcia/murcia_y_aparte/Informando-jovenes-epoca-confinamiento_6_1017758225.html
