Youth and New Digital Technologies

Youth and New Digital Technologies considers the complex social ecology of contemporary technologies and the state of youth well-being within these digital environments. Profound shifts in learning, relationships with humans and nature, surveillance, digitization, control, and communications have occurred leaving societies to question how and when digital technologies harm young people rather than benefit them.  Which youth are most harmed and how could we co-develop a rights-respecting digital future that serves youth well-being and generational justice?

Contributors offer answers arising from concern for a path to justice and rights for young people. They join a lineage of scholars who interrogate how digital technology operates and matters to youth well-being in its most holistic sense. The volume provides contemporary examples and understandings of youth in dynamic relationships with digital technologies in Australia, Canada, Scotland, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, and Jamaica. Contributors use a mix of survey, observations, secondary data analyses, and interview methods to hear from young people themselves. They uncover a deep paradox for youth who both appreciate and critique digital technologies, and who make visible how the profit ambitions, design practices, and business models of Big Tech companies have set damage and risks to youth well-being into motion.

In Youth and New Digital Technologies, contributors ultimately suggest needed changes at all levels of the digital ecosystem to achieve a healthier and safer digital future, where young people are engaged as active citizens with a range of rights and developmental needs that are ensured by society and industry.