Effects of COVID-19 on Young People's Digital Civic Engagement

Participants

Participants

OVERVIEWA narrative report on the #NewNormal of youth engagement in these times of crisis

Many of today’s youth take to digital spaces to develop their civic identities and express political stances in creative ways, claiming agency that may not be afforded to them in traditional civic spaces. The key difference between civic engagement by youth today and older, more traditional forms of action is the availability of digital technology, which provides a low-barrier-to-entry canvas for young people to create content that is potentially vastly scalable.1 When COVID19 pandemic hit the entire world including the Philippines, stricter restrictions were implemented limiting traditional engagement spaces of young people. It has been said that the COVID 19 crisis is the first pandemic that disrupts the patterns of living of young people. With this, young people have begun to use online spaces to continue their activities. This shift is a phenomenon with transcendental importance since effective youth engagement should not be obstructed even in times of emergencies. This is also a good learning opportunity for youth-serving orga-nizations, CSOs, and mandated government agencies to understand how COVID-19 affects digital civic engagement and shape responsive policies in the future. This document reports the findings of the third Online Post-Dinner Chit Chat conducted by Positive Youth Development Network. Post-Dinner chit-chat is an informal, semi-structured online conversation on vari-ous topics with young people. This is PYDN's strategy to create a safe digital space for the youth to voice out their thoughts and advance recommendations. The activity focused on gaining an understanding of how COVID-19 affects young people’s digital civic engagement and identifies barriers if any. This report will focus mainly on the lived experiences, reflections, and recommendations of the participants.

The activity was conducted last May 12, 2020. The said activity was attended by (15) adolescents and youth from different provinces and organizations in the Philippines. The 15 participants were composed of adolescents who are staying inside their houses, youth development officers, young people working in non-governmental organizations, students, fresh college graduates, those who are working in and outside Metro Manila, SK council officers, and young people working for the government. The distribution as per location is shown on the map.

MethodThe method utilized was a facilitated online-focused group discussion. Youth Facilitators from PYDN guided the participants during the discussion. The discussion focused on the following core questions: (a) What are the dominant platforms used by young people in the time of COVID-19 pandemic?, (b) For what purposes young people use these digital platforms?, (c) How did COVID-19 impacts digital space of young people, and (d) What are the barriers to effective digital engagement?

ResultsWhat are the dominant platforms used by young people in the time of COVID-19 pandemic?The table below shows the dominant platforms used and prefered by young people during the time of COVID-19 pandemic.

This information is consistent with the initial rapid assessment result being conducted by Positive Youth Development Network (PYDN) that explores the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on adolescents using a modified HEEADSSS tool. Facebook was most preferred by 90.8% (n=139/153) followed by insta-gram (32.7%) then Twitter (29.4%).

[1] February 2020 UNICEF Office of Global Insight and Policy (Digital civic engagement by young people)

Cagayan, Isabela, Pampanga, Pangasinan, Nueva Ecija, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon, Metro Manila, Oriental Mindoro, Iloilo, Misamis Occidental, Zamboanga del Norte, Davao del Sur

Location of Participants

Digital Platforms used by young people Frequency

Facebook 15 out of 15

Twitter 12 out of 15

Instagram 7 out of 15

Zoom 4 out of 15

This finding sheds a new perspective in light of the findings of a 2018 report in the US found that Snapchat and YouTube are the social media that adolescents aged 13 to 17 ‘use the most’.2 In contrast, adults in the US most often list Facebook as the social media platform that they have used, and still use, most often.3 Globally, we know that, as of 2019, adults in 11 emerging economies worldwide (Colombia, India, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Philippines, South Africa, Tunisia, Venezuela and Vietnam,) are most likely to use Facebook (median 62 per cent) and WhatsApp (median 42 per cent) as social media or messaging platforms.4

[2] Anderson M, Jiang J. Teens, Social Media & Technology 2018. Pew Research Center Internet & Technology [Internet]. 2018 May 31 [cited 2020 June 18]. Available from https://www.pewresearch.org/inter-net/2018/05/31/teens-social-media-technology-2018/

[3] Anderson M, Perrin A. Share of U.S. adults using social media, including Facebook, is mostly unchanged since 2018. Pew Research Center Internet & Technology [Internet]. 2019 April 10 [cited 2020 June 18]. Available from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/10/share-of-u-s-adults-using-social-media-including-facebook-is-mostly-unchanged-since-2018/

[4] Silver et al. Mobile Connectivity in Emerging Economies. Pew Research Center Internet & Technology [Internet]. 2019 March 7 [cited 2020 June 18]. Available from https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/03/07/mo-bile-connectivity-in-emerging-economies/

[5] February 2020 UNICEF Office of Global Insight and Policy. Available from https://www.unicef.org/globalinsight/media/706/file/UNICEF-Global-Insight-digital-civic-engagement-2020.pdf

For what purposes young people use these digital platforms?This illustration details the nature of young people who utilize digital platforms in time of COVID-19 pandemic.

How did COVID-19 impacts digital space of young people?Three themes emerged during the discussion. (1) The pandemic diminished the traditional and physical spaces of young people. (2) The crisis also forced young people to innovate and accustom themselves in the complexity of the digital space, and (3) It gravely limits their capability to engage fully with their peers.

Long-term recommendations:

1. Account for blended contexts. Digital engagement is contiguous with, complementary to, and inseparable from offline engagement. 2. Appreciate youth creation of varied content: videos, memes, artwork and blogs.3. Appraise local context to better understand the scale, content and platforms young people use.4. Consider how digital civic engagement can drive youth participation in more traditional forms of civic engagement.5. Consider the risks of digital civic engagement by youth.

Special recommendation:Conduct a digital literacy workshop or webinar or include this topic on any programs for young people.

What are the barriers to effective digital engagement?

a) Slow connectivity and internet speed b) Lack of devices due to financial constraintsc) Fear because of cyberbullying d) Data protection issues e) Absence of motivating online platforms and programs

3

6

9

12

15

A

B

D Point of Detachment

Barriers to engagement

C

A - Young people use digital platforms to seek news

B - Discuss political problems/agenda

C - Seek for volunteer activities

D - This point is the point of detachment where barriers affect digital engagement

The illustrations reveals that young people use digital platforms for various purposes namely: seek for news, discuss political problems and agenda, and seek volunteer activities. Partici-pants also identified a point where they feel they need to disengage because of barriers. For this reason, PYDN coins this point as the disengage-ment point. The participants identify that a 14-days straight online engagement for them is not beneficial. Barriers to effective digital engagement are detailed in the next chapter.

RecommendationsCivic engagement by adolescents is particularly important because: 1) education in and exposure to civic issues at an early age is foundational to creating future engaged civic actors; and 2) a sense of sociopolitical empower-ment is associated with young people’s self-esteem and well-being. Digital civic engagement by youth is there-fore an intriguing area of study for those interested in civic engagement because it relates to both traditional measures of civic engagement among young people and their incredibly robust and engaged online practices.5

The participants and the Positive Youth Development Network recommend and harp the main points made by UNICEF in its Rapid Analysis on digital civic engagement by young people.

Conducted by: In partnership with:

Young House Heroes

Initiative