Too Complacent About Digitalization? What Can the Youth Field Do?

Abstract

Research and politics on digitalization is divided into supporters of autonomy of tech industry, proponents of public regulation and into those seeing internet as a public service. It is suggested that in many countries, digital youth work has adopted a pro-tech industry techno-optimistic view on digitalization. However, increasing knowledge indicates how tech industry abuses young people and creates harms, such as addiction to social media and e-gaming. A widespread complacency about digital means prevails among young people and youth workers. Youth work is narrowly focused on technical skills, while the broad context of the tech company domination and its harms is neglected. To counteract complacency, this article describes the obstacles to understand digitalization critically. The educational response should be awareness-raising of youth workers and young people through young people’s digital rights, critical digital literacy, non-formal learning and young people’s own agency. Finally, a new definition of digital youth work is presented.

Keywords

Digital complacency digital youth work techno-optimism tech industry youth digital rights critical digital literacy youth agency youth work

Should Internet Be Private, Regulated or Public?

Vincent Mosco (1948–2024) was a Canadian political economist of communication, a Marxist from Harvard University, critic of internet, its ideologies and myths, the concept of smart city, the Cloud, media and digital democracy. He analysed how the internet is embedded in commodification, corporate monopolies, neoliberalism, surveillance, destruction of privacy, warfare and pollution. Mosco (2004, p. 22) coined the term ‘digital sublime’ to refer to the positive ideology of digital technology, which promises ‘new wonders that by necessity bring about drastic changes’. This techno-optimism means trust in tech companies and private ownership of the internet. However, considering the societal importance, misuses and harms of internet, critical researchers such as Mejias and Couldry (2024), Zuboff (2019, 2022) and Mosco (2019, 2025), argue that internet should be a public media. In between, we have public policies of the European Union to regulate the tech industries. For example, the protection of the digital rights of children and young people is at the core of EU regulatory instruments. Overall, ‘the digital world is at a critical juncture represented by clashing visions of the information society’ (Mosco, 2016, p. 516). ‘[Internet] is indeed a deeply political place’ (Mosco, 2004, p. 31). Rodriguez-Prieto (2021) has shown how digital rights are constantly threatened by efforts to abuse internet data for political profiling. Prieto reveals a recent Spanish case which prompts him to argue: ‘we must submit the Internet to a real, participative, democratic process—something which has yet to occur. What is actually happening with democracy and human rights?’ (Rodriguez-Prieto, 2021, p. 171).

Critical research looks at societal issues caused by digital technology. Zafra (2024) says that ‘technological dehumanisation’ infiltrates everywhere and creates ‘disarticulate collectives’, atomization, passivity, depression and exhaustion. The global increase of anxiety among teen girls consciously created by Instagram is a paramount example of such harms hitting young people (Haidt, 2024). Zafra’s general solution is ‘deviant thinking’ and ‘recreating collectives’, such as the feminist movement (to escape patriarchy) and art and culture which provide opportunities for alternative imaginary. Berardi (2024) describes another alternative collective, the Italian ’77 Movement experimenting with politics, art, poetry, design and a polyvocal magazine. Later, Berardi (2025) also suggested to ‘Quit everything’— non-involvement in the hectic life dominated by the tech industry—as an ‘unstoppable trend’ geared towards autonomy.

Political economy of technology argues that the key is the cognitive capacity of society to move away from capitalism towards social solidarity. The term for this capacity is ‘general intellect’, a Marxist term derived from the Grundrisse. Mosco (2016) says that general intellect needs free information flow: internet should be available to all and managed democratically by the citizens. To make internet public, the break-up of tech monopolies, the regulation of commercialism, the control of electronic waste and pollution, the restoration of privacy and transparency are needed. In The Smart City, Mosco (2019) included a manifesto of his vision of a democratic public digital society.

Also non-profit organizations and media have raised concerns about tech companies. A science reporter at the Times cloned his co-worker’s voice to explore just how easy it is to make an eerily convincing audio deepfake. It took him only 6 minutes (Blakely, 2024). These kinds of experiences prompted Future of Life Institute (2023, 2024), a non-profit technology watchdog, to publish in March 2023 an open letter for governments and AI companies to halt AI development for 6 months to assess the risks and prepare for social validation and safety measures. In March 2024, the institute noted that things did not go as expected. ‘Over the last 12 months developers of the most advanced systems have revealed beyond all doubt that their primary commitment is to speed and their own competitive advantage. Safety and responsibility will have to be imposed from the outside’.

While the diverse strategies of public oversight of digitalization play out, it is reasonable to address young people’s awareness and possible complacency about their digital life.

Youth Work, Digital Youth Work and Their Identity Crises

Youth work is delivered by paid and volunteer youth workers and is based on non-formal learning supporting young people’s active citizenship and social integration. Youth work is typically carried out by non-governmental youth organizations and municipal youth services. During the past 10 years, digital tools have become common in youth work.

For decenniums, the youth field has discussed its identity—‘What is youth work?’ The debates have resulted into The History of Youth Work in Europe (volumes 1–7, Council of Europe Publishing, since 2009). The volumes argue that the uncertain identity makes youth work vulnerable to external influences, such as the neoliberal efficiency-oriented new public management (NPM) pushing its measurement agenda (Ord, 2012). Youth work across Europe responded differently to NPM’s strategic management ideas. In the United Kingdom, the youth field put a fight against the government’s management reforms and resulted between 2010 and 2023 into massive shutdown of youth services. In Finland, municipal youth services adopted a pragmatic view and used NPM as a strategic tool. However, as Lorenz asks: ‘youth work is always political, and it is an instrument, but in whose interests?’ (cited in Verschelden et al., 2009, p. 156).

Digital youth work (DYW) is an integral part of youth work, but what is its identity? Is it a tool—a tool in whose interests? How is DYW oriented within ‘the clashing visions of digitalisation?’ This conceptual article traces young people’s complacent attitudes amidst techno-optimism and techno-criticism.

Dual Identity of Digital Youth Work

The seminal Council Conclusions of the Estonian EU Presidency (2017, p. 1) on Smart Youth Work states,

Technological developments open great potential for empowerment of youth by providing access to information and by enriching opportunities for enhancing one’s personal capabilities and competences; providing opportunities for connectivity and interaction with others but also for voicing one’s opinions, for creativity, for self-realization of one’s rights and active citizenship.

The Conclusions also suggest partnerships with tech industry. Young people are seen as the driving force of digital development: ‘It is evident that young people are one of the catalysts for societal change, and this is due to their active embracing of digital media and technologies’ (Council Conclusions, 2017, p. 1). These references well encapsulate cyber-enthusiasm: the inevitable and inherently good technology co-developed with creative trend-setting youth.

The EU Expert Group on Developing Digital Youth Work (2018, p. 10) is anchored in the digital idealism of Smart Youth Work to ‘proactively using or addressing digital media and technology [and] with an agile mindset’ and focuses on young people’s digital skills. Soon, the early unilaterally positive excitement (Council Conclusions, 2017) seemed to gradually fade away by the Finnish EU Presidency Conclusions (Council of the European Union, 2019), which included risks, harms and negative effects of digitalization. The Conclusions also emphasized the broader picture of societal effects: ‘Many youth policy documents lack foresight about the ways in which digitalisation will affect society, young people and youth work. Many strategies also lack a holistic approach to developing youth work in the digital era’ (Council of the European Union, 2019, p. 3).

Two interpretations result: the techno-optimism of positive development of digital technology and an emergent techno-criticism of the domination of a few large corporations with little oversight. Techno-optimistic assumption are: (a) digital technology is inevitably developing for the better, (b) co-operation and partnerships with tech industry are vital and (c) young people are the proactive, agile-minded change-makers of digitalization. The techno-critical approach argues instead that (a) technological development is not ‘inevitable’, unchangeable or ‘given reality’ but rather man-made and open to changes, nor necessarily progress or all good for the society, (b) the tech industry is guided by its business interests, not primarily by what is good for the citizens. Furthermore, experience shows that self-regulation has not worked—only public regulation has (Riekeles & Thun, 2023), suggesting difficulties in reciprocal partnerships with tech companies and (c) young people lack awareness of the full scope of digitalization, the broad picture and the detrimental effects—rather, they appear complacent.

From Euphoria to Techlash

The risks of computerization were seen already in 1948 by Norbert Wiener, an American computer scientist. His pioneering book Cybernetics noted the antagonism between markets and human values. He was afraid of computers becoming an instrument of control. However, until very recently, techno-optimism has been since and globally the dominant mode of thinking.

The development of technology and digitalization during the past three or four decenniums was to be a huge progress to a better, a more democratic and just world for all, a continuation of the benefits of industrialization and capitalism. During the first decennium of this century and in 2011, at the time of the Indignados and the Arab Spring movements,¹ social media was perceived as a liberating medium promoting openness and democracy. Then, in 2013, Edward Snowden revealed that the US and UK security services gathered data from their citizens’ e-mails. The 2016 US presidential elections and the UK Brexit vote apparently were manipulated by Cambridge Analytica using Facebook data. Governments were secretly spying their own citizens. A contemporary young activist Jia Tolentino provides a personal interpretation:

The tipping point [of internet hype] was around 2012. People were losing excitement about the internet … The dream of a better, truer self on the internet was slipping away. Where we had once been free to be ourselves online, we were now chained to ourselves online. (Tolentino, 2020, p. 8)

‘Techlash’, defined as ‘a strong and widespread negative reaction to the growing power and influence of the large technology companies’, spread quickly. A US poll (Andersson & Rainie, 2024) finds that 78% people say, ‘these companies have too much power and influence in politics today’. However, techlash did not have any effect on the growth of tech corporations. They kept on becoming the richest companies in the world and users of their products kept increasing. Around 10 years after the Arab Spring euphoria, critical research on digitalization picked up on the negative consequences (Bridle, 2019, 2023; Couldry & Mejias, 2019; Deibert, 2021; Haidt, 2024; Klein, 2023; Mejias & Couldry, 2024; Montag & Elhai, 2023; Mosco, 2025; Rodriguez Prieto, 2021; Seymour, 2019; Tarnoff, 2022; Trittin-Ulbrich, 2021; Zafra, 2024; Zuboff, 2019, 2022). They look at the broader picture of how the tech industry affects societies, democracy, human rights and citizens’ welfare—increasingly in a negative way.

Thus, Norbert Wiener (mentioned earlier) was not that wrong in 1948 about the threat of antagonism between markets and human values.

How Have the Controversies and Asynchronies Developed?

The development of DYW across European countries is poorly documented. Countries such as Estonia, Ireland, Finland, Germany and Belgium appear frontrunners. In Europe it was 2017 when Smart Youth Work was launched. Finland will serve as an example on how digitalization and its controversies developed in youth work.

Traditional youth work resists changes: In Finland, between 2003 and 2005, the first digital services for young people emerged: a virtual youth centre ‘Netari’, youth information and counselling (Helsinki Youth Services), chat services (Save the Children) and substance use prevention. Soon after the social and health sector, the police and the church had their own digital services. In 2009, Netari received national and international acknowledgement for service innovation. Municipal youth service also specializes in gaming; a ‘Gaming House’ at the Helsinki Youth Services was established. In 2011 Verke Survey—the expertise centre for digital youth work—was established to develop digital youth work in Finland.

A survey on municipal youth workers in Finland in 2013 showed that almost all respondents (92%) thought that youth work must work on the internet (Verke Survey, 2013, p. 5). However, according to another survey (Allianssi & Kuntaliitto, 2013), only half of the municipal youth services actually used the internet in youth work. Some individual youth workers explored the use of digital means, while others were hesitant or even resistant. Gaming, for example, was seen by 43% as a good instrument in youth work, while 40% were opposed to the idea (Verke Survey, 2013, p. 5). The resistance to digital youth work probably was related to habituation to the traditional face-to-face youth work. Virtual encounter was not seen as ‘real’ youth work.

The frontrunner’s bias: The Verke Survey questions were biased towards a positive perception of digitalization. Very few questions addressed the problems and harms of digitalization, until the 2021 study finally asked about ‘digital risks and negative effects’. Most (71%) of the youth workers agreed (totally or in part) that those issues should be addressed in DYW (Verke Survey, 2021, p. 13). Still, the text of the report failed even to mention it. Apparently, the mission of the frontrunners was to promote the benefits of DYW.

Fight against social justice warriors: The leading organizations and experts of DYW, since about 20 years ago, have had to combat scepticism, resistance and even hostile attitudes to digitalization: the ‘traditionally oriented youth workers’ and the child protection field. Frontrunners called them social justice warriors, people who were seen as morally and technologically limited to understand digitalization and what it meant to young people (Räsänen, 2022; Meriläinen, 2020). The fight against social justice warriors became a mission with three elements. First, to promote the positive side of digitalization and technology and encourage all young people and all youth workers to ‘proactively’ enter the digital world. Second, regulation was opposed, because young people were seen capable, critical and knowledgeable enough to responsibly use digital media. Third, the frontrunners were worried about the ‘negative speech’ of online life, because, according to them, that is not based on research and could obstruct young people’s interest to go online and could also backfire if parents, due to negative information, resorted to unreasonably harsh restriction of their children’s digital media use. Thus, DYW experts and some researchers seemed to have a positivity bias on tecno-optimism because of their mission to promote digitalization and fight against social justice warriors.

The youth work credo of young people’s own voice: Young people tend themselves to be techno-optimists but at the same time lack digital literacy (Siurala, 2021, p. 222). According to the credo of youth work, ‘everything must start from the young people’. Youth work provides activities and services which the young people want. When young people wanted digital activities and gaming, then that was what youth centres were to provide: computers, the most popular e-games, entire gaming houses and gaming-knowledgeable youth workers. Critical education and regulation would be seen patronizing and going against the wishes of young people, thus failing to abide with the ethos of youth work.

In this ‘digi-positive’ ideological atmosphere, it became difficult to argue that, it is the highly persuasive skills of the tech industry that makes the young people want social media and gaming, or to argue that youth workers should raise the awareness of young people on how they have been talked into, lured, trapped or ‘chained’ into digital media.

The asynchrony of national digital transformation: A study on DYW in Europe (Kiviniemi, 2022) suggests that European countries were on very different stages of development. Estonia and Finland were known for being technological frontrunners; Estonia for its digital ID and Finland for its world-famous gaming companies. Both countries actively developed online youth work and played an important role in the respective European expert groups. Accordingly, anybody in Finnish and Estonian youth field promoting digital youth work had a strong backing in their national pro-digitalization atmosphere.

European youth policymakers have been dragging their feet in digital transition: The EU Commission’s proposal (Communication, 2018) for a new EU Youth Strategy (2019–2027) strongly emphasized the importance of digital means for young people and for youth work: ‘digital youth work should be incorporated into youth workers’ training and—where they exist—youth work occupational and competence standards’ (Communication, 2018, p. 7). However, when the Commission’s proposal was taken up by the governments and the stakeholders, such as youth organizations, all the emphases and references to digitalization were removed before the final decision (Council of the European Union, 2018) was adopted. As to online youth work, European youth policymakers have been dragging their feet. Lack of European support can explain the asynchronized development of DYW across Europe.

Ubiquitous Paralysis

Digital technology has become ubiquitous, affecting all corners of societal life. This omnipresence of ‘datafication’ has occurred somewhat surprisingly. One ‘hidden’ mechanism has been an asymmetric use of power of the tech industry over citizens. The business logic is gathering user data from everywhere we use digital means to be stored in databases and analysed by algorithms and AIs. The output is typically used for commercial and political purposes without much notice of the users (the citizens) or of public authorities. Research describes this asymmetry and omnipresence of digitalization in society as ‘data colonialism’ (Mejias & Couldry, 2024), ‘surveillance capitalism’ (Zuboff, 2022) and ‘digital authoritarianism’ (Freedom House, 2019) referring to new forms of dominance and new inequalities.

A bulk of literature reveals the negative ways that datafication affects people’s lives. There is inequality between Global North and Global South in terms of access, exploitation of minerals, storing e-waste, moderating harmful content in cheap labour countries, unequal commercial deals between poor countries and Big Tech companies, environmental degradation and biases of automated decision-making to women, ethnic and poor people, and minorities. There is the increased use of authoritarian (and less authoritarian) governments to spy, control and manipulate their citizens, journalists and human rights advocates—not to mention voters. There is loss of autonomy due to privacy violations, and a long list of negative effects on young people’s mental, physical and social well-being, not least the dependency on social media and gaming. Ronald Deibert concludes that the negative effects of digitization ‘are profoundly disturbing, [but] not doing anything to mitigate them will be far worse’ (Deibert, 2021, p. 31).

Digitalization is ubiquitous. Still, most of us use digital means or apps without noticing the constant data grab, reduced privacy, being targeted by commercials, manipulated by algorithmic curation, misled by biased news feed, fake news or conspiracy theories (Klein, 2023). We do not realize that our constant presence in the platforms is carefully orchestrated by the tech companies. As we think that everybody does this, we do not really question this ubiquity or the big picture behind. We have plenty of apps and platforms, but we do not see the forest for trees. As a rule, young people are technically skilled digital citizens, who are happy with the digital technology and not too worried about the risks and harms. In a way, young people become paralysed.

Invisibility of the Big Picture in the Youth Field

Due to ubiquitous paralysis, people do not grasp the big picture of digitalization—or, if they do, they are not motivated or able to react on it. Where does youth policy and practice stand? Where are the critical youth policy guidelines to DYW? Why are not young people aware?

The invisibility of the bigger picture is analysed through (a) the founding document of the DYW (EU Youth Expert Group Report on DYW, 2018), (b) an assessment tool of DYW, (c) examples of research on DYW and (d) a future prospects report (Kiviniemi, 2022).

The founding document mentions the big picture but leaves it in the margins. The trendsetting European Commission (2018) expert report Developing Digital Youth Work quotes ‘Gartner 2016’: ‘New technologies emerge rapidly … they are our reality’ (EU, 2018, pp. 6 and 11). The message is that if something is ‘a reality’, it is inevitable and should not be questioned—a techno-optimistic assumption. The reference (Gartner, 2016) does not point out to an independent researcher, but to a private consultant of a global marketing corporation lobbying technological and digital transformation.

There are only few references to the big picture. Training for youth workers is needed ‘to understand how digitalisation is shaping the societies, including its impact on youth work and on young people’ (EU Expert Report, 2018, p. 15). The report does not, however, elaborate what this ‘understanding’ of digitalization means. It does not recommend or urge youth work to address the opaque data-processing methods of the tech industry or their ways of abusing user data or of controlling and guiding our everyday life.

Existing practices focus on learning technical skills and using digital means. The Verke DYW self-assessment tool, widely used across Europe, is based on the 2018 EU Expert Group Report. The tool is designed to capture what is essential in DYW and its development. It mentions four elements: personal competences, professional competences, attitudes to digitalization and professional identity.

‘Personal competences’ refer to practical technical skills, such as safety procedures, mastering key programmes, coding, technical expertise and online interaction skills. ‘Professional competences’ mean technical and methodological skills, such as teaching young people online codes of conduct, improving their tech skills, using mobile devices in youth work, applying digital means in group work and youth information and counselling. ‘Attitudes to digitalization’ are measured through negative or positive attitude to it, understanding the concept, the societal effects and the technology. Indicators on the ‘concept’ and ‘societal effects’ of digitalization are very general and not further elaborated. Thus, the responses to this indicator remain difficult to evaluate. The fourth element, ‘professional identity’, asks if the youth workers intend to ‘implement digital media and technology more in youth work’ and if they see digitalization ‘more as an opportunity than a threat’ in their work. If the appraisees do not want to use the digital youth means ‘more’ and if they see that threats are a viable possibility, the result is poor professional identity—thus, being critical is ‘unprofessional’.

The overall focus of the assessment tool is on technical literacy, such as privacy and safety measures, and critical reading of media messages. The broader competences to grasp attention economy, data colonialism and surveillance are missing. The quality criteria of good DYW focus on techno-optimistic attitudes and technical and methodological skills. They systematically avoid the broad context and do not identify risks.

Surveys on DYW and gaming research avoid problems and risks. The above assessment tools and surveys on digitalization are designed to measure positive elements. Surveys have avoided questions on risks, harms, problems and any negative phenomena. However, a Verke Survey (2021) asked the question ‘How do you evaluate your competences to foster digital well-being of young people?’ Most youth workers (62%) responded that their competences were either ‘weak’ or ‘average’, while 38% said they were ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ (Verke Survey, 2021, p. 26). Even if the results should have raised concern, the text did not discuss them, indicating reticence about problematic issues.

Siurala (2024) asked Why must research defend the positivity of gaming? He notes that some research questions the WHO classification (2018) of ‘gaming disorder’ as a disease. Instead, positive consequences are emphasized, negative results are regarded unreliable and ‘harm talk’ is criticized (Eriksson & Tuuva-Hongisto, 2019; Meriläinen, 2020). Siurala, however, argues that scientific journals between 2020 and 2023 have well-documented dependency on digital gaming and harms related to it. Thus, prevention and care must be recognized and organized along the WHO recommendation. Siurala raises the question whether some research on gaming and digitalization is positively biased, referring to a tendency to highlight positive elements and downgrade negative ones. This makes it difficult to recognize and openly discuss gaming dependency and provide care when needed. The author concludes:

Denial of problems in gaming suits the gaming industry, but does a strong positivity bias prevent gaming researchers, digital experts, educators, and decision-makers from seeing the societal power and negative effects on young people of the gaming industry, and the need for its public regulation? (Siurala, 2024)

Future prospects of DYW focus on digital tools, not on their broad context. A National Agencies project on the prospects of DYW in Europe (Kiviniemi, 2022) explores new practices and enhances development of digital skills and competences of youth workers and young people.

The project relies on four elements; first, DYW can reach new kinds of young people; second, it develops new digital services in partnerships with tech companies in ‘co-creation’ with young people; third, DYW improves skills and competences of youth and youth workers; and fourth, it builds on latest technology such as VR, AR and games. Risks are mentioned, but they refer to privacy, safety and access, mainly through technical training and respective technical solutions. The overall strategy is based on (a) trust in technological development and tech companies, (b) participation of young people and (c) development of digital tools and services for youth.

The report notes ‘potential challenges and risks associated with digital youth work’ (Kiviniemi, 2022, p. 79). The main ‘potential’ risks are data protection, safety and lacking access. However, the report does not elaborate what or who creates them? How does data grab affect the society and our lives? These questions have been widely discussed in research and in the European Union’s digital strategies, but none of them appear in the National Agency (NA) DYW report.

The NA report does mention the German national report, which reaches beyond digital tools: ‘the focus is often on the use of digital tools and not at all or less on reflecting on the social dimension’ (Kiviniemi, 2022, p. 76). This approach is not taken on board. When the bigger picture is left out, we do not seem to need critical digital literacy or awareness—because there is nothing to be critical or aware of.

From Complacency to Critical Digital Literacy

Critical digital literacy: Jackson (2023) observes: ‘Ultimately, complacent attitudes toward digital tools blind us to the actual power that we do have to shape our futures in a tech-centric era’. Computer scientist Calton Pu (2023) picks up from Jackson: ‘the digital divide will be between those who think critically and those who do not’. Giroux (2020) emphasizes analytical and critical thinking: how digital information and its devices organize, legitimate and promote the values, structures and interests of its users and owners. In the digital world, the ‘owners’ are the tech companies. Thus, critical digital literacy must help young people become aware of, to reflect and to act on the business logic of tech industry, the negative effects of digitalization, excessive use of social media and gaming, deterioration of democracy, violation of human rights and shrinking of civil society, not to mention data extraction, commercial targeting and manipulation.

Why is it that young people are so complacent and seldom critical?

Becoming ‘cornered’ and ‘habituated’: People tend to be comfortable and satisfied with digitalization—the way the tech industry prefers them to be. But Herbert Marcuse (1964, p. 3) reminded us that ‘A comfortable, smooth, reasonable, democratic unfreedom prevails in advanced industrial civilization’. We have been smoothed down not to become upset about the negative effects of digitalization. Zuboff (2019) says we are ‘cornered’ and ‘habituated’ to accept a very narrow area of what we can criticize. Digitalization has produced, for young people in particular, attractive opportunities for leisure (such as gaming) and for identity development (such as social media). Why should young people complain? The underlying logic of the tech industry is to offer something we cannot resist in exchange for unlimited access to our user data. We see the benefits of GPS technology to such an extent that we decide to ignore the endless use of our location data for commercial and political surveillance purposes—we have become ‘cornered’. On the other hand, data grab is marketed to us as ‘natural’, ‘normal’ and ‘positive’. It takes place everywhere, we all are targeted and we all enjoy the convenience of social media and apps—we become ‘habituated’—or as Chudakov (2023, p. 124) put it: ‘We are all in Stockholm Syndrome with respect to digital tools; they enthral us and we bend to their (designed) wishes, and then we champion their cause’.

Suggestive narratives and euphemisms of ‘progress’: The tech industry creates techno-optimistic narratives: ‘progress is inevitable and good for all of us’, ‘you can’t turn back time’, ‘history always goes forward’ and we have inescapably arrived ‘The Second Machine Age’. Another narrative is ‘Human need for connection’, which Zuckerberg formulated in 2017 as a euphemism: ‘Building a global community that works for all of us’. ‘Normalisation’ narratives ‘make it [digital lifestyles] seem normal and unalterable, part of the natural order of things’ (Mejias & Couldry, 2024, p. 135). It often hides inequalities behind digital solutions. We regard Wolt as a normal service but have difficulties to see it as a form of digital abuse: Those who run these delivery services do not pay employer contributions saying that ‘they are not employers, they run databases’. There is the ‘civilizing narrative’, which says that digital innovations make us better human beings. FaceFirst, a company on facial recognition, says: ‘Creating a safer and more personalized planet through facial recognition technology’ (Couldry & Mejias, 2019, p. 10). Thus, our awareness is bombarded by biased narratives about and euphemisms for the future of technology, suggesting us to either ‘accept progress or leave the game’.

The Big Tech growing too big too quickly: The data industry is highly concentrated in a few companies which control the market. Their growth has been exponential. Their omnipresence, cultural and political power results into a feeling of futility to act: ‘Like climate crises, it may seem so overwhelming that we throw up our hands in frustration and resign’ (Deibert, 2021, p. 260). The citizens easily feel digital changes too overwhelming and too quickly changing to pin down for reflection. They have not had the time nor the motivation to start building awareness of digitalization.

Disguised forms of digitalization: Our social life on the internet is a set of data relations which have monetary value; they can be processed into profiled data to be sold for commercial and political purposes. Digital social relations become a commodity. Researchers call this ‘commodification of data relations’. Thus, social media is not an isolated platform or a communication forum. It does not stand alone. It is ‘embedded in a vast technological ecosystem build on an underlying business model’ (Deibert, 2021, pp. 14–15). Many are not able to understand the complicated processes of ‘commodification of data relations’. Due to this difficulty, ‘the [digital] social world gets hollowed out as a site of critical agency’ (Couldry & Mejias, 2019, p. 117).

Opacity of digital technology: The asymmetry of data flow makes digitalization opaque. Tech industry efficiently grabs our data, but we do not know how and to what purposes it is used. This information is not accessible to citizens (who provide the data), civic organizations, researchers, the courts of law or governments. We cannot know about it, perceive it as a problem, reflect on it or question it. Neither can we see its ‘colossal unintentional consequences’ (Deibert, 2021, p. 70). Another form of opacity is that many of the digital problems of Global North happen somewhere else, that is, in the Global South, such as digital waste, extracting precious metals and unethical manufacturing. Deibert (2021, p. 210) notes the ‘massive environmental degradation’ caused by ‘invisible chain of mining, manufacturing and trade’ typically happens in the Global South.

Alternative realities: Digital technology has facilitated the birth of alternative realities, such as fake news, fake images, mis- and disinformation and conspiracy theories, which typically contradict scientific knowledge. In the United States, a quarter million of COVID deaths could have been avoided if people had taken the vaccination. A sizeable number of people declining to take it was caused by digitally spread conspiracy theories. Also, a good part of climate denialism is linked with similar conspiracy theories.

The appeal of digital messages is created by internal characteristics of digital communication systems. Attention economy is constructed to keep people online. Platforms and services are consciously designed immersive and addictive. Social media, wearable apps and digital games ‘are tenaciously designed for compulsive use’ (Shaw, quoted by Deibert, 2021, p. 102). They are ‘unquittable’. Algorithms are tasked to keep people in whatever groups or bubbles they visit. Much of the quality of the conversation is ‘sensationalist, divisive and emotional reflexes’ rather than rational deliberation (Deibert, 2021, p. 114). All this takes place, for example, in the 500 million Tweets a day roaming around the internet. Deibert (2021, p. 109) characterizes this conversation as ‘discursive gutter’.

Thus, communication on the internet and its chaotic realities make rational deliberation and critical reflection difficult. Awareness-raising of the ways digitalization affects our lives becomes ever more challenging.

Stimulus threshold: Revelations of Big Tech failures have been a commonplace. Since Snowden’s revelations in 2013, misuses of data have been continuous; for example, ‘the risk of cyberattacks has increased substantially in recent years … [and] someone falls victim to a cyberattack roughly once every 11 seconds’ (Martin, 2024, p. 1). Do these constant threats and failures open our eyes?

Failures of the Big Tech seem to be targeted at young people. Wall Street Journal (WSJ) investigations showed in 2021 that Instagram is a health risk to teen girls. The WSJ article was titled ‘Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls, Company Documents Show—Its Own In-depth Research Shows a Significant Teen Mental-health Issue That Facebook Plays Down in Public’ (Wells et al., 2021). US Congress organized in January 2024 a hearing of the CEOs of the biggest social media platforms about ‘Online Child Sexual Exploitation’: selling drugs, sexual abuse and negative effects on teens’ mental health, even deaths. Senators said it is a priority to change the situation but were not very optimistic. In his closing speech, Senator Lindsey Graham referred to the CEOs in the hearing and said: ‘If you’re waiting on these guys to solve the problem, we’re going to die waiting’.

Ibrahim et al. (2024) studied the effects of public scandals on Big Tech. Their stock prices have momentarily dropped, but ‘had no lasting effect’. The tweets on these scandals also ‘quickly fade from the spotlight’. People become frustrated. Ovide (2024) aptly observes that ‘Google and Meta are too big for your frustrations to have any real consequences for the companies [and] when a company gets big enough, it can afford to care about its own interests far more than yours’. Bridle describes this frustration as ‘An existential horror of things we simply agree not to think’. People have a rough idea of how digitalization affects our lives, experience the threats, but eventually remain ‘threats we don’t want to spoil this beautiful day’ (Bridle, 2019, p. 179). Just as climate change, the negative effects of digitalization are ‘painful truths’ causing ‘psychic numbing’ (Zuboff, 2019), ‘passive nihilism’ (Connolly, 2017, p. 9) or ‘postmodern fatalism’ (Baudrillard). As Deibert (2021, p. 78) concludes: ‘it seems that no revelation about the practices surrounding surveillance capitalism is outrageous enough to separate users from their precious applications’. To promote awareness and action on issues of digitalization, one cannot rely on scandals to do the job.

Reconfigured autonomy: Surveillance technology has sky-rocketed in non-democratic and democratic countries. China is a unique example. Citizens are constantly monitored, arrested, re-educated, disappeared, while the rest ‘live in a Kafkaesque state of perpetual fear of algorithm-driven, omnipresent, and non-accountable surveillance’ (Deibert, 2021, p. 165). The tech industry says it makes the society more open, mutual, shared and community-like. However, the digital form of interaction is not directly between people, but mediated and modified by platforms, by the data grabbed from us, by algorithms and ultimately by the business logic behind. Privacy advocates consider this datafication of social relations a threat to human autonomy and integrity. ‘Autonomy itself is being reconfigured by capitalist data practices’ (Couldry & Mejias, 2019, p. 168). Take the enthusiasm of people letting health indicators and apps follow their leisure and exercises and allow a diversity of health business to follow them. In contrast, Privacy Advocate Phillip Agre (2001) says, ‘Your face is not a barcode’. Indeed, there are the concepts of ‘minimal integrity of self’, ‘right to autonomy’ or ‘right to personality’, the latter being encoded in German constitutional law. This concept is also the fundamental right behind the European Union’s GDPR.

A youth work credo is the ‘autonomy of youth’ to decide on matters concerning them. ‘Autonomy’ as a key youth policy goal also refers to providing young people a free, self-determining and uncontrolled position to independently reflect one’s identity, understand the society and reconsider the way it works. This innovating task of the youth period is celebrated as a youth right beneficial for the renewal of society.

How can youth work, youth policy and the young people close their eyes on the ways that digitalized society narrows their life, colonizes their every day and restricts their autonomy? Is there scope for critical and alternative awareness in a surveillance society? How can young people become independent and active citizens under a reconfigured autonomy?

Discussion and Recommendations

The focus on the broad context of the power and profit-making interest of the tech industry well resonates with many digital experts. The Pew Research Institute asked in 2023 experts around the world about ‘the best and most harmful effects of AI and digitalization by 2035’. Most of the 305 responses were from scientists from US universities and research institutes. Some 79% of the experts said they are either ‘more concerned than excited’ about coming technological change or ‘equally concerned and excited’. Only 18% were ‘more excited than concerned’. The biggest concern was that ‘digitalization was driven by profit incentives in economics, power incentives of technology corporations and politicians, and that this development was likely to continue by 2035 and harm democracy, human rights, equality, human knowledge, health and well-being and contribute to climate warming’ (Andersson & Rainier, 2023, p. 5).

The Pew researchers concluded that it was generally agreed that ‘The society was “miserably unprepared” to meet the negative effects and to govern and regulate the tech industry’. Also, in the youth field, it is time to break away from complacency about digital youth work and meet the negative effects of digitalization and relate to critical digital literacy. It is proposed to (a) enhance critical digital literacy, young people’s digital rights, non-formal learning and agency; (b) find ways in youth work to empower young people to become aware of the ways that digitalization affects them; (c) to conduct research to understand young people’s digital complacency, the measures to develop their awareness and the ways young people defend their digital rights; (d) be prepared to understand and address both unjustified techno-optimism and resistance of traditional youth work to digital change; (e) study how the different historical, political and technological contexts frame digital transformation in youth work; (f) complement traditional youth work with critical digital literacy (if youth work treats digital youth work as merely its subservient tool, it will not understand how digitalization affects young people); and (g) create a new strategy for youth workers and youth work organizations to meet the new challenges of digitalization, such as those outlined in this article.

Furthermore, a new definition of DYW is needed:

Digital youth work aligns itself with European (EU and Council of Europe) digital strategies and research on digitalization. It takes note of the variety of ways that young people use digital media and are used by them. Digital youth work empowers young people to digital creativity and to critically understand the datafied world in the broad context of data economy. Young people enjoy digital means and become aware of their societal opportunities, effects, and risks. The pedagogical cornerstones are the values and aims of youth work, young people’s digital rights, critical digital literacy, non-formal learning, and their own agency.

The definition establishes a link between youth work and DYW, puts it into the broader context of digitalization and challenges young people’s complacency. The trademark of youth work is trust in young people to eventually, and with the support of youth workers, become critical change makers. At the same time, it is worth keeping in mind the words of Magdalena Andersson, former prime minister of Sweden (UN Forum on digitalization, 19 September 2023): ‘We do not know how the online life of today’s young people affects them’.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Note

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