The focus of the workshops was on issues that were important to the participants in relation to the digital space. Topics ranged from internet accessibility (in schools, in public spaces, but also in relation to expensive AI tools that are not accessible to all young people), to online counselling services provided by the city, to educational issues and child-friendly companies.

Main results for awareness raising

The following points are findings that can be helpful to all those working to raise awareness of online challenges for children and young people:

• Data protection
  Young people want to be informed about how their data will be used on online platforms. They want it to be easy to read (e.g. as a bulleted list when entering a new platform, as a short video or game).
• In-app purchases
  How to improve financial education and successfully ban in-app purchases is an important issue for young adults. All those who spent a lot of money on online games as children regret it today. They see this as the responsibility of the state or a public institution, as they themselves have experienced that their parents or caregivers would not have been able to prevent it in their own past. An age check on platforms would be an appropriate measure to prevent this. Furthermore, micro-loans and loot boxes for minors should be banned because the potential for addiction is too great.
• Role of parents
  All young adults in vocational education and training stated that they had not received any media education from their own parents or caregivers. Only some of those in higher education had parents who had successfully provided media education. All young adults felt that parents needed better training to be able to provide such media education.
• Media education workshops and measures
  Since parents and caregivers are not seen as helpful in educating young people, they see school and workshops as an important resource. Such workshops should also be offered outside schools, as not all children are in school. Because they see that their teachers are not trained enough to teach them media literacy, young people also ask for teachers who are better trained (e.g. in the appropriate use of AI for school purposes). They also want to receive awareness-raising content through social media or WhatsApp/telegram channels. When it comes to helpful and trustworthy resources, young people say they judge organizations by the design of their website: therefore, the trustworthiness of an organization is questioned if it is not able to provide well-designed online content.
• Participation
  Young people judge youth participation according to their previous experience of such participation processes. If they have experienced 'youth washing' at any stage, they will not participate in the future, nor will they motivate others to do so. Therefore, all those who provide youth participation have a huge responsibility: if it is not made clear how the results will be used and how young people's opinions will be heard and taken into account, they will feel ignored. This would not only make the respective participation process useless, but also all future ones.

Find more information about the work of the Austrian Safer Internet Centre, including its awareness raising, helpline, hotline, and youth participation services, or find similar information for other Safer Internet Centres throughout Europe.