Study Finds the Internet Makes Youth More Engaged Citizens | Hacker News Reader

Study Finds the Internet Makes Youth More Engaged Citizens

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26 pointsacconrad4 comments

>what has been a longstanding stereotype: youth are largely apolitical.

I think the only people who have been saying this are those who haven't been young for such a long time they have lost their contact with 'the youth'.

I'm 23, and throughout my life pretty much everyone I've known around my age has been highly politicised. People from all walks of life.

The key fact is that political disengagement/disillusionment != political apathy.

Just because people may not be engaged in activism and may not even vote, does not mean they are not politically aware and in possession of opinions. It is foolish to assume that these people would not be willing to vote or take part in activism in any political climate, just that they don't want to in the current one. This is something dictators are finding out to their cost.

They're talking about the voting demographics.. that's a matter of fact, not perception. 2008 was an exceptional year for youth and it still lagged older demographics in turnout rate: http://ck37.com/voter-registration-and-turnout-1996-2008

The real story here, IMO is not that the internet creates more engaged citizens, but that being interested in something encourages civic engagement. [edit: not to say the internet doesn't increase engagement, it certainly does, but that's an obvious and uninteresting conclusion]

The idea seems to be to compare civic participation that's driven by [social v political v interest] factors and, from what I can tell, it appears that people who have hobbies and use the internet to build community around their interests are more likely to foster a stronger community in the physical world, whereas people who participate online out of political motivations tend to only increase political participation (e.g. campaign involvement.)

From the study: "Among all the predictors included, parental involvement, strength of ideology, college student status, and political interest were found to be strong and consistent predictors of increased politically driven online participation. Particularly strong, however, was interest-driven participation (B = .59, p < .001). The entry of interest-based participation in Model 2 accounted for an additional 19.1% (= 48.2%–29.1%) of explained variance in politically driven participation." [http://ypp.dmlcentral.net/sites/all/files/publications/Onlin...]

This does not surprise me. In the dark ages, before the proliferation of internet usage, the only real source for information was newspapers, and most youth don't read newspapers. The primary sources of information for them were TV and radio and friends, which do not cover current events and news as deeply as newspapers. But with twitter, facebook, and all the other online sources, they can see and feel what is happening to real people all around the world. It is almost as if their social circles have expanded beyond their schools and neighborhoods, so now they care much more about what happens to their comrades abroad.

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