Social media is here to stay. It offers a fantastic way to connect and communicate with others. However, social media is a double-edged sword and our young people are increasingly exposed to online behaviours that: erode their confidence, damage interpersonal relations, encourage the search for aesthetic perfection & over-sharing of personal information, and increase the possibility of radicalization. These all pose serious risks to the development of positive, confident, active young citizens.
Our Healthy Social Media project directly addressed these potential negative impacts by working with young people to improve their ability to assess and engage with the digital and social media they are consuming and creating. Our consortium has extensive experience of youth work and working with young people, and together we can achieve our objective “to help make young people’s experience of using social media a healthy, positive and life-affirming one.”
Project Ezines
Among those pictured left – Denis Naughten, TD Roscommon and Galway Constituency and Luke Culhane, the teenager founder of a viral anti-bullying video entitled #Createnohate