57% of young Basques claim their right to digital disconnection
A Unicef report on adolescents and digital well-being concludes that more than half of Basque minors and young people are disgusted by hyperconnection. Data from the study shows a growing need to turn off screens and a significant decrease in risky behaviors associated with mobile phones (sexting, digital partner violence...).
More than half of Basque youth between the ages of 10 and 20 suffer from digital fatigueand have demonstrated the need for digital disconnection , according to the conclusions of the Children, Adolescents and Digital Well-being report released by Unicef.
Young people have access to technology (almost all of them have mobile phones), but they have also become more aware of the need to protect their time and privacy.
Unicef's study is based on a sample of 7,675 young people.
According to the UN Child Protection Agency (Unicef), digital fatigue is defined as the " psychologicaland relational saturation that occurs when the digital environment negatively affects proper comprehensive development, privacy and the right to rest ", so that 57% of the children and adolescents interviewed in the Basque Country are annoyed by hyperconnection and demand that they decide when to be traceable.
Can they sleep well with their cell phone in the bedroom?
95.2% of Basque children and adolescents have their own mobile phone (the same as in 2021). However, in these four years digital hygiene habits are gradually improving. Thus, the habit of sleeping with the device in the room (daily or almost daily) has experienced a significant decrease, from 55.3% to 39%. Similarly, the number of people registered on social networks has decreased slightly (from 98.8% to 93%), and the number of profiles on the same platform has increased from 62.5% to 50.9%.
Around 10-12 years old, they start using mobile and social media and consuming risky content.
25% of Basque youth have experienced digital violence in their partner relationships
Despite this slight restriction on the use of devices, the report warns that one in four Basque teenagers who have or have had a partner (25.6%) have experienced frequent digital violence . Control of their partner's friends on social networks (17.7%), control by digital devices (11.6%) and unauthorized mobile tracking (11.2%) are the main ones used to achieve this goal.
Are they still accepting requests for friends from strangers on social media?
However, the study notes a significant decrease in the overall prevalence of risky behaviour (compared to 2021). Passive sexting - the collection, visualization or storage on the device of sexual and erotic content produced and sent by another person - drops by 10 points to 14%. Active sexting - the voluntary creation, storage and sending of images, videos or texts - drops to 6.2%.
On the other hand, the tendency to accept requests for friendships from strangers on social media has declined dramatically, from 54% to 33%, and the number of high-risk activities such as meeting with people only known via the Internet (from 23.7% to 14.3%) and receiving sexual proposals from adults (from 9.3% to 7%) has decreased.
Seventeen percent of young people who watch pornography admit to having "problematic" consumption.
Another major challenge highlighted by the study is the normalization of pornography, which in the Basque Country starts consumption on average at the age of 12.03. Although 70% of young people say they never or very rarely see pornography, 11.1% of minors consumeit regularly, weekly and daily. The data show that this habit is masculinized: 45% of boys admit it, compared to 14.9% of girls.
Video games: violence, PEGI 18 and the gender gap
Video games attract the majority of boys (75.6% compared to 20.9% of girls), and 15.1% of all users frequent them every day. It is worrying thata quarter of Basque minors (24.8%) consume PEGI 18 titles not recommended for their age and 69.3% of players see violent content.
In any case, young people are becoming aware of this abuse on their own: 31% of the children and adolescents interviewed openly acknowledge that they spend much more time on video games than they should.
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