Politics, young people and the Internet

All these activities were initiated and organised through the Internet. Initially students express their anger in small online communities, the presence of the community is then circulated; the site gains in popularity and is visited by a huge number of sympathetic students. This in turn becomes more organised.

Politicians in many countries, including Australia, are concerned that young people are increasingly disinterested in politics and civil participation. However, these examples and other studies show young people are willing to participate when the cost of participation is low and their interests are at stake.

We believe that this type of participation, or having their voice heard, is a good signal of the healthy society, current and future.

There are two contrasting views regarding technology and young people's participation in civil affairs. Although any decisive conclusion on this debate is yet to be further researched, we suggest three implications from what we have discussed.

First, today's young people are the first generation to be born in, and grow up with, Internet and mobile technologies, whom Marc Prensky calls "digital natives" compared to "digital immigrants", like those in their 30s and over who entered the new digital age in the middle of their life path.

Digital natives think and process information fundamentally differently. They are native speakers of the digital language of computers, video games, the Internet and mobiles. Their ways of interacting, expressing and participating are different from those of digital immigrants. Therefore they should not be judged by our own standards. They may have their own way of participation, which is related to the second point.

Young people tend to combine participation in social affairs with fun. They use parodies, humours, wits and caricatures to express their feelings and opinions rather than straightforwardly say by critical words. They often become flash mobs: a demonstration is organised via mobiles and the Internet where participants gather and display their message in an unusual, humorous way just for a while, and then they disband immediately. Here the issue is how to draw young people's creativity rather than downplaying the new and different type of creativity. We need to find a way to encourage their participation and engage them in social affairs.

We also need to see beyond what is immediately observable or conceivable, that is the behaviour of young people themselves and the immediate consequences of their behaviours, when we evaluate the social and political implications of technology on young people. Young people seem to pursue fun and pleasure: it seems that they do not consider broader social and political implications of their acts. However, their acts do not occur in vacuum.

Their acts including any type of Internet activities necessarily involve objects (for example, computers), infrastructure and broader service networks. Thus, their engagement in the Internet results in indirect support for the service networks, which is closely tied to socio-economic dimensions of a given society. This is a political action in itself, either intended or unintended. Therefore, the perspective of young people's disengagement in politics is a political action in itself, which may have the very unintended consequence of "disengaging them in politics" or displacing them far away from politics.

Politicians and those who are interested in young people need to consider new ways to reach young people and future generations. We believe that "politicised" or "de-politicised" is an ill-informed or counter-productive way of asking a question. As the significance of the Internet increases, the patterns of their political participation will change. We need to think hard and understand how to mobilise young people's creativity in a socially constructive way. This will be an important question for a healthy democratic society in the future.