YOUTH 2020 - The position of young people in Slovenia

Creativity and culture  291 8.4  YOUTH CULTURAL PARTICIPATION ONLINE The use of information and communication technology among young people has been growing over the last few decades and is an inextricable part of everyday activities, including cultural activities. Online cultural activities generally include reading news sites (newspapers or maga- zines), playing or downloading games, pictures, movies, or music, listen- ing to online radio, shopping for cultural goods (movies, music, books, magazines) and services (tickets for cultural events, museums, theatres), and the creation of websites or blogs (European Commission, 2013). Online cultural participation is a completely new formof cultural partic- ipation, which is associated with increasing access to the Internet (both from home and on the go). According to Eurostat data (2020), the share of households in the EU with internet access increased from 79% to 90% between 2013 and 2019. This has certainly contributed to the increase in young people’s online cultural participation and consumption. According to Eurostat (2020), young online users (16-24 years old) 5 in the EU-27 are most likely to watch TV or videos online (88%) and listen to music (87%) for cultural purposes. Less often they read onlinemagazines and newspapers (68%), and play video games (58%). A minority of young people buy tickets to events (28%), films and music (23%), and books and magazines (19%). Compared to older age groups, young people are slight- ly more active in all forms of online cultural participation, except for reading magazines and newspapers, and buying books, magazines, and newspapers. The results of our research show that Slovenian youth spend most of their time online on activities related to entertainment and relaxation. On average, 79% of young people listen to music for at least half an hour a day, 62%watch or upload videos, 64%watch DVDs or movies, and 35% play games. They spend much less time reading (20% read at least half an hour a day) and expressing their views online, e.g. in the form of blogs (8% express their views at least half an hour a day). Around 9% of young people spend on average at least half an hour a day virtually vis-