YOUTH 2020 - The position of young people in Slovenia

Use of information and communications technology, and the digital environment  333 10.3  QUANTITY AND PURPOSE OF INTERNET USE As concerns the amount of time that young people spend on different tasks, the findings confirm that consuming content is the primary rea- son for their use of the internet, followed by producing content. In amore detailed analysis of the time that young people spend on various online activities, 2 both listening to music and visiting social networks domi- nate. It is also not surprising that young people spend the least time a day visiting virtual galleries, museums, or concerts, as this concept only just began to develop in 2020. More surprising is the data on the “active” or “productive” use of social networks, which indicates the absence of deliberative potential of these tools for young people and the syndrome of “following” other influencers. The low amount of time young people spend reading newspapers and magazines is also surprising, which merely confirms the findings of many studies that social networks are the primary source of information for young people. It is worth noting the pre-Covid-19 pandemic finding of Eurostat (2019) that those young people who use the internet to search for information are mostly looking for information on goods and services, looking for news, looking for health-related information, and almost 40% of them are looking for edu- cational content or content related to online education. On the other hand, it is encouraging to note that young people have spent a lot of time doing schoolwork, working online, and using online tools, but this infor- mation needs to be examined in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, when both education and work moved online. 2 We recalculated the survey scale by recoding all intervals into their mean: the frequency in- tervals of the activities chosen by the respondents were as follows (0 = zero / never engaged, 1 = up to 15minutes [recoded in 7.5minutes], 2 = 15-30minutes [recoded in 22.5minutes], 3 = 30 minutes to 1 hour [recoded in 45 minutes], 4 = 1-2 hours [recoded in 90 minutes], 5 = 2–3 hours [recoded in 150minutes], 6 =more than 3 hours [recoded in 210minutes]).