From adolescence to adulthood: uncovering youth-driven digital practices in a fluid and adaptive world

Abstract

We live in a moment of profound digital transformation. The platforms, algorithms and networked infrastructures that shape everyday life are not neutral technologies – they are social, political and cultural environments that young people inhabit, navigate and reshape in ways that are only beginning to be understood. This Feature Topic of Media International Australia takes on that challenge, bringing together scholarship from an interdisciplinary lens that examines the digital practices of young people across diverse global contexts, with a particular attention to how youth – from adolescence into early adulthood – appropriate, resist and are shaped by the digital worlds they currently occupy.

Introduction

Defining youth is no easy task in a world full of diverse legal frameworks and historical trajectories. The African Union's cut off age for youth is between 18 and 35 while the United Nations consider youth as people between the ages of 15 and 24 years. Research on digital platforms and their social consequences has grown substantially over the past two decades. Yet despite this expansion, a significant gap persists in our understanding of how young adults specifically experience and navigate digital technologies. Especially potent is the contemporary discourses of social media bans in a range of countries, where Australia has been the first in a range of countries to implement an under-16 ban and many other countries are assessing whether to follow suit (Sampson, 2026). Distinct from both children and older adult users, young adults occupy a particular position within platform ecosystems, yet their experiences and negotiations of these environments remain comparatively understudied. Recent scholarship has begun to address this, attending to questions of social media use, platform affordances and well-being among adolescent and young adult populations (Mohamed et al., 2024; Montag et al., 2024; Van der Wal et al., 2024). However, the field of youth and digital media studies has been built largely on research conducted in, and theorised from, the Global North perspective. This Feature Topic proceeds from a different assumption: that the digital practices of young people in sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and the Pacific are not peripheral variations on a Northern norm but distinct, generative sites of knowledge that have much to teach us about how digital life actually works for most of the world's young people of today.

The stakes of this inquiry are considerable. Globally, young people are using social media to construct and express identity, connect with communities of shared interest and experience as well as participate in public and political life (Wilska et al., 2023). Digital platforms have become a primary source through which young people access news and stay informed about the world around them (Wunderlich et al., 2022), and they play an increasingly important role in fostering belonging and mitigating social isolation (Smith et al., 2021). At the same time, the risks are real and unevenly distributed. Exposure to cyberbullying, the mental health consequences of problematic platform use, the influence of digital marketing and influencer culture on consumption and self-perception and the structural inequalities that determine who has meaningful access to digital participation. These are not peripheral concerns but central features of the digital landscape young people inhabit (Montag et al., 2024).

What this literature also reveals is the need to move beyond generalised accounts of ‘youth’ and ‘digital media’ towards more situated, contextually grounded analyses where non-Western experiences, youth cultures and exposure are centred. Importantly, young people are not a homogeneous category. Their digital practices are shaped by geography, culture, language, socio-economic position, gender and indigeneity, among other factors. Because of this, we need to include and incorporate these conditions in a way that does not include them as ‘Other’ but as ongoing scholarship in an emerging field. One thing that has increasingly become clear is their increasing reliance on digital and social media platforms for news. Most scholars agree that there is a growing trend in social media use in many countries around the world, especially among the youth. These include China (Zhou and Yang 2025), Chile (Scherman et al., 2022), Sweden (Holt et al., 2025), Netherlands (de Jong et al., 2024), United States (Edgerly, 2026), Uganda (Namasinga Selnes and Orgeret, 2020) and Germany (Weston et al., 2025). Consequently, such case studies have established that there is a growing trend of youths increasingly consuming news from social media platforms thus leaving them vulnerable to misinformation. Youth are also exposed to violence online, with research revealing mounting cases of cyberbullying and catfishing (Paat and Markham, 2021).

In bringing together theoretical and empirical work from diverse disciplinary and geographic perspectives, this Feature Topic aims to make a meaningful contribution to an urgent conversation. As digital platforms continue to evolve, with artificial intelligence (AI), short-form video and algorithmic curation reshaping the conditions of youth participation, the need for rigourous, critical and contextually sensitive scholarship has never been greater. The articles that follow represent a significant step towards meeting that need.

Conceptualising youth and digital media

Global trends indicate that young people are using social media for a variety of reasons. For example, social media could be used as a ‘moral laboratory’ where young people find ways to support each other on experiences with traumatic life events such as death (Selfridge and Mitchell, 2021: 531). In the United States, young people use social media to claim an identity or protect their reputation (Vasquez Reyes et al., 2023). Social media apps also help African youths living in Australia seek out but also acquire an identity and sense of belonging (Moran and Robards, 2020). However, across the world, social media platforms have also emerged as a vital tool for young people to express themselves, particularly those interested in political engagement, respondents to a Nigerian study exploring youth participation in the 2015 general election confirmed (Onyechi, 2018). The scale of the influence of social media is felt across Europe, with youth using social media as a source of political information and for political expression as revealed by two studies from Germany (Harff & Schmuck, 2025) and Finland (Sormanen et al., 2025). Equally, Arab youths are appropriating social media for family bonding (Al-Mabuk and Alrebh, 2025), while Italian young audiences are turning to social media to connect, interact and share ‘fake news’ (Siani and Gennari, 2025). An estimated 79% of people aged between 15 and 24 are digitally engaged, that figure rising to 98% in wealthier countries (Salza and Samuel, 2025).

While on the whole, young people's interest in news is tumbling (Eddy, 2022), in countries such as Norway, teenagers get most of their news from social media platforms such as TikTok (Selnes, 2024). Consequently, it's also there that, generally they encounter ‘fake news’ (Newman, 2022). Research further shows that some of the young audiences’ news encounters on social media are largely accidental (Boczkowski et al., 2018). Still, they also consider the dissemination and sharing of news important (Head et al., 2018). Even so, youth disengagement from media affects democratic deliberation as argued by Ndlovu (2014) whose study showed declining youth viewership of television news had severe implications for South African democracy.

Globally, research on youth and news has exploded over the last few years to include studies in both Western and non-Western contexts. Examples of such research include Brazil (Almeida et al., 2023), Saudi Arabia (Alsulaiman, 2022) and Denmark (Berthelsen and Hameleers, 2021). Youths are more vulnerable to ‘fake news’ (Nygren and Guath, 2022). Most of them do not fully believe in their ability to spot falsehoods online (Nygren and Guath, 2019). Young people employ media and information literacy skills to access and evaluate news (Swart, 2021). MIL, defined by Livingstone (2004) as ‘the public's ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages across different contexts’, also empowers South African university students’ engagement in democratic processes (Muringa and Adjin-Tettey, 2024: 115). MIL means being able to effectively use different types of media effectively (Hobbs, 1998). It enhances youths’ political knowledge, participation and critical analysis of media messages (Badaru and Adu, 2020). Equally, in countries like India, youths are appropriating MIL to transform behaviour and attitudes towards the environment (Srivastava, 2024).

Artificial intelligence shaping future trajectories of youth’s digital engagement

The ongoing challenges related to AI literacy, ethical awareness and the social implications of AI systems are areas of great importance for our understanding of its implications for contemporary youth. Recent research highlights how young people actively integrate AI tools into learning and knowledge production, with a focus on motivations for adopting AI technologies (Sun, 2025), AI literacy and possible pedagogical strategies (Cavero et al., 2025; Williams et al., 2023) and youth perspectives on AI in health care (Schaaff et al., 2025).

Youth engagement with AI is not merely instrumental but embedded in broader social and emotional contexts of learning. Sun (2025) explored Chinese students’ motivations for adopting AI technologies, identifying several motivations driving AI use among youth, including deep learning and understanding, personal development, the exploration of new ideas, outperforming peers and gaining recognition. Students also reported diverse experiences with AI systems, including emotional responses to AI-mediated learning, the benefits of personalised learning pathways, AI-assisted language learning and emerging ethical concerns related to these technologies (Sun, 2025).

Alongside questions of use and motivation, researchers have increasingly emphasised the need to develop AI literacy among young people. As AI systems become ubiquitous, educational initiatives seek to help youth critically understand how such technologies function and shape society. Cavero et al. (2025) propose the pedagogical strategy of metacognitive embodiment, in which students reflect on their own cognitive processes while comparing them to how AI systems perform similar tasks. Relatedly, Williams et al. (2023) examine project-based AI and ethics curricula designed for middle school students. Their work emphasises that AI education should integrate technical knowledge with ethical reflection. Through hands-on activities and discussions of AI's societal implications, students can develop the ability not only to create AI artifacts but also to critically evaluate their broader impacts. As AI systems become ubiquitous, educational initiatives seek to help youth critically understand how such technologies function and shape society (Cavero et al., 2025) and how AI education should integrate technical knowledge with ethical reflection (Williams et al., 2023).

Youth in conflict zones appropriating social media use

Youths in global conflict zones deserve special attention, not least in the ongoing and increasingly uncertain status of the geopolitical climate. Youth in conflict zones use digital media to document experiences of violence, share personal narratives and participate in forms of cultural and political resistance. Research highlights how online platforms and visual media allow young people to circulate alternative accounts of conflict, challenge dominant media representations and create spaces for collective memory and activism (Shah, 2025). At the same time, digital environments intersect with broader psychosocial and structural challenges in conflict settings, where exposure to violence, disrupted education and mental health pressures shape how youth engage with both offline and online spaces (Hamid and Bhat, 2022; Massad et al., 2018; Spambo, 2025). Emerging research highlights how youth actively respond to conflict through cultural expression, media narratives and forms of resistance, contributing to public discourse on conflict and justice (Shah, 2025), focusing on conflict zones such as Palestine (Massad et al., 2018), the Kashmir Valley in India (Hamid and Bhat, 2022) and South African townships (Spambo, 2025), where violent protests and structural inequalities shape young people's educational experiences. Digital media proves important spaces for not just conflict visibility but also shapes conflict narratives on platforms heavily inhabited by youth. Increasingly, social media such as TikTok become important sites for documenting warzones in Ukraine (Heřmanová et al., 2025) and Palestine (Cervi and Divon, 2023) in ways that incorporate not just youth narratives (memes, humour and TikTok challenges) but which extends witnessing to new and younger publics.

The social media bans that are effectively being discussed in many national contexts such as Sweden (Swedish Government Office, 2025), India, Denmark, Indonesia and the UK's Online Safety Act (UK Government, 2025) following the aforementioned social media ban in Australia. Prime Minister Albanese (2025) stated it would help family arguments regarding screen time, saying: ‘Now, instead of trying to set a “family rule”, you can point to a national ban’. The ban has been critiqued for exhibiting the ‘hallmarks of a moral panic, including the construction of a clearly defined threat, a disproportionate response, and the sidelining of young people's voices’ (Sutcliffe, 2025).

However, no real-world correlation between social media and youth health issues has been significantly found in myriads of previous studies. According to van der Linden (2026) in their piece in Springer Nature, even concerning the potential harms of youth on social media: ‘A ban does not empower youth. It confers no skills. It doesn’t cultivate resilience against online harms. It merely postpones the problem’. In a time where youth are both being exposed to online harms, and left outside of mainstream alternatives, fears of increased online harms to youth from assessing more obscure platforms have been expressed by internet scholars (Leaver, 2026).

Paper summaries

The contributions gathered here address a broad range of issues related to youth and digital media. After this introduction, we begin with a Spanish study that uses ethnographic fieldwork in three educational institutions to investigate adolescents’ choices for using the various social media platforms. Marta Meneu, Marta and Maria-Jose Masanet identify several factors including entertainment and acquiring knowledge as the main motivations driving their choices. Using data from a nationally representative survey, another Spanish study samples age groups up to 15 year olds to study youth's everyday social media experiences to understand how they influence their mental health. Results from this study by Daniel Ibanez Barredo, Lucia Caro-Castaño, Miguel Efrén Garcés-Prettel, Jesús Arroyave-Cabrera, Ana Merchán-Clavellino, Silvia María Vega-Saldaña and Yanin Santoya-Montes showed the need to differentiate participation profiles from exposure to online aggression. Using interviews with 20 Mexican millennials born between 1981 and 1995, Guillermo Echauri demonstrates how digital technologies dominate the everyday generational experiences of these youth. Next, Ruby Brands conducts three feminist focus interviews as part of a digital auto-ethnographic research that shows how young women's digital cultural experiences lead to gendered identity construction on TikTok.

Next up, Sanne Kruikemeier and Rens Vliegenthart's paper probes whether young adults’ news use combined with a minimalist approach to news influence media trust. Their longitudinal survey conducted ahead of the 2023 Dutch election reveal that young adults between 18 and 24 heavily rely on social media for news. Interestingly, they trust what they read. The levels of polarisation are also reported to be low. Then, Jade Harley Bretaña and Diana Elizabeth De Guzman discuss the digital life experiences of Filipino youth beyond the ‘digital natives’ classification, chiefly focusing on digital precarity to help us understand how visibility, voice and vulnerability are shaped by inhibiting social issues including class, location and institutional support. The next paper sampled 120 Indonesian high school students to investigate motivations for their trust in AI-presented news. In another paper, Indra Prawira, Muhammad Ramadhan, Ebnu Yufriadi and Nur Afny Andryani's findings reveal that the credibility of AI news presenters was influenced by driven content credibility rather than the media source credibility. Then a Peruvian study by Juan Francisco Dávila, Mònica Casabayó and Steven Rayburn, surveys over 300 students aged between 18 and 28 years to examine the relationship between intensified Instagram use and higher vanity. Their results showed there was a correlation between Instagram use intensity and physical vanity.

The next paper uses a participatory research design to analyse the use of Adverse Childhood Experiences among British youth seeking to study the emotional impact associated with their artistic expression. Findings from a study by Syeda Sana Batool, Anna Williams, Ali Syed Naqvi, Kamaldeep Bhui, Jack Hanrahan and Grace Bennett demonstrate the potential for using arts-based digital methods to support marginalised youth voices. The issue's final paper is a contribution by Shupikai Kembo, who traces the context-specific social media experiences of young adults aged 18–24 in South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe. Findings point to WhatsApp being the most used platform across all three countries even though the surveyed young adults’ digital experiences severely differ because of a wide range of socio-economic constrains including data costs and internet reliability.

Drawing on a qualitative online survey administered through Microsoft Forms between 31 July 2025 and 16 August 2025, the study analysed responses from 76 participants (South Africa = 23; Botswana = 24; Zimbabwe = 29). This research investigated platform preferences, the motivations and purposes of use and how social media was used to express identity and foster belonging. It also examined the structural and contextual factors that shaped social media engagement in each country. Furthermore, the study explored the challenges youths faced online across these three countries. Findings revealed both shared and context-specific digital practices. While WhatsApp emerged as the dominant platform across all three countries, variations were evident in reported constraints, particularly regarding data costs and internet reliability.