The future of our generation: Trends in Youth Decision-Making rights by Age in Elections and Social Media

Importance of Youth inclusion: Young people fostering the development of democracy

According to the UN (1981) the “youth” are those aged between 15-24. The importance of providing young people with decision-making rights can’t be underestimated. For instance, Lihon Huang (2015) highlighted the emphasis that European institutions put on fostering young people’s active citizenship, enhancing their integration and inclusion, and strengthening their contribution to the development of democracy. The European Council (2017) mentioned that this could be achieved by giving the youth the right to engage in decision-making processes on both, local and national levels.

The UN (2023), consequently, reiterates the need to empower youth and young people by providing them with decision-making rights, as it would help to achieve sustainable and flourishing societies as mentioned in The 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Talking about the effect that an expansion of decision-making rights has on youth participation, it is evident and straightforward, as the catering of decision-making rights for the young people= more engaged and interested youth that would be interested in fostering sustainable development. Expanding youth decision-making rights would also mean a better flow of innovative ideas and projects that would shape our future as prosperous and sustainable.

Expanding the decision-making rights and autonomy of young people is a great way to develop a more engaged society that is catering to the up-to-date needs of the world we are living in. Without the inclusion of a younger generation, it would be hard to build a future where every person’s rights are respected and constitutionally protected.

Great examples would be initiatives in various areas, like health, well-being, and safety,  that were initiated during the COVID-19 times by the youth communities and organizations. To sum up, expanding the decision-making rights and autonomy of young people is a great way to develop a more engaged society that is catering to the up-to-date needs of the world we are living in. Without the inclusion of a younger generation, it would be hard to build a future where every person’s rights are respected and constitutionally protected, as those who would be in power are those same people who previously were from the decision-making processes and the political processes respective to their countries.

Lowering the age participation threshold: European examples 

There are several examples of lowering the age threshold for youth decision-making rights in different fields across the globe. I would like to focus on the European countries as Estonia is a part of the European Union and it is interesting to see what trends in the societies with similar values.

Voting rights: In the field of voting rights and elections, the tendency goes towards lowering the threshold age. Several European countries lowered the voting age to 16-17 in the state or/and European elections ( like Germany, Austria, Estonia in local government elections, etc.)  This presents the view that the political world is becoming more open to the youth which in my opinion is a good thing. 

However, I hereby present to you the case of Germany and its lowering of the voting age before the 2024 European Elections. I chose this case study because it represents how lowering the threshold for voting is both beneficial and threatening. On the 10th of November, 2022 the Bundestag (German Parliament) voted in favor of lowering the voting age from 18 to 16 for the European Parliament (Bundestag, 2022). The justification was that the elections shouldn’t exclude people who are already taking responsibilities in several other sectors of life, for example administrative, judicial, and social. While the intentions of this decision were clear and altruistic, it blacklashed the country’s pro-European stance.

Analysing the results of the 2024 European elections it could be seen that the AfD, the party with Eurosceptic stances, gained a 16% share of voters of people aged under 25, compared to the 5 % that they got within the same age group in the 2019 European elections. (Pfeifer, 2024;Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, n.d.) This, along with some other progress within different age groups, allowed the far-right party to gain 15 seats and enter the European parliament, putting the idea of a united and democratic European Union into question.  Although the lowering of the voting age helped to attract more young people into elections and civic life, and granted them more autonomy in the field of politics and decision-making, it also presented new challenges and threats to the European Union, that have to be addressed.

Social media and content creation: According to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that has been applied in Europe starting from 2018 reduced the age of social media consent, now, individuals from the age of 13 can use social media and create content with parental consent, and from the age of 16 they are not required to have a consent (depends on the country of course but this is generally the case in all member state countries). (General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – Legal Text, 2024) This development has correlated with the rise of the far-right parties who have stronghold in apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter.

We receive news from TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter (which is now known as “X”), and basically, our political views form inside these networks.

As mentioned beforehand, the AdF gained 11 percent more votes within the youth in European Parliament 2024 election in Germany compared to the 2019 election, and one of the main factors in my opinion and the opinion of experts is social networks, specifically TikTok. It is not a surprise that the main means via which youngsters like me receive the information are TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter (which is now known as “X”): we receive news from here, and basically, our political views form inside these networks. Maximilian Krah, the lead candidate for AdF at the 2024 European elections has their own TikTok page where he posts a lot of videos aimed at the youth, especially at the male population, as his ideas are seen as “masculine” by the majority of people. He goes on to post some kind of joke videos where Maximilian advises youngsters to go out and breathe fresh air, and vote for right-wing parties (Abels, 2024) He has also used “ Tik Tok” app as a platform to attract young male voters using populist slogans like “ you should not for Greens if you are a real man, a real man is a patriot of the country, etc.”

The example of Germany may sound insignificant and unrelated to the research, but as we look deeply, it represents an alarming trend all over the European member-states and the world overall. The same tendency of the successive TikTok usage by far-right populist parties that reflected on the election results can be observed in France where Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is the most popular among the youth: and in Spain, 22% of young voters identified that they would vote for far-right parties like Vox and Se acabo. (Baget, 2024) These are just examples from the bigger countries, not to mention countries like Austria, Slovakia, etc. where populist parties gained popularity using social media.

There is also positive side of reducing the age of social media consent. This is the fact that more youth are becoming interested and involved in decision-making within their countries. The other positive outcome is the progression of media literacy within the younger population as the guidelines are being promoted by the European Union. (European Commission, 2022) It is a great step towards a prosperous future where the decision-makers are well-informed about the danger the media could pose and have the ability to think critically.

Giving youngsters more autonomy in decision-making: Is our generation ready for this burden?

As a 20-year-old representative of Gen Z and someone who studies political science and governance, I have a lot to say. Giving the youth greater autonomy and decision-making rights directly implies taking responsibility for everything that we as a youth do, whether it’s voting or engagement in social media, all of this decision influences and determines our lives, thus requiring responsibility from us. The amount of information that has been made available for our generation in 2024  according to Duarte (2024) is 90 times bigger than what was available in 2010, this drastic change requires maturing from us and learning new things and skills much faster.

From my own experience, I had to acquire media literacy skills from a young age as I gained access to the internet and social media at the age of 10-12 which is considered young enough. I remember reading news through Facebook and not being able to distinguish disinformation. On one hand, I learned through hard ways, on the other hand, I learned to capitalize on my failures and learn through negative experiences. Overall, lowering the age threshold is a move towards a bright future. It would entail a politically engaged and strong civic society.

The first problem that we as youngsters encounter every day is populism and clip thinking. People, especially the youth, want to have instant ready-made solutions that would magically make their lives better without delving into the topic and properly addressing it.

But as described beforehand, there are challenges that put spokes on the wheels of the youth decision-making process. The first problem that we as youngsters encounter every day is populism and clip thinking. People, especially the youth, want to have instant ready-made solutions that would magically make their lives better without delving into the topic and properly addressing it. Our society would rather watch and believe a 30-second populist video where the guy would tell us how our lives would become better in each aspect than read a 15-page program of the political party that explains in detail which changes they’re going to implement and how it would affect the lives of all of the voters and stakeholders. This is exploited by the “Tik Tok” politics – the trendy and entertaining 30-second videos, easily used as a tool for human manipulation.

I sometimes fall for a populist narrative without acknowledging it internally and I consider myself a person with high media literacy.  I think this problem arises due to the digital world we’re living in. Our attention span has become shorter and our ability to grasp huge amounts of information in a short period.

Overall, I believe that these problems will be solved by our generation shortly. When it comes to the digital age of information overloading and clip thinking, it is evident that our human body and mind are already adapting to it and in 20-30 years it won’t be a big issue.  Social networks have emerged recently – only 20 years have passed since this phenomenon appeared. At the same time, a person physiologically remained the same as he was 50 thousand or 100 thousand years ago. There is still no sufficient understanding of the influence of social networks on a person, and especially on children. More understanding will probably lead to greater restrictions, including age restrictions for access to social networks. As for the harmful influence of social media, it won’t be as malicious in the future as it is now, because right now we are facing a problem of online media illiteracy among the population. It is understandable, as most of the social media have been developed during the last 15 years and we are still getting accustomed to them and we are learning how to interact and combat the challenges that came with these developments.

Expansion of the youth autonomy: The necessary step for Estonia to ensure a prosperous future

In my opinion, giving the youth more autonomy in the decision-making process is the right way to go because the sooner a person begins to learn how to do this, the more knowledge, experience, and skill in making the right decisions he will receive. Assessing the situation in Estonia I concluded that this is a state that is the world leader in many areas related to developments in the current digital world. The digital world is our future, the future of our young generation. This means that expanding youth autonomy is not beneficial but rather a necessary step to ensure that the country continues flourishing and developing. I believe that in the matter of regulating social media activity and reforming electoral qualifications, Estonia is already gaining a lot of experience and showing results that are exemplary for other world democracies and countries that are striving to be democratic.

References

Abels, G. (2024, May 8). Germany lowers voting age to 16 for the European elections – but is it playing into the far right’s hands? The Conversation. Retrieved December 1, 2024.

Baget, J. P. I. (2024, June 10). 2024 European elections: Who are young Europeans voting for? The Conversation. Retrieved December 1, 2024.

Crowley, A. C., & Moxon, D. M. (2017). New and innovative forms of youth participation in decision-making processes. Council of Europe. Retrieved November 30, 2024.

Duarte, F. (2024, June 13). Amount of Data Created Daily (2024). Exploding Topics.

European Commission. (2022, October 11). Commission steps up action to tackle disinformation and promote digital literacy among young people [Press release]. Retrieved December 1, 2024.

Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. (n.d.). Analysis of the 2024 European Elections in Germany.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – Legal Text. (2024, April 22). General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Huang, L. H. (1999). EU-COE Youth Partnership Policy Sheet Citizenship and Participation. Council of Europe. Retrieved November 27, 2024.

Kiss, M. & European Parliamentary Research Service. (2024). Revision of the Driving Licence Directive. In EPRS (Report PE 749.788).

Pfeifer, H. (2024, June 10). AfD: How Germany’s far right won over young voters. dw.com.

Promoting Youth Participation in Decision-Making and Public Service Delivery through Harnessing Digital Technologies | Division for Inclusive Social Development (DISD). (2023, February 20).