Social Media AbUse
Start date: Oct 1, 2014,
End date: Oct 31, 2016
PROJECT
FINISHED
The project "Social Media AbUse" (SMAU) is based on observations from youth associations across Europe which indicate that the use of information and communication technology (ICT) by young people often exceeds the constructive limits. A need has been detected to develop a project to address the issue of the use and abuse of ICT and social networks in which educators often do not feel sufficiently competent and lack knowledge and tools to prevent and intervene. While some intervention projects are being developed in areas of education, a lack of this type of projects in areas of non-formal education is perceived. To address these needs, the project SMAU is proposed. It aims at equipping youth and youth workers with competencies which are crucial for prevention and intervention in the case of social media abuse.
The project SMAU offers an innovative approach to achieve the objectives of Strategic Partnerships in the field of Youth related to training of youth workers, innovation, use of ICT and REA, as well as the program priorities for 2014.
The project brings together nine partners from four countries: Spain, France, Slovenia and Germany, two partners from each, plus the coordinator (Spain). The partners are organizations with expertise and experience in the field of training of youth workers and social intervention for young people, European projects and international cooperation and with prior experience in the field of ICT.
The project is primarily aimed at two different target groups: youth workers and young people aged 15 to 25 and is based on the principles of non-formal education that promotes active participation and adapting activities to the reality of the participants. In order to address the needs of training, activities and products for youth workers aimed at raising awareness, developing tools and professional development. Furthermore, we detected the need for direct work with young people, since they are the ones affected by the abuse of social media and often do not have resources and tools to combat it. In order to inform and raise awareness among youth, improve their digital skills and together with them develop tools and guidelines to combat abuse and promote appropriate use of social networks and ICT, activities for youth are developed. Besides that, the project offers an opportunity to live a European experience and thus arouse the curiosity or interest in languages and other European cultures.
Besides the participants directly involved, the project aims at achieving a greater number of people through multipliers events and dissemination of results and products - both workers and youth aged 15 to 25 years, as well as other stakeholders, such as families, public institutions , youth centers, associations, etc. at local, regional, national, and international level.
The objectives of this project are to:
- Raise awareness among youth about the abuse of social networks and ICT. For this purpose awareness raising sessions and participatory workshops will be held.
- Involve young people with fewer opportunities. This will be achieved through the participation of partners and professionals who work with youth with learning difficulties and poor school performance, members of ethnic minorities, youth with immigrant background or those from families with lower socio-economic status. We believe that these groups deserve special attention, since they often have poorer access to information resources and tools and are therefore particularly vulnerable in terms of social media abuse.
- Define and recognize the different forms of abuse of social networks and ICT at European level. To meet this objective an analysis of reality will be carried out in each partner country, which will lead to a comparative study and will form the basis for the development of other project activities.
- Promote appropriate use of social networks and ICT forms. To meet this objective, open educational resources based on the project results will be designed and events will be organized to disseminate the project results.
- Provide young people with tools to recognize and combat against the abuse of social networks and ICT, namely through open educational resources.
- Improve youth workers’ skills so they can intervene in cases of social media abuse. This will be done through a training course for professionals and an open educational resource.