Most young people are ‘netizens’ and ‘digital natives’, but not all young people have the opportunities to fully exploit the digitalised world.

The Tavistock Institute and Arcola Research are studying the impact of ICT on socio-economic inclusion of young people. The work has been commissioned by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies– a scientific institute of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC).

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are offering new platforms, infrastructure, and media penetrating most walks of life. For young people born into the digital world, ICT offers opportunities for new ways of learning and interacting with other individuals, groups and society. Society needs to ensure that disadvantaged young people are not left behind in the development of information society – failing to do so risk exacerbating existing exclusion scenarios.

Thus, there is a need for understanding what type of policies (employment policy, social policy, education policy, community cohesion) and what type of instruments can be used to address digital exclusion.The study addresses three key areas:

• Young people at risk: what factors put young people at risk and how can we understand their perspectives on ICT?
• Policies and ICT-based initiatives addressing youth at risk: which instruments exist to stimulate better use of ICT to address social exclusion?
• Impact of policies: what has been the socio-economic impact of existing initiatives?

The study includes a literature review, a policy review of the UK, Spain, Netherlands and at EU level, a survey of ICT based initiatives in these countries and an impact assessment of these policies.