The event aims to lay the groundwork for the design of future public policies regarding the rights and well-being of children and adolescents in the digital environment. The event was attended by counselor Nerea Melgosa and the president of Unicef Euskadi, Joseba Madariaga, who emphasized the need to move from concern to a joint response.
Juan Manuel Machimbarrena, professor at the UPV/EHU, presented data from Unicef Euskadi's report "Childhood, Adolescence and Digital Well-being." The report indicates that most children believe cyberbullying is more prevalent than in-person bullying, although a notable decrease in school and cyber victimization has been observed compared to 2021. However, he warned about the potential terrible consequences of pornography consumption among adolescents.
Machimbarrena highlighted that only 5% of young users in Euskadi engage in problematic use of the digital world, which affects their well-being and mental health. Furthermore, more than half of adolescents express a desire to disconnect from screens, a demand that should be leveraged to propose changes.
Txema Ezkerra, Director of Families, Childhood and Adolescence, stressed the need to weave a network of complicity with social agents, entities, experts, families, and children themselves, not only to regulate screen time but also to ensure they can navigate digital environments safely, with judgment, and autonomously.
During the conference, experts such as Maialen Garmendia (EU Kids Online), Charo Sabada (Committee of Experts on Safe Digital Environment), Rosa Pérez (Gaptain), and Tomás Iriondo (GAIA) presented four lines of work: problematic use of technology and digital violence; access to appropriate digital content and services; digital literacy and parental intermediation; and safety in digital environments and services.
At the end of the event, over 80 people (from associations, universities, social agents, administrations, as well as parents and adolescents) participated in working groups. Some of the proposals gathered include increasing attention to digital rights, engaging leisure associations, families, and educational centers for a unified educational project, establishing more training centers for families, implementing a new Digital Well-being protocol for reporting unwanted messages, and disseminating the risks of excessive digital world use.
