How do we get more young people engaged in civics? It’s an age-old question that still hasn’t quite been answered. In the UK, the Digital Democracy Commission recently held a event with around 60 young people under 25 to ask them what does it take to get you people interested in engaging with politicians?
As a result of the event, young people came up with a number of things MP’s need to do to be able to fully engage with young people. These include;
1) Having social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
2) Be themselves on social media
A number of people noted how politicians accounts seemed fake and stage managed for them.
3) Young people are not free during normal business hours. So don’t expect them to be
Young people at this event expressed how they could not just pop down to their local MP’s office during school hours and other such times because they are just too busy during that time. They also expressed how MP’s should break away from just having offices and explore other ways they can offer the help of them and their offices to young people.
4) Try and use some technology to communicate to us eg Skype, Google Hangouts
Young people noted that Skype and Google Hangouts would be a good way to be able to connect with them as it is remote and flexible.
5) Get information into one place that they can access
The young people who attended this event noted how they would like to see information that is easily accessible from the one place instead of having to go out and hunt for it.
Overall, we are looking forward to seeing the full report produced by the Digital Democracy Commission in January 2015 and hope it leads to good results.
To read the original news story written by James Galley on this exciting work. Please click here.