The recent success of the Netflix series Adolescence has resonated widely with audiences across Europe, triggering an important public discussion about the complex and often unsettling digital realities faced by today’s young people. From the influence of toxic masculinity and harmful online influencers to the increasing exposure to gender-based violence (GBV) and cyberbullying, the series reveals how growing up in the digital age presents unprecedented challenges for youth—and for the adults supporting them.
The show explores how the school failed to provide a supportive environment for learning and wellbeing, how Jamie – the series protagonist – was influenced by peers, and follows the family through this traumatic experience—emphasizing the crucial role parents play in guiding their children’s engagement with the digital world and supervising their use of digital technology.
At ICDI we strongly believe that such conversations are both timely and necessary. Adolescence underscores what many parents, educators, and child protection professionals already feel: a growing sense of unease and uncertainty about how best to guide children through adolescence in a world saturated with digital content, algorithms, and peer pressure.
This focus directly relates to our newest initiative at ICDI, the E-mpowerYouth project, which targets both young people and their caregivers in the context of digital technology and social media use. Launched at the beginning of this April, this two-year project addresses critical issues like bullying, the healthy use of social media, and online gender-based violence. The project is designed to improve the digital wellbeing of a population with even higher vulnerability to these issues: young Ukrainian refugees and internally displaced youth in Ukraine, Poland, and the Netherlands. In this project we partnered with longstanding and new partners such as LHSI, Opora Foundation, Pro-fil and Teenergizer. At its heart, the project is about recognising that digital resilience and responsible social media use are not the sole responsibility of youth—it must be a shared endeavour, involving families, communities, educators, and policymakers.
Much like the themes explored in Adolescence, the E-mpowerYouth project aims to address these underlying issues shaping young people’s beliefs and behaviours today and to foster healthier attitudes of youth towards gender, relationships, and online interactions.
In a post-Adolescence moment of reflection, we invite everyone—parents, youth workers, teachers, and policymakers—to ask: How can we do better? E-mpowerYouth is one answer.
