It's a well known fact that nowadays youngsters are spending a lot of their spare time on Social Media platforms. While they enjoy their time on Snapchat, Facebook, Whatsapp and others, both psychologist and parents tend to worry about their mental health and their safety.
Considering this issue, Gabriel Brezoiu, general manager of GEYC, held a presentation in front of Anne Frank House representative about Social Media impact on young people's behavior. According to some researches that have been done on this subject, it seems that while 59% of the parents think that their children are addicted to their mobile device, only 50% of the children believe so. Also, the rate of online presence regarding teen people is almost 100%, 92% of them saying that they go online daily.
The numbers do not stop to worry us, especially when we are talking about the negative side of being online. It's been a while since the talks about depression, anxiety, bullying and hate speech among the young people are caused almost all the time by an online factor. According to HaSpe, a research conducted by GEYC last year, 32.6% from the respondents felt offended, discriminated or bullied by online content. And the worrying part won't stop here, 76.1% from the respondents participated or initiated hate speech online.

Our society is developing faster that we can imagine and since the Internet came in, things started to move even faster. Our mission is more actual that ever, because helping young people to stabilize mentally and grow independently will have a huge impact on their adult life and their future.
P.S. If you want to watch the full presentation, you have it down below.
*Dissemination activity for "eSkills for Volunteers" project. For more information about the project, visit the website www.e-volunteers.eu.