Evidence Library
Comprehensive data charts, academic papers, and statistical analysis on the impact of social media on children and adolescents.
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Civic & Political Participation: Youth vs. General Population (2025)
The 2025 Eurostat data reveal that the internet has become a vital infrastructure for youth democratic engagement, with 24.33% of EU youth using digital platforms for civic or political participation, outpacing the general population by 4 percentage points. This gap is widest in Slovenia, where nearly half (49.4%) of all young people utilise the internet for political expression (only 33% of the general population do it). Youth high participation rates are found also in Latvia (33%) and Netherlands (36%).
Daily Internet Access of General Population and Youth (16 to 29 Years Old) (2025)
Daily internet connectivity has become a universal constant for European youth, with the 16–29 age group maintaining near-total saturation (97.67% EU average). While total population access varies significantly, the youth demographic remains consistently above 91% across all 37 measured territories. This creates a dramatic generational "Access Gap" in countries like Croatia (+16pp), Bulgaria (+15pp), and Poland (+14pp), where young people are disproportionately more connected than the general public.
Exposure to Misinformation (2022)
This chart shows the percentage of individuals who have seen untrue or doubtful information or content on internet news sites or social media, in 2022, across 22 European member states, EEA partners (Norway, Iceland), and Switzerland. Reported exposure to misinformation ranges from 34.5% in Greece to a high of 70.7% in the Netherlands. A clear regional trend emerges: Northern European and Nordic nations, including Finland (69.8%), Sweden (64.7%), and the Netherlands (70.7%), report the highest levels of exposure, while Southern European nations, specifically Greece (34.5%) and Italy (37.4%), report significantly lower encounters with doubtful information.
Exposure to Misinformation: Breakdown by Age Group (2022)
This chart shows the percentage of individuals who have seen untrue or doubtful information or content on internet news sites or social media in 2022, disaggregated by age groups (16-24, 25-54/64, and 55/65+) in Europe. The data reveal a stark "generational information gap" within the European digital space, with the youngest demographic (16-24) consistently reporting the highest exposure to doubtful content across every territory. Among this youth group, exposure to misinformation ranges from 41.6% in Greece to a peak of 80.7% in the Netherlands, suggesting that in highly digitised markets, encounter rates with doubtful information are nearly universal for young people.
Lifelong Learning: Internet Use for Online Courses (2025)
This chart analyses the use of the internet for educational purposes, specifically: using the internet to do an online course of any kind. In 2025, nearly 22.4% of the 16–29 demographic uses online platforms for formal or informal learning, 6 percentage points higher than participation rate of the general population. This is most pronounced in the Finland (53.84%) and Hungary (43.34%), where online courses have become a majority activity for young people. Surprinsingly, the most significant generational gap is found in Finland where youth participation outstrips the general public by 25 percentage points.
Percentage of 10-years old Having Their Own Smartphone by Socio-Economic Status, 2021
This data reveals an 'inverse digital divide', showing the varying rates of smartphone ownership among 10-year-olds across Europe. While nearly all 10-year-olds in Northern Europe own a smartphone regardless of background (e.g. over 95 per cent in Finland and Norway), a stark socioeconomic reversal emerges in Western and Southern Europe. In Ireland, Belgium, Spain and France, children from low-SES families are more than twice as likely to own a smartphone as those from high-SES families, whose parents may be more inclined to delay purchase. Conversely, Turkey remains an outlier, with the lowest overall penetration rate, and a traditional divide, whereby high-SES children have significantly greater access (41.8% versus 16.8%). This highlights that early smartphone use is influenced by both national norms and domestic management strategies.
Percentage of 15-Year-Olds Who Can Easily Change Settings of a Device (App) To Protect Their Data and Privacy, by Socio-Economic Status, 2022
Data from the OECD's 'How's Life for Children in the Digital Age?' report, published in 2025, shows that 51% of 15-year-olds can easily manage digital privacy settings, and that this ability is closely linked to socio-economic status (SES). High-SES teenagers consistently report higher technical agency than their low-SES peers, and this divide is evident across all analysed European countries. Ireland demonstrates the highest overall proficiency (64.5%), while Slovakia reports the lowest for low-SES students (33.8%). The socioeconomic gap is particularly acute in Hungary and Greece, where high-SES teenagers outperform their low-SES peers by almost 20 percentage points. This highlights significant inequalities in children's ability to mitigate digital privacy risks based on their socioeconomic status across Europe.
Percentage of 15-years old Having Their Own Smartphone by Socio-Economic Status, 2022
This data illustrates the near-universal level of smartphone ownership among 15-year-olds in Europe, emphasising the minimal disparity between socioeconomic groups across Europe. By the age of 15, owning a smartphone has become the norm across Europe, with an average ownership rate of 98%, and minimal disparities between socioeconomic tiers in most member states. In countries such as Poland, Denmark and Ireland, access is almost universal regardless of background, reflecting a shift whereby social disadvantage is no longer defined by a lack of hardware, but by the ability to manage and limit its use. However, significant economic barriers persist on the European Union's periphery. In Turkey, for example, there is still a 23 percentage point gap between low-socioeconomic status (73.4%) and high-socioeconomic status (96.6%) teenagers, indicating that universal access is not yet a global reality.
Share of Population Who Had Issues When Using a Website or App of Public Authorities (2022)
This chart shows the percentage of individuals who had issues when using a website or app of public authorities (specifically reporting that the platform was difficult to use) in European Union and Norway. Reported difficulties range from 7.06% in Greece to 39.13% in Spain. This over five-fold difference suggests that the user experience of e-Government services varies widely based on national design standards, the complexity of administrative procedures, and the maturity of digital infrastructure. In a regional context, highly digitised nations such as Norway (34.11%), Finland (23.41%), and France (23.83%) report surprisingly high levels of difficulty, potentially reflecting higher citizen usage of such websites and applications or more complex, multi-functional systems that offer more points of potential failure. Conversely, Baltic and Central European states like Estonia (9.44%) and Poland (7.74%) align with Germany (8.38%) in reporting relatively low user frustration, suggesting more streamlined or accessible digital public interfaces compared to the higher-friction environments observed in Ireland (25.7%) and Luxembourg (20.6%).
Social Media Participation: Youth (16-29) vs. General Population (2025)
In 2025, active participation in social networking (i.e., participation in social networks: creating user profiles, posting messages or other contributions to Facebook, Twitter, etc.) is the dominant digital activity for European youth, with nearly 89% of the EU-27 youth population maintaining profiles and posting content compared to just 67% of the general population. The data highlights a profound gap across the continent, most notably in Croatia (+29pp), Austria (+28pp), and Poland (+27pp), where young people are exponentially more involved in social media than older generations. Even in major economies where general social media participation is relatively low, such as Germany (59%) and Italy (56%), the youth demographic remains highly active at 84% and 80%, respectively.