Presentation at the 5th Ministerial

eGoverment Meeting and Conference,

Malmö Sweden

eRevolution 18 - 20 November 2009

PricewaterhouseCoopers Slide 1
 Introduction
A great amount of research describes how young
citizens are abandoning traditional democratic
institutions. Fewer people join political parties
and fewer people vote in general elections.

This has led to a discussion on whether

traditional representative forms of democratic
governance are out of date. If so, through which
types of actions is a modern citizenship defined?
Is it true that the youth of today has a limited
interest in politics and democracy?

The youth of today are supposed to belong either

to the self-centered and lazy generation Y – only
caring about themselves, or the digital natives of
generation Z, rather speaking through MSN than
face to face. Is this picture correct?

eRevolution 18 - 20 November 2009

PricewaterhouseCoopers Slide 2
 Digital natives and Internet habits
Josefin is a member of 10 groups: for example
Amnesty, Doctors without borders and against
violence. This young person takes a stand in a
variety of issues – and not all but many are very
important. We can hardly blame her for not
caring, can we?
Josefin’s generation – the eGeneration - has
developed a fantastic ability to sort information
and accomplish several tasks at the same time –
this is clearly an adaptation to the information-
and knowledge society. Research has shown
that the youth has formed a great capacity to
skim read and to take out only the bits and
pieces they are interested in.
For example the young citizens pay attention to
no more than approximately 10 percent of all
online advertisement. The information society
has brought new ways of collecting and sorting
information, which also influences young
peoples’ ways of taking active interest in the
issues concerning them.

eRevolution 18 - 20 November 2009

PricewaterhouseCoopers Slide 3
 Our survey
To get a youth perspective, PricewaterhouseCoopers
put 19 questions through a web survey.

Our most important way to distribute the survey

was to use Sweden’s major social forum for
students, called Mimers Brunn. It assembles
students mainly at the age of 14-25.

The number of people responding the various

questions varied between 700 and 1600.

eRevolution 18 - 20 November 2009

PricewaterhouseCoopers Slide 4
 Delimitation
To get a youth perspective on citizen
commitment and eGovernment we have based
our survey on three aspects;
• eParticipation,
• eInformation and
• eServices.

Information and services online are self evident

for young citizens.

Even though there is a lot unrealized potential in

eInformation and eServices, our survey shows
that participation is the greatest challenge. It is
therefore our main focus in this presentation.

eRevolution 18 - 20 November 2009

PricewaterhouseCoopers Slide 5
 Societal information
So where do young people – the so-called copy
paste generation - tend to find the societal
information they look for? When Josephine sets
out to find information about a political issue, she
does not start by going to library, looking it up in
a reference book, or call a friend. She starts by
posing a question in a search engine, such as
Google, which leads her in to Wikipedia and then
to an authority’s homepage.
Of the respondents in our survey, four out of five
use Google or other search engines. It is the
most common way to find societal information. It
is important to notice that they don’t start by
navigating directly to certain homepages.
Our survey suggests that youth don’t find it
important to have overall knowledge regarding
the public authorities and institutions. Instead
they simply phrase a question about their very
specific field of interest. For a young person,
pages of interest would be those that answer the
question in the most essential and fast manner.
There is a common belief that young people
search for information within the social forums
they attend. Our survey could not confirm this.
We believe that young people in general go to
authorities’ home-pages in order to get what they
think are straight reliable facts on the issues of
eRevolution their interest. 18 - 20 November 2009
PricewaterhouseCoopers Slide 6
 Expression and impact
Our survey results tell us that the most common
way to express an opinion is through “new social
medias”. Most frequent is to join an online group,
for example on Facebook followed by to comment
on blogs and articles online.

However, it is somewhat a paradox that the young

respondents believe the effect of these actions,
the most common actions, is small, in comparison
to traditional ways of taking action, such as
demonstrating in the streets.

The respondents consider that the most effective

way to have impact is by using traditional forums
where meeting decision makers in person is best
followed by contacting mass media.

eRevolution 18 - 20 November 2009

PricewaterhouseCoopers Slide 7
 Quick fix
So why do young people choose these ways to
express commitment, even though they expect the
impact to be limited?
The survey shows that it enables one to kill two
birds with one stone. First, expressing your
opinion in social media is a way of defining
yourself to others, secondly it is time efficient.
And limited impact is not the same as no impact at
all.

eRevolution 18 - 20 November 2009

PricewaterhouseCoopers Slide 8
 Decision making….
The respondents of our survey consider traditional
institutions, in particular politicians and journalists,
to have a great impact on society while ‘Citizens’ are
thought to have limited impact.
Even though almost 1/10 considers blogs to have a
medium or great impact, the majority considers
bloggers to have a small impact on society.

Thus, the young generation still believes in

traditional institutions more than new social medias
when it comes to influence.

eRevolution 18 - 20 November 2009

PricewaterhouseCoopers Slide 9
 ….. and social forums
But how does the young generation want to
communicate with decision makers? Some people
think that the youth expects decision makers to
chat and communicate at the forums where the
young people are.

The PwC survey, including a recent work shop

that we arranged with students, suggests that the
young generation is reluctant to communicate
with the decision makers in their own social
forums. Some student’s are not even reluctant,
they simply said: authorities - stay out!

How many of you are friends with your mother on

Face book?? Well, have that in mind when you are
trying out new forums to involve young citizens.

eRevolution 18 - 20 November 2009

PricewaterhouseCoopers Slide 10
 Summary
Internet has brought new ways of collecting and
sorting information. And this also influences young
peoples’ ways of taking active interest in the issues
of their concern.

Our survey suggests that youth do not find it

important to have overall knowledge regarding the
public authorities and institutions. Their behavior is
characterized by one issue at a time.
New social media provides new opportunities to
mobilize young citizens – sometimes leading them
on to a deeper involvement, through traditional
institutions. One interesting example is the
Swedish Pirate party, starting out as an online
movement, ending up today being represented in
the EU parliament.

We perceive that young people are reluctant to

have decision makers within their online social
forums. Privacy is surely one reason for this;
• they want to have their private sphere,
• they want to be able to know that the sender
and the information is reliable and
• they want to keep a sense of exclusivity to
their network.

eRevolution 18 - 20 November 2009

PricewaterhouseCoopers Slide 11
 Closing statements
The eGeneration does care about others than
themselves. And they still appreciate talking face
to face. They also recognize traditional democratic
institutions. It is just that they are engaged in new
ways. And they approach the institutions in new
ways. But, we see a gap between how young
people want to interact with decision makers, on
one hand, and their conception of given
opportunities to have an impact, on the other
hand.
The involvement and engagement of the young
generation is essential in a sustainable society.
Moreover demographics shows how dependent we
are of their contribution to secure the provision
and financing of the public sector. The current
focus on eServices is not enough. Online services
and information are self evident for the
eGeneration. There is a need of new strategies that
recognizes that citizens, including youth, are not
customers primarily but sources of knowledge,
engagement and responsibility that are needed in
a co-creating process that challenge the current
decision making process and addresses the
future.

eRevolution 18 - 20 November 2009

PricewaterhouseCoopers Slide 12