Threats to the Transmission of Living Heritage Among Children and Youth: Social Media Use, Reflections and Suggestions from a Decade of Capacity-Building
- Version
- Download 2
- File Size 148.79 KB
- File Count 1
- Create Date January 14, 2026
- Last Updated January 14, 2026
Threats to the Transmission of Living Heritage Among Children and Youth: Social Media Use, Reflections and Suggestions from a Decade of Capacity-Building
Concerns regarding the impact of social media and digital platforms on children and youth’s interest in their living heritage have been a recurrent topic in capacity-building workshops for the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. While UNESCO’s Living Heritage Entity and other organizations and stakeholders dedicated to safeguarding intangible cultural heritage acknowledge this threat, efforts to mitigate it concentrate primarily on leveraging the opportunities offered by digitalization to integrate living heritage into programmes aimed at enriching young people’s engagement with living heritage (such as education or awareness-raising programmes). Insufficient attention is given to the more harmful ways in which children and youth utilize digital platforms within their family, homes, community or other ‘micro-environments’, in ways that detract from the intergenerational transmission of living heritage. This paper emphasizes the necessity of examining and understanding how social media use and digital platforms impact children and youth within these more intimate environments in which they grow up, and of defining ways to mitigate negative impacts. Drawing from the author’s observations during capacity-building workshops across the Asia-Pacific region over the past decade, this paper raises questions and proposes strategies for addressing the problematic use of social media and digital platforms by the younger generations, drawing on tools provided by the 2003 Convention. It also hopes to contribute to understanding of the wider socio-cultural spheres of the Anthropocene, with its focus on contemporary technology and media, and how they are shaping the living heritage of future generations.
