Youth, health and the digital

![CDATA[Digital technologies have become part of the everyday lives of young people globally. A report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU, 2022) estimated that 5.3 billion people – or 66 per cent of the world’s population – were using the internet in 2022, and that 1 in 3 (or 1.8 billion users) is a young person under the age of 18 (UNICEF & ITU, 2020; Livingstone et al., 2016). While uptake of digital technologies such as mobile phones and the internet are high globally, access remains uneven around the world (UNICEF & ITU, 2020). There are similarly many continuities and differences in the ways young people use digital technologies. Common uses of mobile technologies and the internet include entertainment, study (Third et al., 2019) and commerce/finance (Hendry et al., 2021). Young people in different parts of the world are increasingly dependent on the digital for work (Soriano, 2021), for accessing social services, maintaining connection to family and loved ones (Chandra & Hanckel, 2022), as well as for social connection and support (Swist et al., 2015; Hanckel et al., 2019). For young people who have migrated for work or study, or who may be homeless, digital technologies are a particularly vital form of connection to family, friends and resources to navigate everyday life (Cabalquinto, 2022; Humphrey, 2022). Digital technologies are also being designed and used for health (Lupton, 2018; Petersen, 2018), which is the focus of this chapter.]]