How to Talk to Young People About Digital Consent
Tools for Caring Adults
Digital Consent is the permission or agreement between individuals before engaging in activities in a digital space. This can include boundaries around the types of platforms used, the sharing of photos, videos, or personal information, or facilitating a meeting in real life.
Let’s Talk About It:
Normalize that relationships can and do exist in digital spaces, and emphasize the importance of consent in all of our interactions!
Digital boundaries are important and unlike in-person interactions, we do not have body language or other non-verbal indicators to help us understand how others may be feeling.
It is important to consider our digital boundaries and what we want our relationships to look like online.
What platform(s) are you comfortable engaging on?
When are you open to texting, talking on the phone, or a video call?
What are you comfortable talking about?
Do you like to share pictures? Are you ok with someone taking a photo of you?
Are you comfortable meeting up in real life? What else needs to happen for you to be comfortable meeting up in real life (taking a friend, meeting somewhere public, planning what you may be comfortable doing, telling others where you’ll be, etc.)?
Talk with your partner about your boundaries and theirs! It’s ok to have different choices on how you each want to engage online. Understanding our boundaries and expectations of what we need and want from each other is important.
Consent should be enthusiastic and engaging – identify and discuss what enthusiastic participation looks like in a digital space. If you are unsure if someone is ok with something, you should always check in! Remember it is not just about asking, but we also need to respect their answer. We want the people we are in relationships with to know that we care about and respect their boundaries. No one should ever feel guilt tripped, pressured, threatened, or shamed into doing something they are not comfortable with.
Remember consent is a process. Just because someone wanted to do something before, that does not mean they will want to do it again. Check-in to see how they are feeling and whether that is something they are still interested in and comfortable with. We are each allowed to change our minds and others should always respect our decisions.
Watch out for red flags and respect non-negotiables. In healthy relationships, we should always feel safe to communicate our boundaries with our partner without fear or consequences.
Visit eleven-24.org or nnedv.org for more information
This project was supported by Grant No. 15JOVW-21-GK-05170-MUMU awarded by the Office on Violence Against Women, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this publication/program/ exhibition are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women.
