Assessment of Digital Safety Skills as a Component of Media Competence of Young People in the Sustainable Development Context

The article discusses digital security skills as an integral component of media competence and media education, which need to be developed for sustainable enterprise development in the context of increasing digitalisation. The object is young people as a special socio-demographic group, which is particularly vulnerable due to active involvement in digital practices. The aim of the study is to assess the level of digital security skills identified in the course of our own empirical research on the material of a mass representative survey of young people 18–34 years old. A comparative analysis of indicators between two age groups was made: youth and over 35 years old. It was found that young people tend to have a high, rather high and average assessment of their own digital security skills, but this does not always translate into knowledge of practical cyber defence tools. Among the risks of being in the digital environment, respondents consider manipulation by content creators and violation of their privacy, including leakage of personal data, to be the most common. It was found that the majority of young people surveyed are aware of digital risks, but at the same time, there is a practice of using potentially dangerous programmes (such as VPN services). The study may be of interest for the development of recommendations to improve digital safety skills among young people and, in general, for making managerial decisions in the field of media competence development.