In the last decade the internet and social networks have become part of our lives, and more specifically of young people’s lives (INE- Spain’s National Office of Statistics, 2020; Auxier & Anderson, 2021). Even current literature highlights that the traditional boundary between the online and offline worlds is becoming blurred, and it is now more accurately described as onlife (Floridi, 2015). On the other hand, it cannot be ignored that these technologies reshape us as users, affecting our ways of being, thinking and living (García del Dujo et al., 2021; Sánchez-Rojo & Martín-Lucas, 2021). Therefore, the internet and digital devices constitute the scenarios, places, environments, and contexts that allow the incorporation of processes of communication, interplay, and action. In other words, they play a significant part in young people’s social lives (Ricaurte, 2018).

Although the use of these technologies has great benefits, they also posed a series of hazards for those that fail to abide by certain clearly defined rules. Internet and digital devices make our daily lives easier, they provided major gains in accessing, managing and sharing information, we save time on routine tasks, such as shopping or organizing our agenda, among other aspects. By contrast, the literature shows concern about the problems that this phenomenon could entail for those who do not respect the established rules (Álvarez & Moral, 2020). In this sense, some authors conclude that young people cannot adopt a critical and responsible approach to the use of technological devices (Escofet, López, & Álvarez, 2014).

Prior studies focused on some of the risks that the use of the internet and digital devices entails, for example the negative effects that arise from the abuse of social networks and online games (Wu et al., 2016), the factors of vulnerability related to the development of their identities (Ashcraft, Eger & Scott, 2017), or the fact that spending a lot of time connected to their screens makes young people distracted from their studies and distorting their time for enjoying quality relationships with their peer group. Also some studies link the consumption of videogames and pornography to the compulsive use of online communities, often leading to internet addiction (Casaló & Escario, 2019). Other risks have their own name, such as FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), which refers to the fear of not being online and, therefore, being unable to connect with social media (Kuss & Griffiths, 2017). FOMO itself has generated some interest in the research carried out in the last decade (Barry & Wong, 2020; Lee, Bright & Eastin, 2021; Li et al., 2022) some of these researchers conclude that if we want to design educational measures to prevent these risks, we first need to identify the profile of those young people using the internet that do not perceive its risks.

In line with the above we present below part of the results of a national research project, CONECT-ID “The hyperconnected identity of youth and their perception of time in digital leisure”, and a local project, "Analysis of the association between the use of technology and the construction of the identity of minors sheltered by the System of Protection of Minors of Castilla y León". The study sets out from the idea that hyperconnectivity offers young people the possibility of constantly being in interaction with digital networks through multiple devices, systems and environments and this may be influencing the identity definition of themselves. The objective we address in this presentation is to understand young people’s sense of risk and discover whether there is a profile that enables us to identify those that are oblivious to online risks in order to obtain a channel for proposing possible ways of addressing them through education.

A quantitative study is presented within the framework of a non-experimental ex-post facto design. The participating sample is formed of 2066 individuals, of whom 57.2% were females and 42.8% male, aged between 12 and 18, from 15 of Spain’s autonomous communities or regions (Castille and León, Castille La Mancha, Catalonia, Balearic Isles, Madrid, Aragon, Cantabria, Andalusia, Principality of Asturias, La Rioja and the Canary Islads). An anonymous questionnaire, Studies on the use of technology, was conducted. The instrument is divided in four sections: a) sociodemographic profile, b) academic record, c) online scenarios and usages, and d) results and effects. The data were gathered online through the tool Google Form between September 2020 and January 2021. The data was analysed through SPSS Statistics software, v.26. Separate logistic regressions were performed using the inverse selection of conditional variables method to identify the factors of young people’s sense of online risk. The sense of risk was taken as the dependent variable. The independent or predictor variables were those related to young people’s sense of isolation and unhappiness, dissatisfaction, whether or not they had been bullied or abused, and their management of online time and scenarios. The variables associated with a sense of online risk in the bivariate analyses were included in the multivariate mode via a Chi-square Automatic Interaction Detector (CHAID) algorithm.

The results show that the most popular social media among young people are WhatsApp, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, coinciding with the results of previous studies (Auxier & Anderson, 2021). Regarding the sense of risk we found two significant aspects. Firstly, that young people’s sense of risk linked to the internet, besides being predicted by the social isolation variable (feeling isolated when not online), was forecasted by other variables that have been reported in prior studies as variables of risk associated with the internet. Secondly, the sense of risk appeared to be predicted by a feeling of isolation when not online, which is consistent with prior studies such as those by Álvarez and Moral (2020). According to these results, it is of some concern that young people that feel isolated when they are not online, are precisely those young people that do not perceive this sense of risk associated with the use of the internet or make intensive use of videogames. It is of some concern the case of those young people who do not perceive the risks associated with the use of the internet and who need to be permanently connected. One of the reasons why they do not perceive these risks could be that we have conceived the internet and ICT as neutral devices, but from an educational approach we should begin to understand that these technologies have certain educational consequences regardless of the use we make of them. In short, it befalls the pedagogy of our times to draw attention to these phenomena, in particular, providing instruction that allows the internet’s potential to be identified and exploited, as well as avoiding actions of a potentially hazardous nature.

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