Youth of Viet Nam Online: A Study of the Vietnamese Digital Landscape

This exploratory paper examines the role of technology in the lives of adolescents and young people living in Viet Nam. The current report is based on primary data collected in both urban and rural areas and secondary evidence gathered through a desk review of relevant literature. This report presents, first, in section one, an overview context of Viet Nam’s digital landscape; Information and Communication Technology (ICT) development in Viet Nam has flourished in the past five years, particularly with regard to mobile access and use, and leading in the region in Internet ownership and use, however with marginal pockets of digital divide within the country. Extensive research identified a number of characteristics unique to the Vietnamese digital landscape: most notably, there exists in Viet Nam a series of persistent digital divides based on socio-economics, geography and gender, as well as in ICT ownership, access, and use. Section two presents the hypothesis outlined in the paper. Section three presents the primary and secondary data research methodology and instruments. Section four investigates the results regarding the access and use of ICT tools and platforms by Vietnamese adolescents and young people, with urban children dominating use. With high access and use comes also a need for awareness of global opportunities and risk. This section also discusses the types of cyberbullying the young user faces and the higher vulnerability of the younger users. The study concludes with the assertion that as the opportunities associated with information and communication technologies rapidly expand for Vietnamese adolescents and young people, so too does the need to educate users on their safe and optimal use