Who Do You Follow?

The project was co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

"Who Do You Follow" was an Erasmus+ Youth Exchange about social media, media literacy and critical thinking. The main activity happened between 17-25 August 2022 in Alsótold, Hungary. 26 young people came together from Ukraine, Poland, Romania and Hungary to take part in a non-formal educational experience.

Before the project, we articulated the following thoughts:

Web 2.0 means that our online world is based on interaction and is co-created by users. Everyone can provide content. As a consumer of the internet, it can be dangerous and overwhelming. As content providers, we have to become aware of the immense responsibility.

The media era of Covid-19 has just proved again how impactful media sources can be, how content providers can be irresponsible and how media consumers can become utterly confused and anxious, feeling not in control at all because of the lack of information and media literacy.

Therefore, we came together to exchange ideas and best practices that address these topics.

We took part in activities, workshops, reflections, and evaluations and also implemented sessions by ourselves. We had the chance to improve in many different ways during the project by living in an intercultural environment.

Daily blog

Day 1

""The good result is only based on the good relationship within the team" – this was the motto of the first day. 

We started the morning with the fun games to introduce ourselves and to get to know each other’s names. It is the great way to start activities of the project. 

We presented ourselves in an unusual way: created our personal Facebook profiles on pieces of paper. Every participant was able to approach and leave comments under our ‘’posts’’. 

In the afternoon Abris gave us ‘’Mission Impossible’’: 30 tasks to complete in 40 minutes. It challenged our ability to work in team and made everyone feel the part of whole team. It turned out that we have a lot to improve. 

Later we discussed the competences of Youthpass: Digital, Literacy, Citizenship, Cultural Awareness, Multilingual, STEM, Entrepreneurship, Personal, social and learning to learn competences.  

After that, we formed 5 families: groups of 4-5 people, who will work together for the whole week completing specific tasks like writing a blog about previous day.

This was inspiring day, full of new experiences and emotions. We are looking forward to seeing what would happen next."

Day 2

"The second day of the Youth Exchange! 

Energised, we started the day trying to make assumptions about each other’s character traits based on the list of adjectives and the quick debate cats vs dogs. This activity with help of Johari window matrix let us reflect on our own traits too. 

The next stage was a plane crash simulation game. Based on the story, divided into teams, our task was to rank a list of items that will help us survive. The distraction was to find two people who were supposed to try to sabotage the mission. Then we discovered that there were no saboteurs in any team, and the game led us to turn against each other and revealed our biases.  

In the afternoon we debunked popular scientific misconceptions about learning styles, communication model, Mozart effect and the ten percent of brain myth. We conducted some research in groups and presented where the myths come from. 

In the evening we all met to celebrate diversity and get to know more about Hungary and Poland. We had a lot of fun, tried some traditional snacks and bounded even more. Some of us stayed up longer playing board games together."

Day 3

"Today we had quite an eventful day. 

Cognitive biases were our morning activity topic. First, Abris offered us some valuable information on what they are, how they manifest, and also different types of cognitive biases.

Then, our team's task was to represent different cognitive biases through small sketches. We had fun exploring our stage talent while finding out more about the topic.

After the cognitive biases activity, we had great debating activity. We were supposed to carry out two debates, both related to social media. For this task we were separated into teams: pro and against the topic. One half of us was supposed to debate, whether social media makes our life better or not, and the other half was discussing if children should have access to electronic devices. 

Also, we played the game "Hot air balloon" before dinner. We had to throw out one of the persons from it. Each of us had a role and presented it to the other members of their group in a special way, according to the rules. Then we had to decide on the person who gets dropped out of the balloon. It was so hard to vote for one who had to die.

During the evening we had a cultural night of Ukraine and Romania, where we learned local dances, got more familiar with the facts and traditions of these countries, and experienced local cuisine. Romanian team started with a gorgeous dance, showed us a video about their country and we played Kahoot in order to get acquainted with its rich history. 

Ukrainian presentation consisted of a game with a tongue twister, a team game "Cat and mouse", a song, a video about the country's formation and the country's ongoing situation, and dance.

Do you think, it's over our day? Not. After our fantastic cultural night, we had amazing activities in our party hall. (Activity room😍) Everyone had more fun at night. 

Some of us played board games. As always, when it comes to games like Dixit, there were some strong emotions involved, but everyone made it alive and no friendship was broken. While playing, we learned several Hungarian words as well. Also it was the first time we played the «Khudu» Uno. It was original game with additional rules created by one of participants. 

Then we had a Zumba session. Everyone danced Zumba and learned some movements of the dance. This was a very hyperactive, very energetic, and a little tiring session for us. 

In the end, everyone was very fun and happy. This day will be an unforgettable day like other days!"

Love you!

The «Açik kalpli aile» team

Day 4

"After our usual interesting and breathtaking energizers, our day truly began with a very unique and special exercise, during which we had to stare intently into each other’s incredible eyes. After this we all had write something into each other’s notebooks. Some of us found it challenging, others were completely relaxed.

  As a second challenge of the day our digital devices were taken away. Although initially it heavily affected everyone, after some time we found alternatives. We took out books, all board games existing in Alsotold were played. 

  During the afternoon we took a trust walk, during which we split into pairs. One of the participants was blinded and silenced. The other one was sharing memories from life while leading the blinded, silent protagonist. 

  Our day ended after a long series of challenging tasks which we celebrated with light-hearted conversations and dancing."

Day 5

"The fifth day started with an individual activity where we had to answer questions about ourselves. It gave us a possibility to reflect on our challenges, accomplishments, and aspirations. In just 30 minutes we created a draft of the steps that we should take in order to achieve our goals with an understanding of our strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, it was more than setting long term goals, but we could actually plan how we want to spend our free time right after getting back our phones instead of meaningless scrolling.

Before reconnecting with our devices we also set personal resolutions about a new way to treat them. Some people promised themselves to not check the phone first thing in the morning, spend less time scrolling or don’t use their smartphone 1 h before sleep. Once we received the phones we had three short sessions that helped us in building a healthier relationship with our social media. In the first session we analysed if we still want to keep all the posts shared in the past and also if we are comfortable with our privacy settings. During the second session we checked our emails including the spam folder and unsubscribed from the content that we were no longer interested in. The last session encouraged us to unfollow pages or people that we no longer relate to.

The afternoon activity focussed on cyber bullying. The task was to comment on a number of random pictures in the meanest way that comes to mind. Afterwards we read the comments and reflected all together on the process of writing them and the feelings while reading the comments. Some people were feeling creative and excited, while others admitted that the exercise made them feel uncomfortable or guilty. To end the exercise on a good note, we destroyed the negative comments by ripping them, stepping on them or crossing the text. We also added some alternative friendly and encouraging comments instead.

The last activity on the fifth day was improvisation theatre where we could once again express our creativity. It was undoubtedly a relaxing and fun way to end a day full of reflections and discussions."

Day 6

"On Tuesday, our breakfast started at 8.30 as usual. And after that we had workshops, prepared by participants of our project. They covered the topics: “Ways of storytelling”, “What makes a post successful”, “Creativity”, “Art&Science”, “How to make camera love you”. Everyone was able to choose 3 topics that interest them the most and attend these workshops. It was such an interesting experience, the possibility to feel project facilitator for a small time.

Later even more prominent part of our day started. We went on trip to Holloko ethnographic village, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We walked the streets with 67 completely preserved houses from previous centuries, where now various museums and tourist shops are situated. Holloko ethnographic village is located near Holloko Vár – 13-century castle, which we also had luck to visit. This is the part of the trip was the most memorable for most of participants of program. The unique medieval atmosphere of the castle captivated us from the very beginning. Walking through row corridors and climbing high stairs made scenes from distant past appear in mind. And the view from the walls is absolutely breathtaking!

After we returned from trip we finished our preparations for online event dedicated to meaningful content creation. For it we had to invite people from our local communities, interested in conscious social media usage. The event itself started at 20.30. During it we proposed our guests to join online quiz about social media, then we presented our achievements in the field of creating meaningful content and invited our guests to explore it. After that we discussed the results. 

Yes, this day for sure was full of new experiences and impressions! It was eventful and inspiring. We will keep memories about it for a long time."

Day 7

"So this is it. This is the last day in Alsótold. We had fun, some laughs, apple pies for lunches and overall a very satisfying experience. But what is it that we did during the day itself?

In our morning workshop, we were told that after coming back to our countries we are supposed to prepare some creative activity to inform about and encourage young people to participate in short term Erasmus projects. Other Polish girls and I had an idea of organizing an open event where we would recreate some activities from our project to give an example what Erasmus+ is about. 

Afterwards, we conducted some live action surveys to express our opinion on variety of topics. It turned out that everyone was satisfied with the programme of our project. We have also found out that everyone likes Ábris, some people like Tibi, no one likes the Among Us jokes. Altogether, the day was sensational.

To learn a little bit more about the feelings around the project, I asked various participants for their opinions. First of all, I wanted to know how they felt about the learning outcomes. Did they learn something about social media they didn't know before? Or about themselves, even? Could they name their achievements? I think that the answers I enjoyed most were the ones about stepping out of the comfort zone. It was lovely to hear that people dared to try something new, and were proud of themselves. Many people mentioned learning more about the dangers of social media and expressed a wish to restrict the usage. Some of them also talked of the techniques of manipulation. It sounds a bit amusing, but let's face it, manipulation is pervasive, the least we can do is to find how to recognize it.

Other participants mentioned teamwork. During our week here, they had an opportunity to see how they felt performing different tasks in different groups and could asses if it went well. One person admitted appreciating the chance to be a bit more introspective, especially during our 24 hour digital detox. The debate also provided us with some fun discoveries about ourselves. We needed to quickly formulate logical replies to the arguments of the other team. Though it was a challenge for some, many people appreciated the experience greatly.

Another question that I asked was about our free time. What did we do to integrate? What did we enjoy the most? The most frequent reply was Uno. At some point, Khudo came up with a new set of crazy rules which turned the game into a wild cousin of Jungle Speed.  Other games that were mentioned were Mafia and Boggle.  Many participants also mentioned the improvisation theatre that we performed one evening, saying it was hilarious. Finally, let us all not forget the dancing, for example during our Zumba sessions.

The last question that I asked was about one activity I found particularly interesting namely the spring-cleaning. We were supposed to delete the accounts that we followed but did not need/enjoy. When it comes to the participants I talked to, the number of unfollowed people varied from 30 to 180.

Coming back to the last day, though, it ended beautifully. In the evening, some of us decided to visit the local restaurant, later strolled a bit and took one last look at the quaint village of Alsótold. On our way back to the venue, we realised that while we were gone, the rest of the participant built a bonfire. Delighted, we joined and spent half a night singing. After the jam session, we stargazed and reflected on the project. How did we feel about it, then? That it was simply amazing. Bye, guys! Hoping to see you again!"

Digital content

Photos

Check out the best shots of the Youth Exchange here: https://www.21napegyesulet.hu/eddigtortent/wdyf/photos