Would giving 16-year-olds the vote improve democracy or just change the way campaigns are run?

In total, over 15 countries allow some form of voting for individuals under 18; 16 being the most common minimum age in these cases. Amongst these, you can find Austria, allowing individuals from the age of 16 to vote at national elections, Germany allowing 16 year olds to vote at state and municipal elections and European Parliament elections and Greece allowing 17 year olds to vote at national elections. Now, should the voting age be lowered to 16 in other countries of the world, other than those 15 countries I just talked about?

I believe that giving people from the age of 16 the opportunity to vote is positive and should be seen as a kind of progress towards a more democratic system or at least the supporting of the democratic system we are currently a part of, due to the fact that giving younger parts of society a vote also means giving them a voice and an indirect say in the politics they are obviously also involved with - even in regions/countries where they aren’t given the opportunity to vote.

The action of giving young people a voice in the politics they are affected by leads to them feeling more seen and heard, giving them a feeling of being actively involved in politics and choices that revolve around them.

Of course, the lowering of the voting age will change the ways campaigns are run, but I see it as an adaptation rather than a bad thing: Political campaigns have to adapt to their voters in order for their target audiences to feel spoken to, which would mean in this case that more campaigns will be run over social media.

Someone who disagrees with the idea of lowering the voting age might think that teenagers are a bigger target for fake news, misinformation or manipulation, making their vote based on the opinion of others rather than their own. Now, I do not completely reject this idea nor do I see it as inherently wrong: I believe they are right to a certain degree, as everyone is manipulated or “changed” by what they consume - not just on a political level of course, teenagers are just more sensible to this kind of input from their environment which, at least in my opinion, doesn’t give them less of a right to vote or be involved in politics, as it often times affects them anyway.

In short, giving younger parts of society a chance to vote should not be taken for granted regarding the fact that not all government in the world actively support democracy. And as a society with this opportunity, we cannot support nor afford abstention if we want to support it.