Protecting Youths’ Wellbeing Online: Studying the Associations between Opportunities, Risks, and Resilience

As youths engage in different activities on the Internet, it is inevitable that they are exposed to risky online contents that might bother or upset them. Previous research has shown that online resilience, or the ability to effectively cope with online risks and to deal with their negative consequences, protects youths against these feelings of harm that sometimes emerge after a risk experience. However, knowledge about the role of resilience in protecting youths’ overall wellbeing seems rather limited. The current study analyzes new EU Kids Online data using structural equation modeling to fill this gap. The findings corroborate earlier findings that the more opportunities youths take up online, the more they are exposed to risky content. These risk encounters are negatively associated with wellbeing. Online resilience moderates this association and protects youths’ overall wellbeing from being harmed by online risk exposure. Implications for further research and practice are discussed

Digital literacy and online resilience as facilitators of young people's well-being?: a systematic review

Previous studies suggest that online resilience, which is the capacity to bounce back from adversity by, for instance, coping with online risks in an effective way, and digital literacy serve as potential safeguards for young people against harmful consequences of negative online experiences. However, research on these factors largely resides in separate bodies of literature. By means of a systematic review, we aim to integrate the literature on young people s online resilience, digital literacy, and well-being in the context of negative online experiences, and we examine the associations among them. The review of 30 empirical articles shows that negative online experiences undermine young people s well-being but are also essential to developing online resilience. While a limited number of studies have focused on the protective roles of online resilience and digital literacy and on the link between these two factors, the review identified that more research is needed to establish whether this is truly the case. The review enables us to propose guidelines for further empirical research on the relations among young people s digital literacy, online resilience, and well-being

What do we know about the roles of digital literacy and online resilience in fostering young people’s wellbeing?

As societies repeatedly raise concerns about the harmful outcomes of certain online experiences on young people’s wellbeing, one priority for research is to identify the factors that mediate between risk and harm. If we can find these, surely we can deploy them strategically to protect young people from these harmful outcomes without curtailing their online opportunities

The Role of School-Home Communication in Supporting the Development of Children’s and Adolescents’ Digital Skills, and the Changes Brought by Covid-19

School-home communication is a growing research field in social sciences, particularly in education sciences and communication studies. While previous studies have paid much attention to the importance of school-home interaction in supporting primary academic socialisation and progress of elementary school pupils, the role of teacher-parent communication and collaboration in influencing the development of children’s and adolescents’ digital skills remains an under-researched area. This paper employed thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with education experts in six European countries, providing an insight into their opinions and views on the problems in communication between homes and schools. The analysis identified main problems in and obstacles to school-home collaboration on children’s digital skills development, and the changes the COVID-19 pandemic brought along in this field of education. The paper provides five policy recommendations for enhancing school-home collaboration on digital skills development

Report on the results of a systematic review of the individual and social differentiating factors and outcomes of media literacy and digital skills

This systematic evidence review aimed to collect and summarise scientific evidence on effective intervention programmes related to Media Literacy and Digital Skills (ML&DS). Through a comprehensive search across major scientific databases and rigorous screening and coding processes, we identified 248 studies investigating ML&DS intervention effectiveness and associated outcomes. In this report, we have presented findings related to the theoretical frameworks guiding these studies, the reported outcomes, and potential influencing factors on intervention effects

Report on the results of a systematic review of the individual and social differentiating factors and outcomes of media literacy and digital skills

This systematic evidence review aimed to collect and summarise scientific evidence on effective intervention programmes related to Media Literacy and Digital Skills (ML&DS). Through a comprehensive search across major scientific databases and rigorous screening and coding processes, we identified 248 studies investigating ML&DS intervention effectiveness and associated outcomes. In this report, we have presented findings related to the theoretical frameworks guiding these studies, the reported outcomes, and potential influencing factors on intervention effects

Report on the role of critical information skills in recognising mis- and disinformation

Online mis- and disinformation poses threats to societies and individuals, and young people form a group that may be particularly vulnerable to the potential negative consequences of exposure to such false information on the internet and on social media. Therefore, digital skills, news literacy, and particularly the skills that allow them to evaluate the credibility of online news and information and to distinguish between true and false, have become increasingly essential. This report presents the findings from a multi-method study about young people’s (12 to 15 years old) skills to cope with online mis- and disinformation in three countries: Belgium, the Czech Republic, and Finland. Through an online survey, a news exposure phase comprising a credibility evaluation performance test, and focus groups, this study aimed (1) to gain more insight into how 12- to 15-year-olds understand and engage with online news; and (2) to assess to what degree they are able to differentiate between truths and falsehoods and how they arrive at these judgments, and to understand the role of digital skills in these processes.publishedVersio

Co-developing media literacy and digital skills interventions: report on preliminary results

The second Work Package of the REMEDIS project focusses on materialising the partnership with local organisations by co-developing opportunities for enhancing current ML&DS interventions. These organisations were carefully selected by each member university to collaborate throughout the project to strengthen links between academia and practitioners and learn from each other. An initial theoretical framework was proposed, based on the improvement needs identified during the preliminary stages of the Work Package 1 and based on researchers' expertise. This framework served as the basis from which define a more detailed theoretical framework during the co-development with partner organisations. The next stage in this process was initiating the collaborative work with the partner organisations, understanding their purposes, people involved, resources and expected outcomes to formulate improvement avenues. The co-development process concludes with the design and planning of the evaluation measurement instruments as part of Work Package 3, adapting questions and formats to the interventions' characteristics

EU kids online 2020 : survey results from 19 countries

EU Kids Online 2020: Survey results from 19 countries. This report maps the internet access, online practices, skills, online risks and opportunities for children aged 9–16 in Europe. Teams of the EU Kids Online network collaborated between autumn 2017 and summer 2019 to conduct a major survey of 25,101 children in 19 European countries.peer-reviewe

Examining adolescents’ systematic and heuristic credibility evaluation strategies of online news

In an online environment where mis- and disinformation are flourishing, credibility evaluations of online news have become vital. The information processing literature suggests that individuals can either engage in systematic or in heuristic credibility evaluations, but whether this also applies to evaluations of online news and to the adolescent population is still unclear. Using an online survey (N = 338) with Flemish 15–19-year-olds, we examine adolescents’ credibility evaluation strategies. Adolescents reported using significantly more systematic evaluations than heuristic evaluations. Moreover, our findings revealed that only systematic evaluations contributed to their perceived credibility evaluation skills. Lastly, media use did not predict their credibility evaluation strategy, and attitudes and knowledge about the news only partially predicted systematic credibility evaluations. These findings are valuable for future research on credibility evaluation strategies and for practitioners and educators focusing on news literacy and credibility evaluation skills.</p