The impact of the use of digital tools outside school and for communication on educational outcomes and mental health

Expected Outcome: Projects should contribute to all of the following expected outcomes: Provide policymakers, education practitioners and citizens with a solid understanding of how social media, video gaming and other leisure uses of digital tools relate to the educational outcomes of young people, including through their impact on well-being and mental health. Generate rigorous, policy-relevant evidence about policies and practices aiming to inform and regulate young people’s use of digital tools for non-educational purposes, such as smartphones, at school. Develop actionable advice for policymakers and citizens about how to promote young people’s healthy use of digital tools for leisure, both at school and outside school. Describe and quantify the relationships of using digital tools for leisure and communication with students’ motivation, study habits, attention span and concentration, time management, engagement, social integration and overall well-being. Scope: The increasing prevalence of digital devices in young people’s life has raised concerns about the potential impacts of the use of digital tools for leisure and communication on primary-, secondary- and higher education students’ well-being and educational outcomes [1] . “Digital distraction” is emerging inter alia as a potential threat to academic performance and several countries have started to regulate the use of smartphones at school. There is still limited evidence on the interrelation between the use of digital tools for leisure in-school or out-of-school and educational performance, in both primary and secondary education, because most of the existing literature is purely correlational, or only focuses on effects on well-being. Moreover, most existing research is from extra-EU contexts, which may limit the transferability of findings to EU education and training systems. Several interrelated research questions remain to be addressed, such as: Which types of digital device use do pupils perform during school and do their digital activities differ depending on different contexts (i.e., during class, during breaks or between classes)? How do different activities (e.g. playing games vs. chatting with a parent), on different devices, with different time durations of use, relate to students’ attention span and concentration as well as general school motivation? How does frequent smartphone, social media use and other online leisure activities (such as video games) impact students’ attention span, concentration, memory and relational capacities? How can schools, educators and parents balance …