An amount of 2.8 million euro awarded for research on the impact of digital media on equal opportunities for and the development of children and adolescents

Digital media has become an indispensable part of the lives of children and adolescents today. Although it might sometime seem as if everyone has access to digital media, the coronavirus pandemic showed this is not true. For example, it became clear that far from all children and adolescents had access to laptops (of their own) to follow their online education on at this time. So, the question is how to ensure that all children and adolescents are given the same development opportunities? Professor Liesbeth Kester, colleagues from other knowledge institutions and partners from the field want to find an answer to this question. The NWO has awarded her a grant of almost three million euro for the research to be conducted by her and the other members of the consortium.

Children and adolescents and their parents, teachers and other facilitators frequently use today’s new resources, which include social media and games but also digital learning resources and tracking systems. Digitalisation would seem to be blurring the boundaries between home, school and the social environment. But how does this affect the development of children and adolescents? To identify the opportunities and threats, the NWA ‘Youth and digitalisation – impact on identity development, relationships and (in)equality of opportunities programme’ was established. The object of the programme is to develop a framework for the utilisation of the opportunities presented by digitalisation and to reduce its negative impact. Liesbeth Kester is the first professor from Utrecht University to receive a grant from the programme and also the only one to do so in this particular round.

Because we work closely with children and adolescents and their parents, teachers and other facilitators in every part of our research, we increase the chance of our research actually making a difference.

'It is wonderful that our consortium is being given the opportunity to contribute to a solution to the social issue of inequality of opportunities”, says Kester. "By looking at how our children and adolescents move through the media landscape around them, at home, school and in their neighbourhoods, we try to identify the impact the digital media in this landscape has on their development and opportunities.'

Kester works with almost 20 partners in the consortium she leads; they range from the University of Twente to the Youth and Family Centre (Centrum voor Jeugd en Gezin). The object of the consortium is to build a bridge between academia and society, so that answers to social issues can be found together.

'This comprehensive approach to the impact of digital media is unique to our proposal, as is our cross-knowledge-chain approach. In other words, an approach in which fundamental researchers work with applied researchers and in which children and adolescents, their parents, teachers and other facilitators are closely involved in every part of the research. This significantly increases the chance of our research making a difference.'

Assistant professors Ina Koning and Helen Vossen from Utrecht University are involved in the research too.