Austrian Institute for Family Studies

The digital generation – children, teens, and digital media

As part of the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 EU funding programme, the OIF carried out the project ‘The Impact of Technological Transformations on Children and Youth – DigiGen’ within a consortium. The project was completed at the end of 2022. You can still find information on DigiGen and on the social networks Twitter, Facebook und LinkedIn.

Consortium Partner

The consortium, assembled under the leadership of OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway (OSLOMET), comprised the following partner universities:

  • Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences – Athens, Greece (UPSPS)
  • University of Leicester – Leicester, United Kingdom (ULEIC)
  • University of Vienna, Austrian Institute for Family Studies – Vienna, Austria (UNIVIE)
  • University of Girona – Girona, Spain (UdG)
  • University of Paderborn – Paderborn, Germany (UPB)
  • Babeș-Bolyai University – Cluj-Napoca, Romania (UBB)
  • Tallinn University – Tallinn, Estonia (TLU)
  • Confederation of Family Organisations in the European Union – Brussels, Belgium (COFACE)

Project duration: December 2019 – November 2022
Project lead at ÖIF: Olaf Kapella

The final report covering all areas is available as a PDF:
Understanding children and young people as digital citizens

Central Research Questions

Central research questions addressed the effects of the use of information and communication technology (ICT) on children and young people. To portray the everyday lives of children and young people as comprehensively as possible, the project was divided into eight work packages (WPs), characterised primarily by a qualitative empirical approach:

  • Work Package 1: Management and overall coordination (Lead: University of Oslo)
  • Work Package 2: Depicting the digital transformation in Europe. This provides an overview of existing studies across the different spheres of children’s and young people’s lives (Lead: University of Girona)
  • Work Package 3: Technological transformation in the family (Lead: University of Vienna, Austrian Institute for Family Studies)
  • Work Package 4: ICT and transformation in leisure (Lead: University of Greece)
  • Work Package 5: ICT in education (Lead: University of Paderborn)
  • Work Package 6: ICT and transformation in relation to civic participation – Digital Citizens (Lead: University of Leicester)
  • Work Package 7: Comparisons, reflection and integration of all findings (Lead: University of Oslo)
  • Work Package 8: Impact as well as scientific and public engagement and dissemination of the results (Lead: COFACE)

Methodological Approach

Methodological approach in WP 3 and WP 4:

OIF was responsible for the leadership, design, implementation and synthesis of the empirical work carried out under WP 3. Estonia, Norway, Romania and Spain also conducted empirical studies within WP 3:

  • Overview of relevant studies and data on the use of ICT in the family and the potential impact on children, young people and the family
  • Conducting focus groups with children aged 5–6
  • Conducting focus groups with children aged 9–10
  • Conducting individual interviews with children in both age groups, as well as with up to two additional family members, e.g. parents, grandparents, siblings

In WP4, the OIF was involved, among other things, in the following empirical work:

  • Semi-structured interviews with children aged 9–12 and 13–15
  • Communication diaries using a mobile phone application being developed as part of the project (MyView app)
  • Group discussions using an online video game to be developed