Overview
While a great deal of research on adolescents and digital media relies on questionnaires or behavioural measures, this study takes a different starting point: sitting with teenagers and listening. What do they actually think about their digital habits? What do they find useful, what worries them, and what would they want to change?
Ten focus group discussions were held across two secondary schools in the Netherlands. The sessions were structured around three broad areas: the positive and negative effects of digital media use, the cognitive mechanisms that might underlie negative effects (attention, self-control, reward sensitivity, time perception), and what young people themselves feel should change. Analysis used codebook thematic analysis with double-coding and strong interrater reliability.
What we found
Adolescents described both the benefits and costs of digital media clearly. On the positive side: easy communication with peers, entertainment, self-expression, and practical convenience. On the negative side: compulsive use, exhaustion, sleep disruption, safety concerns, and social pressure.
When asked about the cognitive processes behind these experiences, participants described recognisable patterns: attentional capture by continuous content, difficulty stopping even when they intended to, the pull of immediate rewards, and a distorted sense of time passing during use. These are not just theoretical constructs — teenagers articulated them in their own words.
On the question of change, the findings were nuanced. Adolescents expressed a desire to regulate their use, but emphasised that individual self-regulation was not always enough. They pointed to shared solutions involving parents and peers, as well as structural changes at the school or platform level. Critically, they wanted solutions that preserved the benefits of digital media and respected their autonomy.
Study design
Focus groups were conducted in April and May 2023 across two secondary schools in the Netherlands, one in Overijssel and one in Gelderland. Participants were 78 Dutch adolescents aged 12 to 16 (M age = 14.1, SD = 1.1) at HAVO and VMBO-TL level. Ten sessions were held in total — four with boys, six with girls — each consisting of 6 to 10 participants and lasting 45 to 60 minutes. Sessions were audio-recorded and manually transcribed. Two independent coders used ATLAS.ti to analyse the material using a pre-defined codebook, with additional codes added inductively. Intercoder reliability was strong (Krippendorff's c-alpha = .846). The study received ethics approval from the Ethical Review Board of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Amsterdam (FMG-479).
Status
The study is complete and the manuscript is currently under review for publication. Findings will be shared on this page once published. If you are interested in receiving updates or discussing the work, please get in touch.