• This course is available in: Amsterdam, Athens, Rome, Valencia, Vienna
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The role of technology in our daily lives can be complicated, even challenging. Apps and platforms are often designed to grab our attention and lure us to stay on longer, targeting their users with ads and paid content, and collecting data from every click. Digital devices allow us to accomplish tasks, access media and connect with people, but also chip away at our time and focus, leaving us feeling drained and unhappy. All of this can be a formidable challenge for adolescents, who have little experience of life without a constant stream of digital content and social media interactions. As they do not have mature cognitive control yet, they are easily distracted. The course will introduce a set of classroom activities and school-based initiatives for raising students’ awareness about the effects of digital technology in their lives, to help them take control of their digital well-being. Participants will try out the activities for themselves, taking stock of their own technology use, sharing personal insights and experimenting with their digital habits. They will reflect on this experience to define what initiatives are needed in their schools for encouraging students to talk openly and non-judgmentally about their technology use and navigate digital life so that it remains balanced and enriching. The course will focus on the most critical threats to students’ well-being. Specifically, compulsive overuse can interfere with sleep and physical activity, induce irritability and debilitate concentration, ultimately affecting learning and the pursue of personal interests and goals. Overconsumption of social media can undermine identity and body image, diminish genuine social bon...read more.