Digymatex

23/02/2026

It is not just the Spanish government that is worried about kids and social media. Australia outlawed social-media accounts for children under 16 in December. The second chamber of Britain’s Parliament voted for similar restrictions in January, as did the lower house of France’s. Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Indonesia, Malaysia and Norway, among others, are eyeing bans. Brazil will require age verification on social apps from next month.

This wave of legal constraints will mark a big change in the lives of teenagers, who spend an average of nearly five hours a day on social apps in America, for instance, and use them for everything from forming relationships to doing their homework. It also threatens to rock an industry that generates hundreds of billions of dollars a year in ad revenue. But implementing new rules, as Ramón and his mother predict, will be trickier than their advocates imagine. Already, some unintended consequences are becoming obvious.

But the case for bans is weak and the benefits are uncertain

23/02/2026

Across Europe, researchers and industry are making digital education better, smarter and more accessible. By building strong partnerships and sharing knowledge, they are helping shape a future where everyone benefits from high-quality online learning.

Children in Serbia may soon be learning basic literacy and maths with the help of a friendly virtual alpaca called Alpa, thanks to EU-funded research that is improving access to first-rate educational technology across Europe.Alpa is a key, albeit non-human, member of the team at ALPA Kids, an educa...

08/12/2025

The country is barring children under 16 from social media, with a sweeping federal law that is one of the first attempts at a nationwide regulation.

01/07/2025

🎉 Congratulations to our research partner Rikke Nyland Christensen for earning her PhD after successfully defending her dissertation, “Young Consumers’ ICT Use and Digital Maturity”! 👏 We appreciate your hard work and are very proud of you. 🚀 Good luck in the future.

👉https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mgmt-bss_digitalmaturity-activity-7345144355025838081-ZahY Aarhus BSS - Aarhus Universitet Aarhus BSS International IE University EU Science & Innovation

A huge congratulations to PhD student Rikke Nyland Christensen, who Friday successfully presented her PhD dissertation “Young Consumers' ICT Use and Digital Maturity” 🎉 🏆 What a super topical topic, looking at the debate in society and the press! So how can Rikkes research contribute t...

23/06/2025

19/06/2025

Are children ready to navigate today's digital world safely?Researcher Konstantina Valogianni from the IE University breaks down what digital maturity in children really means—and how a new index developed by a selection of European universities measures it.

📱🧒👦👉https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91NDoJaiNuY

Are children ready to navigate today's digital world safely? Researcher Konstantina Valogianni breaks down what digital maturity in children really means—and...

19/06/2025

Researchers found that longer screen time was not associated with higher rates of suicidal behavior among children. But children were at higher risk if their technology use had become “addictive” — that they felt the need to use it more and more — according to the study. https://nyti.ms/45voidM

09/06/2025

Does your child not listen to you? Do they kick and scream when they get angry? You may need to rethink their screen time, according to an article published Monday in Psychological Bulletin, a journal of the American Psychological Association.

The more time kids spent looking at a screen, the more likely their actions and feelings didn’t meet expectations for their stage of development, according to a meta-analysis of 117 studies of kids younger than 10½ when the research began.

If your children are spending too much time on screens, it can cause emotional and behavioral problems and lead to more screen use, according to a new meta-analysis.

19/05/2025

DIGYMATEX project coordinator, Prof. Marco Hubert of the Aarhus University, discusses the concept of children's digital maturity. This concept involves understanding, controlling, and reflecting on one's behavior in digital environments, including respecting others and regulating emotions.

In this video interview, Prof. Hubert emphasizes the importance of listening to children's perspectives on technology and supporting their positive use while providing necessary guidance.

👉Click here to watch this interview on DIGYMATEX's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkdImDlnGUU

Aarhus BSS - Aarhus Universitet Aarhus Universitet

DIGYMATEX project coordinator, Prof. Marco Hubert of the Aarhus University, discusses the concept of children's digital maturity. This concept involves under...

29/04/2025

La tecnología está tan arraigada en nuestras vidas que la mayoría de los niños de hoy en día son nativos digitales. De hecho, pueden “hablar” digital antes incluso de aprender un idioma, y a menudo se pide a los nativos digitales que eduquen a los “inmigrantes digitales” mayores, como sus padres, sobre cómo utilizar la tecnología.

Al mismo tiempo, a muchos padres les preocupan los posibles daños de exponer a sus hijos a la tecnología, las pantallas y, en particular, a internet.

Los estudios han demostrado que la tecnología digital tiene una serie de efectos en los niños. Estos pueden ser muy positivos, como que los niños sean capaces de comprender conceptos matemáticos o idiomas mucho antes que sus homólogos millennials. También pueden ser negativos, como el aumento de los niveles de depresión por el uso excesivo o compulsivo de las redes sociales, el ciberacoso y la manipulación por parte de extraños en internet.

Para comprender los efectos de la tecnología en los jóvenes, nuestra investigación ha creado una herramienta que mide la “madurez digital” de los niños. Esto supone un paso importante para comprender mejor cómo la tecnología afecta al desarrollo de los niños a nivel psicológico, académico y holístico.

Nuestro índice de madurez digital se desarrolló junto con investigadores de toda la Unión Europea (UE) en el marco del proyecto DIGYMATEX, financiado por la UE. Esta métrica evalúa el grado de desarrollo o avance de la relación de un niño con la tecnología, así como lo que significa para su desarrollo general.

👩🧑📱👉https://theconversation.com/menores-e-internet-como-nuestra-nueva-herramienta-evalua-la-madurez-digital-de-los-ninos-253366 IE University

Algunos niños “nativos digitales” son más responsables que otros usando las pantallas, pero existen grandes variaciones entre países.

29/04/2025

It starts off small. Maybe you promise an extra 15 minutes of tablet time if your kid finishes their veggies. Or you hold the TV remote hostage until all the toys are picked up. Before long, screen time becomes the ultimate currency in parenting. Sound familiar? You’re not alone.

A recent report by Bright Horizons found that 55% of parents use technology as a bargaining chip to get their children to do things like chores or homework. Fifty-eight percent of parents use technology as a parenting tool to keep their children quiet while shopping or in a restaurant.

As screens become more intertwined with daily life, it’s worth asking: is this strategy helping us, or could it be creating more problems than it solves?

Instead of fighting to limit screen time for kids, many parents are opting to use it as leverage to get goals accomplished. We asked experts if this is effective or digging a deeper hole for ourselves.

30/03/2025

Are kids today “speaking digital” before they even learn to talk? Many children are growing up as true digital natives, often teaching their parents—the so-called digital immigrants—how to navigate technology.

Yet, alongside the benefits, many parents worry about the potential risks of screen exposure and internet use. How does growing up in a digital world impact children’s psychological, academic, and overall development?

Researchers from the EU-funded DIGYMATEX project have developed the Digital Maturity Index—a tool that measures how advanced a child’s relationship with technology. This tool, created in collaboration with experts across Europe, helps us better understand the effects of digital exposure on young minds.

In a new article for The Conversation, Konstantina Valogianni and Aqib Siddiqui from IE University, a DIGYMATEX partner, explore this research and its implications.

👉Read the full article: https://theconversation.com/kids-and-the-internet-how-our-new-tool-assesses-childrens-digital-maturity-252825

Some ‘digital native’ children are more responsible online than others, but there are big variations between countries.