Abstract:

During the last two years, since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the world is facing new realities infused with a myriad of uncertainties and rapid transformations. For one, our lives and those of our children have, by and large, shifted to digital spaces. In reality, this shift represents a reinforcing and deepening of trends characterizing children and youth in recent years whereby young people are immersed in technology. Recent studies explored the technology impact and differences in using digital platforms among children and youth, in leisure and learning activities (Lange et al., 2021; Tan, 2021).

Today, when schools face an essential need to utilize technology, educators must understand how K-12 students use various digital means in their daily lives so that they may effectively implement the digital into their classes (Squire, 2022). Hence, this study aimed to understand youth digital life, from their point of view. The study included three research questions: What are the youth leisure time digital activities? What are the gender differences with respect to digital activities, and what are youth attitudes towards technologies in learning?

Study findings are based on a survey of 120 youth from an Israeli school (located in the center of the country). The sample included 59 boys and 61 girls, ages 13-15. The survey was based on self-reports and consists of four parts: Digital activities: leisure time activities (hobbies, social networks, gaming types), search activities (information types and platforms), and digital application use (calendar, notes); Digital skills (requisite digital platform skills such as evaluation and creativity); Social and emotional aspects of digital use (conducting digital activities alone and with friends, feelings and emotions during digital use such as happiness, bullying); Digital activities in schools (use of digital platforms and attitudes towards digital integration in school).

The average time duration for answering the online survey was 20 minutes. The data was collected in December 2021. The study was approved by an academic ethics board.

The main findings revealed that most participants perform a wide range of activities: acquiring and creating content in social networks, watching and creating videos, playing many types of digital games, and interacting with friends on varied of digital platforms.
We also found significant gender differences in the youth digital activities. However, there were no significant differences in their positive attitude towards technology integration in school.

The article provides an up-to-date, accurate picture of the use of various digital technologies among youth in a typical middle school setting as well as discussion of the pedagogical implications and learning potentials of such use.

Acknowledgments:
This study is a part of a broader study about K-12 digital life in Israel and supported by Mofet-the Israel Institute for Teachers’ Development.

References:
[1] Lange, B. P., Wühr, P., & Schwarz, S. (2021). Of Time Gals and Mega Men: Empirical findings on gender differences in digital game genre preferences and the accuracy of respective gender stereotypes. Frontiers in Psychology, 12.
[2] Squire, K. D. (2022). From virtual to participatory learning with technology during COVID-19. E-Learning and Digital Media, 19(1), 55-77.
[3] Tan, S. (2021). Childhood in the age of digital culture. Youth Theatre Journal, 35(1-2), 1-14.

Keywords:

Digital life, K-12, Leisure time, Learning.