Cultivating competencies such as self-regulation, emotional resilience, and intentional technology use may support healthier digital engagement and enhance both academic learning and student well-being. A recent study explored the representation of digital wellness within existing digital literacy and digital citizenship educational models or framework, and found that the majority referred to digital wellness as a ‘subcomponent’ of digital literacy or digital competence, affirming their status as educational priorities globally.

Laffier, J., Westley, M., & Rehman, A. (2025). How digital wellness is represented in school digital literacy and citizenship models: a qualitative comparative analysis. Academia Mental Health and Well-Being, 2(4). https://www.academia.edu/2997-9196/2/4/10.20935/MHealthWellB8019

Digital wellness study

This study explored the representation of digital wellness within existing digital literacy and digital citizenship educational models or frameworks. Results revealed that fourteen of the twenty-four frameworks incorporated digital wellness constructs to varying degrees. The majority referred to digital wellness as a ‘subcomponent’ of digital literacy or digital competence, affirming their status as educational priorities globally. 

Laffier, J., Westley, M., & Rehman, A. (2025). How digital wellness is represented in school digital literacy and citizenship models: a qualitative comparative analysis. Academia Mental Health and Well-Being, 2(4). https://doi.org/10.20935/MHealthWellB8019

Preteen mental health and social media study

 A new survey of 11- to 13-year-olds looks at how cellphones and social media affect kids’ mental health—and finds that certain behaviors are more associated with adverse outcomes. While  78% of respondents said they have their own smartphone, and 99% said they often use at least one kind of electronic device, owning or using these devices isn't the problem: pub Children who post publicly posting and sharing online even occasionally are more likely than their peers to report feeling depressed and anxious and get too little sleep. Professor Sharon Hoover stated, “The takeaways for schools are that, yes, the use of phones, including social media use, impacts kids’ mental health and that schools really do have a role to play in terms of digital literacy and ensuring kids are set up with proper knowledge and guardrails around these things.” Digital literacy is to safer phone and social media use.

Martin, J. D., Song, S. W., Rote, W. R., Bakour, C., Rance, L. T., Scacco, J. M., & Marcus, S. (2025). The Life in Media Survey: A baseline study of digital media use and well-being among 11- to 13-year-olds. Researchers at the University in South Florida in collaboration with The Harris Poll. Retrieved from lifeinmediasurvey.org

Study: K-12 digital literacy lacks consistency

 A new study highlights the lack of consistent teaching of digital literacy and digital citizenship skills in K-12 schools. The study reveals that schools often focus on traditional digital literacy topics but neglect evolving skills -- raising concerns about equity and the division of responsibility between schools and families.

Ramsey, L. H. H. (2023). Examining How Teachers Define and Integrate Digital Citizenship Into Core Content Area Curriculum (Doctoral dissertation, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte).

Digital Literacy Curriculum and Learning Study

 A recent study found that high school students who received only six 50-minute lessons in digital literacy were twice as likely to spot questionable websites as they were before the instruction took place, using a Stanford-created curriculum. 

Wineburg, S., Breakstone, J., McGrew, S., Smith, M. D., & Ortega, T. (2022). Lateral reading on the open Internet: A district-wide field study in high school government classes. Journal of Educational Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000740

Research Need on Teachers' Digital Literacy

 This international study pointed out the need for research on the digital literacy competence -- and training -- for teachers.

Tomczyk, Ł., Fedeli, L. (2022). Introduction—On the Need for Research on the Digital Literacy of Current and Future Teachers. In: Tomczyk, Ł., Fedeli, L. (eds) Digital Literacy for Teachers. Lecture Notes in Educational Technology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1738-7_1

Digital Literacy Literature Review

 "This research aims at providing an overview of the research feld of digital literacy into learning and education. Using text mining, it reviews 1037 research articles published on the topic between 2000 and 2020. This review reveals that there is a plurality of terms associated with digital literacy. Moreover, our research identifes six key factors that defne the literature, which are information literacy, developing digital literacy, digital learning, ICT, social media, and twenty-frst century digital skills. These factors can be grouped into three main streams, which are 1) digital literacy, 2) digital learning and 3) twenty-frst century digital skills. These three streams are supported by informational and technological foundations. These results provide research avenues and ofer a framework for digital literacy in education."

Audrin, C., Audrin, B. Key factors in digital literacy in learning and education: a systematic literature review using text mining. Educ Inf Technol (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-021-10832-5

Digital literacy and online learning

 Digital literacy skills among students and their parents were often lacking during remote learning in the spring, according to a survey of more than 700 teachers in 40 states. Data showed students and parents often have the skills to consume technology but not to create with it, such as using Google Docs to collaborate and joining Zoom calls.

Pacheco-Guffrey, H. (2020). https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-10-01-sudden-shift-to-online-learning-revealed-gaps-in-digital-literacy-study-finds

Digital literacy and computational thinking survey

The United States participated in the 2018 International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS), which assesses 8th-grade students in two domains: computer and information literacy (CIL) and computational thinking (CT). It also compares U.S. students’ skills and experience using technology to that of students in other education systems and provides information on factors such as teachers’ experiences and school resources that may influence students’ CIL and CT skills. This information is especially relevant today, since building strong foundations for STEM literacy, including CT, has been identified as one of the three goals in the White House’s 5-year STEM education strategic plan, “Charting a Course for Success: America’s Strategy for STEM Education.”

As the results show, U.S. 8th-grade students’ average score in CIL was higher than the ICILS 2018 average, while the U.S. average score in CT was not significantly different from the ICILS 2018 average. In the United States, female 8th-grade students outperformed their male peers in CIL, but male 8th-grade students outperformed female students in CT. Also, U.S. 8th-grade students with 2 or more computers at home performed better in both CIL and CT than their U.S. peers with fewer computers. Among U.S. 8th-grade students, 72 percent reported using the Internet to do research every school day or at least once a week, and 65 percent reported teaching themselves how to find information on the Internet.

About half of U.S. 8th-grade teachers reported using information and communications technologies (ICT) in teaching. Eighty-six percent of U.S. 8th-grade teachers strongly agreed or agreed that ICT was considered a priority for use in teaching at their schools. Compared with the ICILS 2018 averages, higher percentages of U.S. 8th-grade teachers reported participating in eight out of nine professional learning activities related to ICT.

Click on the questions below for more details. The technical notes for the 2018 ICILS, additional information, the questionnaires, FAQs and the full international report, International Computer and Information Literacy Study, are also available.

Using Technology to Strengthen Learning

Project Tomorrow’s surveyed K-12 students from the US and around the world, and found that:

- Students who have access to school-provided technology use digital resources at a more sophisticated level, place a higher value on technology as part of their learning process, and connect that technology to developing college and career skills.

- 47% of K-12 students have regular access to mobile devices in their classrooms.

- Over 60% of students in grades 6-8 with mobile device access are using these devices for online testing, creating presentations, and using Internet-based services.

- Almost 75% of students, regardless of whether or not they have school technology access, believe that every student should be able to use a mobile device during the school day for learning.

- 63% of students in grades 6-12 think that a blended learning environment would be a good way for them to learn.

- The student vision for a 21st-century educational experience is for learning that is socially based and collaborative, untethered from the traditional constraints or limitations of education institutions, and digitally rich in context and relevancy.

Speak Up (2014). Digital learning 24/7: Understanding technology – enhanced learning in the lives of today’s students: Speak Up 2014 national findings from K-12 students. Irvine, CA: Project Tomorrow.

http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/pdfs/SU14StudentReport.pdf

Videos Are Transforming Learning

According to a survey by Kaltura of respondents from more than 61 countries, this study examined how video is transforming the way we teach, learn, and communicate.

Key findings include:

·       40% of respondents rate students’ digital literacy levels as ‘very good’ versus 23% for teachers, indicating that teachers should consider enhancing their digital literacy skills to keep pace with students.

·       Students and educators are becoming much more confident about creating their own video content: 93% of respondents say that teachers create custom videos, while 88% call out students as creators of videos at their organizations.

·       Video is becoming pervasive: 67% of respondents say that video is used in student assignments, while 59% say it is used for lecture capture.

·       79% of institutions today employ one or more ROI measure to analyze their use of video. 47% of respondents measure usage, 45% use surveys or feedback, and 27% measure learning outcomes. This compares favorably to last year’s survey results, when fewer than 50% of institutions measured ROI.

·       Using video for remote teaching/learning is now commonplace in higher education (66%), while flipped classrooms are becoming a widely used form of pedagogy (46%).

·       Video is also used in a wide range of use cases outside the classroom including: recording campus events for on-demand viewing (53%), marketing and communications (50%) and even as part of the admissions process (24%).

·       70% of institutions use webcasting for various purposes including teaching (47%), training (42%) and broadcasting live events (42%).

Kaltura (2015). The state of video in education 2015: A Kaltura report. New York City, NY: Kaltura. http://site.kaltura.com/rs/984-SDM-859/images/The_State_of_Video_in_Education_2015_a_Kaltura_Report.pdf?aliId=255739158