Time allocation, media selection, and displacement effects

In children and adolescents digitized lifeworlds, the boundaries between learning and leisure time are increasingly dissolving. Under these conditions, there is a risk that time spent with media will be at the expense of time spent on school activities. The increasing temporal dissolution of boundaries in media use poses a challenge to the self-discipline and self- control of children and young people to regulate the extent of media use. This research project investigates the time and media use of children and adolescents aged ten to 17 years. The aim is to find out to what extent different forms of media use (e.g., Internet, television, computer games, smartphones, newspapers, and books) and other media activities (e.g., chatting and the use of social media) compete or complement each other in the daily routine and whether these media activities lead to less time being spent on non- media leisure activities and school tasks. The project also aims to find out to what extent media use and the use of time have changed over different media generations: Did earlier generations of children and young people, for example in the time before smartphones and the Internet, have more leisure time and to what extent did they spend it with or without media? In a further step, the research project examines the effects of media use on school performance. Is an increase in media use (e.g., television, Internet, computer games) associated with a decrease in school performance and on which factors (e.g., personality, age, type of education, media generation) does this depend? To answer the research questions and to test the assumptions, children and adolescents aged 10 to 17 years are asked to fill out a questionnaire and a diary. In the diary, the participants indicate what they did when, how long and with whom during the day and which media they used. The questionnaire includes information on gender, age, type of school, parents` education, personality and school performance. For the comparison between different generations of media, existing data on time use from the German Federal Statistical Office and data on school ability from the German National Education Panel will be analyzed.