Context/Background The project aims at empowering young people (16-25 years old) to deal effectively with situations concerning excessive preoccupation with Internet or screen abuse. Objectives Design, develop, test, implement and disseminate an innovative training framework and eventually a hands-on service that will enable young individuals with excessive Internet or computer activity to modify computer behaviour for healthy computer use. Number and profiles of participants The partnership comprises 7 organisations: The partnership's cross field aspect is demonstrated by a software expert with strong project management skills (P1-CIVIC), a technology institute dealing with ICT related issues of interest to youth (P2-NTL), a University partner specialising in Internet Addiction related problems (P3-NTU), an educational software company with proven expertise in Internet safety (P4-CCS), 2 NGOs, working on the personal development, well-being of young people (P5-CGA, P7-SSD), voluntarism and democratic actions, and on promoting equality, social inclusion and innovations in the society and, finally, a Training Organisation with expertise on skills acquisition and research activities in ICT learning with focus on youth (P6-Emphasis). Approach Methodology and Project Activities -User Models Design, which will comprise both the Situational Layer of personalisation with demographic data and the Behavioural layer with information concerning Internet. -Definition of Desirable Situations, which refers to a desired situation for the user in terms of Internet use. -Personalised Withdrawal Plans to achieve the desired situation will be defined, based on the user models and the informal classification of young people and the desirable situations based on classification. - Internet Addiction Genie Development, which will guide the process of data collection from young people, in order to classify them and elaborate personalised withdrawal plans composed of distinct actions. - Supporting Content Creation: Under this activity all actions under withdrawal plans will be supported by interactive multimedia content comprising Quizzes, Mini games, Cheat Sheets, animated explanatory videos. - Learning Motivation Environment Set-Up and Configuration to facilitate the envisaged trainings during the pilot period and later become the final delivery tool as outcome of the project. - Pilot Tests – Validation Workshops, which will assess whether project outcomes are able to answer users’ needs with regards to screen abuse moderation and youth educators’ competences on the issue.“f2f” workshops will be organised to test the above mentioned components from the point of view of learners. -Follow up and Support: Support for young individuals who have reduced screen times following the training. Impact The desirable impact is to enable young people with an excessive Internet use to correct their computer overuse following personalised withdrawal/moderation plans. This will be achieved through novel training pathways that will enable them to enhance and practice various transversal skills, to identify personal situational and behavioural factors that may trigger compulsive or excessive use of Internet and, finally, apply certain strategies, to take a step towards positive computer activity and, consequently, healthier behaviours and well-being in their personal, professional or familial contexts. Long term benefits The adoption of the proposed training approach will lead to a number of important benefits for indirect target groups as well, such as: - Enhancement of youth educators and practitioners’ professional skills profiting from innovative pedagogical approaches to deal with excessive technology use by their trainees. - Extension in the provision of services for youth associations and civil society organisations who already address young people. - Equipping addiction NGOs, therapists and clinicians with services and tools to complement their social and psychological contributions to their target groups (i.e. vulnerable audiences, clients). - Empowerment of parents that seek guidance on how to deal with their children use of technology; - A small but a decisive step towards “enabling youth associations and young people to connect with, express their opinions to and influence elected policy-makers and civil society organisations” regarding wise and active use of online media by young people. - A small but decisive step in the direction of contributing to the active political participation of young people (Policy Recommendation Theme 5 of the Final report “Youth participation in democratic life” (EACEA 2010/30)) by proposing appropriate actions for reducing their screen time and advancing and promoting instead of passive, interactive and offline entertainment and interactive and interpersonal offline and e-communication.
All material for this project can be found here: http://www.repository.erasmusplus.website/inscreenmode/ Context/Background InscreenMode successfully accomplished its goal to empower young individuals (16-25 years old) to deal effectively with situations concerning excessive preoccupation with Internet or screen abuse. Objectives Our objectives were to design, develop, test, implement and disseminate an innovative online application to modify computer behaviour for young people and help them use all online devices in a healthy manner. Undertaken Activities We started with detailed research, led by Professor Daria Kuss who is an Associate Course Leader in MSc Cyberpsychology at Nottingham Trent University. It was her knowledge and drive that allowed all partners to really delve deep into understanding Internet Addiction and the repercussions it has on young people. This research allowed us to understand growing literature in the Internet Addiction field so we could then create the user models that would be addressed. We then developed a survey in which 197 young individuals took part. The survey focused on sociodemographic data of the user, their psychological constitution, behavioural data, desirable situations and moderation goals of participants (i.e. previous attempts, the success of previous attempts, moderation in terms of time spent, importance of certain aspects of their personal, familial, social and physical context. This allowed us to disseminate the project at a very early stage and gather interest as well as contact details from all partner countries. Based on the user models identified, withdrawal plans were identified in two main categories; “Time management” and “Coping with negative urges for online use” and specifications for the development of the Online Genie were developed and reviewed by CIVIC, who translated this specification into requirements and built the alpha, beta and final versions of the Genie. The Genie works by asking the user to create an account and complete a questionnaire combining different information such as individual data, urges that may trigger the need to use the Internet, active engagement with online applications on a daily basis, and behaviours/feelings that you may have been experiencing due to Internet overuse. Based on this information, the Genie provides the individual with a personalised report that explains their current state of Internet use for Social Media, Online Music, Online Dating, Gaming, Online Shopping, Pornography, Emailing, Watching Videos and surfing the web reading news and whether they are at a High, Medium or Low risk of being a victim of psychological issues due to excessive use. This report can also be exported as a PDF. The tool then recommends strategies and actions that will help them manage their time spent online and/or cope with prior negative feelings and states that they might experience due to Internet use. For some individuals, the recommended strategies and actions will be obligatory, while other suggestions are optional, as they are not considered high risk. Once an individual has implemented and completed the suggested actions, they will be asked to evaluate their progress and identify those that helped them to reach your desired moderation goal via a questionnaire. This will allow us to evaluate and analyse improvements for the Genie in the future, gaining more knowledge of what works and what doesn't work. The Pilot workshops in each partner country clarified some comments for improvement but also validated the effectiveness of the tool. Genie: https://genie.inscreenmode.eu/ Participants During the project we involved the following participants: - Young people (16-25 years old) including students, professionals, refugees - Teachers - Youth educators - NGOs - Parents Results Our results comprised of an Internet Addiction Genie that based on personal data input provides a High, Medium or Low score of excessive use for different internet activities, as well as all relevant withdrawal plans (35 in total). Found here: https://inscreenmode.eu/results Impact - Raising awareness of Internet Addiction and the detrimental effect it can have on young people. This project got people talking about what constitutes an addiction, particularly to something that we use and rely on every day. - Providing a multilingual Internet Addiction genie that helps the user reduce their time online, leading to healthier behaviours and well-being in their personal, professional or familial contexts. Long-term benefits The project equips addiction therapists, NGOs and clinicians with a useful tool their clients can use, as well as help parents/teachers seek guidance on such issues with their children/students. We also helped youth educators and practitioners help their trainees using our pedagogical approach to addiction and instead of just diagnosing young people, we provide solutions to reduce this.