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Unabhängige Expertenkommission „Kinder- und Jugendschutz in der digitalen Welt“: Bestandsaufnahme

Berlin: Bundesministerium für Bildung, Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend (2026), 128 pp.

"Diese Bestandsaufnahme ist in der ersten Arbeitsphase der Unabhängigen Expertenkommission „Kinder- und Jugendschutz in der digitalen Welt“, zwischen Oktober 2025 und Februar 2026, von den 18 Mitgliedern der Kommission verfasst worden. Die Kommission hat drei Arbeitsgruppen gebildet, die jeweil ... more

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Understanding China through Digital Anthropology

Daniel Miller, Xinyuan Wang (eds.)

London: UCL Press (2026), xviii, 305 pp.

"Understanding China through Digital Anthropology questions our understanding of digital technologies by demonstrating fundamental differences in the meaning of both technology and the digital between China and the West. This follows from a longstanding historical divergence in the meaning of and at ... more

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Foundations in Cyber-Ethnography: A Cross-Cultural Approach

Erica Zimmerman, Clementine K. Fujimura (eds.)

New York: Bloomsbury Academic (2026), x, 253 pp.

"Contributors to this volume contend that in the realm of research on human society, online and digital communication can no longer be relegated to a separate cyber space and should instead be considered in equal part by integrating cyber-ethnographic methods. Coming at a critical time where student ... more

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Children’s rights under pressure in a digital world: Proceedings of the International Communication Association pre-conference held in Cape Town, South Africa

Kim Ringmar Sylwander, Gaval Shekhawat, Sonia Livingstone (eds.)

Digital Futures for Children Centre; London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE); 5Rights Foundation (2026), 181 pp.

"This collection offers conceptual and empirical support for children's rights in digital environments. In this way, this work helps bridge the gap between the child rights principles embedded in General comment No. 25, and practice. The anthology is split into five sections: participation, regulati ... more

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World Happiness Report 2026: Happiness and Social Media

John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Lara B. Aknin, Shun Wang (eds.)

Oxford: University of Oxford, Wellbeing Research Centre (2026), 268 pp.

"TRENDS IN GLOBAL HAPPINESS • Nordic countries lead the happiness rankings once again. Finland is still in a group of one at the top, followed by a group of three: Iceland, Denmark, and Costa Rica. Sweden and Norway complete the top six, followed by the Netherlands, Israel, Luxembourg, and Switze ... rland to round out the top ten. Costa Rica’s rise to 4th marks the highest ever ranking for a Latin American country. • Looking at changes in happiness from the 2006–2010 base period to 2023–2025, nearly twice as many countries have had significant gains (79) than significant losses (41), among the 136 countries ranked. • Within that period, most of the 21 countries that have gained a point or more on the 0–10 life evaluation scale are in Central and Eastern Europe, reflecting the convergence in European happiness levels that has been clear for more than a decade. Most of the eight countries with drops of more than one point are in or near zones of major conflict. • In general, most Western industrial countries are now less happy than they were between 2005 and 2010. Fifteen of them have had significant drops, compared to four with significant increases. • In a ranking of happiness changes for under-25s, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (the NANZ region) rank between 122 and 133 in the list of 136 countries. • In eight of the ten global regions shown in Figure 2.2 (covering roughly 90% of the world’s population), those in the youngest age group have higher life evaluations now than in 2006–2010, either in absolute terms or relative to those over 25. Youth wellbeing has only fallen in the NANZ countries and Western Europe, both absolutely and relative to adults. • Negative emotions are becoming more common in all global regions. They are less frequent for the young, except for NANZ, where the increases, relative to other regions, were in sadness. Worry rose more broadly for the young, while the frequency of anger fell everywhere, for young and old alike. • Positive emotions continue to be twice as frequent as negative emotions. In all regions, they are higher for those born recently than for their elders, except for NANZ, where that gap has closed in recent years. HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL MEDIA • Life satisfaction is highest at low rates of social media use and lower at higher rates of use, according to data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) covering seven internet activities for 15-year-old students in 47 countries (but not the NANZ countries, unfortunately). • Internet activities fall into two groups. Communications, news, learning, and content creation are associated with higher life satisfaction. Social media, gaming, and browsing for fun are associated with lower life evaluations. • All internet activities are associated with lower life satisfaction at very high rates of use, especially for girls and for those in the UK and Ireland, the two English-speaking countries in PISA. • Data from Latin America reveal that the type of platform is crucial. Platforms designed to facilitate social connections show a clear positive association with happiness, whereas those driven by algorithmically curated content tend to demonstrate a negative association at high rates of use. • When combined, the PISA and Gallup data show significantly higher youth wellbeing in countries that spend more time using the internet for communication, and insignificantly lower youth wellbeing in countries with higher average hours of social media use. Latin American countries combine high levels 6 World Happiness Report 2026 of social media use with high youth wellbeing, while English-speaking countries show lower youth wellbeing than their fairly typical patterns of internet use can explain. • The prevalence and use patterns for social media are similar in all countries, but their links to life evaluations are stronger in English- speaking countries and Western Europe. These differences do not account for the large drops in youth wellbeing in these countries, however. Much, no doubt, depends on how social media is used and the broader social and economic context. • When school belonging goes from low (10th percentile) to high (90th percentile), the life satisfaction gains for girls in the UK and Ireland are four times greater than social media use going from high (90th percentile) to low (10th percentile). In PISA’s 47-country global sample, the belonging effect is six times larger. This should be relevant when policy options are being considered. SOCIAL MEDIA IS HARMING ADOLESCENTS AT A SCALE LARGE ENOUGH TO CAUSE CHANGES AT THE POPULATION LEVEL • Is social media use reasonably safe for children and adolescents? We call this the “product safety question”, and we present seven lines of evidence showing that the answer is no. • The evidence of harm is found in: 1) surveys of young people; 2) surveys of parents, teachers, and clinicians; 3) contents from corporate documents; 4) findings from cross-sectional studies; 5) findings from longitudinal studies; 6) findings from social media reduction experiments; and 7) findings from natural experiments. • We show there is now overwhelming evidence of severe and widespread direct harms (such as cyberbullying and sextortion), and compelling evidence of troubling indirect harms (such as depression). Furthermore, we show that the harms and risks to individual users are so diverse and vast in scope that they justify the view that social media is causing harm at a population level. • We further argue that when these lines of evidence are considered alongside the timing, scope, and cross-national trends in adolescent wellbeing and mental health, they can help answer a second question: was the rapid adoption of always-available social media by adolescents in the early 2010s a substantial contributor to the population-level increases in mental illness that emerged by the mid 2010s in many Western nations? We call this the “historical trends question”. We draw on our findings about the vast scale of harm uncovered while answering the product safety question to argue that the answer to the historical trends question is “yes”. (Executive summary, pages 6-7) more

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Decolonising Approaches to Users and Audiences in the Global South: Context, Theory and Method

Tarik Sabry, Winston Mano, Andrea Medrado (eds.)

London: Routledge (2026), xvii, 334 pp.

"Including original essays and contemporary case studies spanning Africa, Middle East, Latin America, and Asia, this book provides a nuanced double critique of both local and West‑centric approaches, pushing back against historically extractive audience research logics that have marginalised globa ... more

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How Afghan women amplify their voices through digital activism: A study of global engagement and local cultural resistance

Fardin Ayar

Journal of Multicultural Discourses, volume 21, issue 3 (2026), pp. 346-369

"Under Taliban rule, Afghan women, who make up more than half of the country’s population, face systematic restrictions in accessing education, employment, and other fundamental rights. Despite efforts to silence their voices, Afghan women have not given up; they have adopted Innovative strategies ... more

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Wanderer between the worlds: Telegram use from the users’ perspective

Katarina Bader, Kathrin Friederike Müller, Lars Rinsdorf

Publizistik, volume 70 (2025), pp. 133-155

"The messenger Telegram has gained importance for the mediated constitution of counterpublics in German-speaking countries since 2020. However, most research on Telegram focuses on the content shared and the networks that have developed on the platform. Meanwhile, knowledge about the users of counte ... more

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Mobile Media Use Among Children and Youth in Asia

Andrew Zi Han Yee (ed.)

Dordrecht: Springer (2025), viii, 235 pp.

"This book examines mobile media use among children and youths within an Asian context. By studying the impact of mobile media on children and youth in Asia, it focuses on the explosive growth of mobile media among young people and seeks to understand the potential consequences of mobile media use o ... more

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Social Media and Ordinary Life: Affect, Ethics, and Aspiration in Contemporary China

Cara Wallis

New York: New York University Press (2025), viii, 285 pp.

"Focusing on domestic workers, rural microentrepreneurs, disadvantaged young creatives, and young feminists, Social Media and Ordinary Life is a deeply moving ethnography of how digital media infrastructures and platforms are woven into the rhythms of ordinary, everyday life. In choosing to foregrou ... nd marginalized groups and communities, Cara Wallis gently shifts our attention away from the world of “social media influencers” and tech-centric discourses of entrepreneurial lives towards a decidedly ambivalent terrain of routine life practices. Social Media and Ordinary Life argues that understanding these individual experiences of the everyday enables greater insight into larger transformations taking place in contemporary China. Through long-term ethnographic fieldwork across China, Wallis foregrounds the entanglement of affect, emotion, ordinary ethical decisions, and desires connected to social media as it is used for self-expression, self-representation, fights for equality, maintenance of community, and economic livelihood. Four case studies show how social media is integrated into the articulation of affects by a wide variety of “ordinary” Chinese subjects: disadvantaged young creatives who migrate to Beijing from rural areas and use social media to cultivate their personal aesthetics; micro-entrepreneurs in rural Shandong province, especially women whose affective ties to the patriarchal family constrain their use of technology for economic enhancement; domestic workers, all women, in urban homes who use social media to build community and construct themselves as ethical subjects; and young feminists spread across China who engage in various types of cultural production and deploy social media in their fight for gender equality, often facing social and/or political marginalization in the process. Amid daunting forces—big data, artificial intelligence, massive surveillance—this book centers the “small,” showing how structural inequality, the urban/rural divide, patriarchal gender norms, and generational differences lead to contradictory or ambivalent outcomes of technology use. Even so, for these individuals and many others, social media is deeply intertwined with aspirations for a better future." (Publisher description) more

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Hooked on the Feed: An Analysis of How Facebook, TikTok, and X Shape Information Consumption in Eastern Europe

Marius Dragomir, Adrian Anton, Eva Bognar et al.

London: Thomson Foundation; Media Journalism Research Center (MJRC) (2025), 69 pp.

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Exploring Mental Health and Digital Technologies Among Young People in Rural Areas

C. M. Gonzales

Hopelab (2025), 19 pp.

"Young people in rural areas report distinct patterns in how they engage with digital technologies compared to their suburban and urban peers. These notable patterns are both shaped by and contribute to their experiences with digital connection, mental health, and well-being. This report highlights ... more

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Zwischen Bildschirmzeit und Selbstregulation: Soziale Medien im Alltag von Jugendlichen

Düsseldorf: Vodafone Stiftung Deutschland (2025), 44 pp.

"Soziale Medien sind aus dem Alltag junger Menschen in Deutschland nicht mehr wegzudenken: Ein großer Teil (69 %) der Jugendlichen verbringt mehr als die vom Bundesinstitut für Öffentliche Gesundheit empfohlenen zwei Stunden täglich am Bildschirm (vgl. BIÖG, o. D.). Davon weisen 27 % eine tägl ... iche Bildschirmzeit von fünf Stunden oder mehr auf. Darunter häufiger Mädchen (32 %) als Jungen (23 %), ebenso Jugendliche mit formal niedriger oder mittlerer Bildung im Vergleich zu solchen mit höherer Bildung (32 % zu 20 %). Erstes Smartphone und Regeln im Elternhaus: Jugendliche bekommen ihr erstes Smartphone im Schnitt mit elf Jahren, 72 % der Jugendlichen erhalten es zwischen neun und zwölf Jahren, am häufigsten mit zehn Jahren (28 %). Mit 16 Jahren besitzen fast alle ein eigenes Gerät. In der Hälfte der Haushalte mit Jugendlichen unter 18 Jahre gibt es keine Regeln zur Mediennutzung. Wenn es Regeln gibt, dann meist zeitliche (30 %) oder inhaltliche Begrenzungen (27 %) von bestimmten Apps oder Seiten. Dabei wird häufiger das Gespräch gesucht, als dass Verbote ausgesprochen werden. 57 % der Jugendlichen finden, dass sie selbst über ihren Medienkonsum entscheiden sollten. Zwei Drittel der Befragten (64 %) geben an, dass ihre Eltern über das von ihnen genutzte Plattformangebot informiert seien, und 47 % sagen, ihre Eltern wüssten auch, welche Inhalte sie konsumieren – bei jungen Frauen häufiger (52 %) als bei jungen Männern (42 %). Soziale Medien und Gefühle: Bei der Nutzung sozialer Medien überwiegen für das Gros der jungen Menschen positive Gefühle wie Freude (83 %), Neugier (81 %) und Entspannung (67 %). Negative Emotionen wie Einsamkeit (37 %), Neid auf andere (34 %) oder Stress (33 %) empfindet etwa ein Drittel. Rund ein Fünftel (21 %) fühlt sich nach der Nutzung sozialer Medien sogar schuldig. Junge Frauen berichten dabei häufiger von negativen Gefühlen als junge Männer. Neben den individuellen Emotionen zeigt sich auch, wie stark soziale Medien mit Gruppenzugehörigkeit und dem Selbstbild verbunden sind. [...] Funktionen von und Belastungen durch soziale(n) Medien: Soziale Medien dienen Jugendlichen als Plattform für Unterhaltung und Kommunikation, bringen aber auch Ausgrenzung, soziale Vergleiche und digitalen Stress mit sich. Fast alle Jugendlichen (95 %) nutzen soziale Medien zur Unterhaltung. Auch der Austausch mit Freund:innen (85 %) und Inspiration (81 %) spielen eine zentrale Rolle. Die Hälfte (50 %) der Jugendlichen nutzt soziale Medien, um nichts zu verpassen. Gleichzeitig berichten 29 % von sozialem Druck sowie Ausgrenzung und Abwertung (46 %). Junge Frauen berichten häufiger von sozialen Vergleichen als junge Männer (52 % zu 31 %) und geben deutlich öfter an, regelmäßig emotional belastenden Inhalten zu begegnen (46 % zu 27 %). Selbstregulierung: Strategien für bewusste Nutzung: Die Mehrheit der Jugendlichen schafft es nicht, ihre Nutzung sozialer Medien zu begrenzen: Knapp drei Viertel (73 %) verbringen mehr Zeit damit, als ihnen lieb ist. 56 % würden soziale Medien gern weniger nutzen, schaffen es aber nicht. 61 % geben an, dadurch andere Dinge zu vernachlässigen – bei jungen Frauen liegt dieser Anteil mit 70 % deutlich höher als bei jungen Männern (53 %). Auch wenn es Jugendlichen nach eigenen Aussagen schwerfällt, ihre Nutzungszeit auf den sozialen Medien zu begrenzen, reflektieren 47 % das eigene Nutzungsverhalten regelmäßig. Sie entwickeln Strategien, um ihr Verhalten zu steuern: bestimmte Mitteilungen werden deaktiviert (69 %), das Handy wird bewusst auf „Nicht stören“ gestellt (51 %) oder die sozialen Medien werden während des Lernens gemieden (58 %)." (Zusammenfassung der Ergebnisse, Seiten 4-5) more

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Our Online Lives: Messages from Pre-Teens

Adrienne Katz, Ebru Ozbek

Youthworks (2025), 19 pp.

"This report describes responses from pre-teens about their digital lives, delivering insights into their experiences, feelings, and concerns. While there are challenges in educating children aged 11-12 about online safety, hearing firsthand about their experiences can help direct our attention to t ... more

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Infancia, adolescencia y bienestar digital: Una aproximación desde la salud, la convivencia y la responsabilidad social

Juan Miguel Márquez, Belén Andrade, Ignacio Guadix, Fernando Suárez, Francisco Javier Rodríguez, Joaquín González, Antonio Rial

Madrid: UNICEF España; Universidad de Santaigo de Compostela; Consejo General de Ingeniería (2025), 73 pp.

"La presencia de los dispositivos digitales en el día a día de niños, niñas y adolescentes es indudable. El 82,4% dispone de su propio teléfono móvil, al que acceden por término medio a los 10,8 años. El 51,6% del alumnado de Primaria dispone ya de móvil propio, porcentaje que asciende al 9 ... 2,8% en la ESO. Ha quedado patente también que las redes sociales forman parte de su día a día. El 92,5% está registrado al menos en una red social y el 75,8% en tres o más. En 5º y 6º de Primaria, el 78,3% del alumnado está ya registrado en alguna red social y el 43,6%, en tres o más. Se ha constatado que el uso de las pantallas conlleva una serie de riesgos que no deben obviarse. Las prevalencias de sexting se sitúan entre el 6,4% (sexting activo) y el 14,9% (sexting pasivo). El 9% refiere haber sufrido presiones para enviar fotos propias de carácter erótico o sexual y el 2,9% chantajes o intentos de sextorsión. Cabe destacar también que el 5,7% de los menores de 16 años refiere haber recibido propuestas sexuales por parte de adultos a través de Internet. Estas cifras han experimentado, en general, un ligero descenso respecto al estudio realizado en 2021, lo cual denota una creciente toma de conciencia por parte de la sociedad española, respecto a toda esta problemática. Los videojuegos constituyen una de las principales fuentes de ocio en la infancia y la adolescencia. El 53,5% del alumnado juega a videojuegos al menos “una vez a a semana" y uno de cada cinco "todos o casi todos los días". En primaria el porcentaje de jugadores asciende al 62,5%. Por término medio le dedican 7,14 horas semanales a los videojuegos. Una parte importante de adolescentes destina, además, dinero todos los meses a los videojuegos; el 8%, más de 30€ al mes a compras o descargas y el 4,9%, a adquirir skins, gemas, cartas o jugadores. La presencia de las denominadas loot boxes o cajas botín en la dinámica de juego es cada vez más habitual. El 62,8% de las y los jugadores refiere haber abierto alguna loot box sin gastar dinero y un 13,2% pagando por ello. Quienes invierten tiempo y esfuerzo en abrir loot boxes presentan una prevalencia significativamente mayor de trastorno por uso de videojuegos, mientras que el gasto en loot boxes se asocia con una mayor tasa de apuestas online. Otro de los problemas a priori asociados al consumo de videojuegos tiene que ver con los contenidos violentos y/o no recomendados para menores. El 70,2% de los jugadores consume habitualmente videojuegos con contenidos violentos, uno de cada cuatro clasificados como PEGI 18. El consumo de videojuegos no recomendados para menores se asocia con prevalencias significativamente mayores de acoso escolar y de ciberacoso. A pesar de ser una práctica ilegal para menores, 1 de cada 10 adolescentes de menos de 18 años refiere haber jugado dinero o apostado alguna vez de forma presencial u online. Divertirse y pasar el rato con amistades es la principal motivación por la que juegan o apuestan (65,7%), lo cual revela el carácter lúdico y social asociado al juego. Cabe añadir, además, que la mitad (47,1%) lo hace con la convicción de ganar dinero. De hecho, el 84,4% de los que han jugado o apostado alguna vez afirman haber ganado en alguna ocasión, el 33,9% "bastante veces" y el 14,5% "siempre o casi siempre". En cuanto a los usos problemáticos o posibles "adicciones sin sustancia", la posibilidad de aplicar instrumentos de cribado validados a nivel internacional, sobre una muestra representativa de niños, niñas y adolescentes españoles, permite aportar datos epidemiológicos de notable interés. Así, por ejemplo, la prevalencia del uso problemático de redes sociales se sitúa en el 5,7%, mientras que la de un posible trastorno por uso de videojuegos (gaming disorder) se sitúa en el 1,7%. La tasa de jugadores problemáticos relacionados con el juego o las apuestas (problem gambling) asciende al 2,4%. Se ha comprobado también que este tipo de adicciones o usos problemáticos suelen estar fuertemente asociados con problemas a nivel emocional y unapeor calidad de vida, reflejándose en mayores niveles de ansiedad, depresión, somatización e, incluso, de riesgo suicida. Aunque el hecho de utilizar un diseño transversal exige hablar de "correlatos", en lugar de relaciones causales, los datos revelan de forma inequívoca que quienes sufren este tipo de problemas tienden a presentar una peor salud mental, lo que refuerza la idea de que estamos ante un problema de salud pública, que afecta a miles de niños, niñas y adolescentes en España. Uno de temas más "sensibles" y a priori de mayor interés del presente estudio era el consumo de pornografía. Los datos indican que, aunque sólo el 10,1% de los y las adolescentes consume pornografía de forma habitual, el acceso a este tipo de contenidos se produce a edades muy tempranas (11,5 años por término medio) y la prevalencia de un posible consumo problemático es elevada (uno de cada cinco de quienes consumen pornografía)." (Conclusiones, páginas 66-68) more

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Me, myself and AI: Understanding and safeguarding children’s use of AI chatbots

London: Internet Matters (2025), 56 pp.

"This report explores how children are interacting with AI chatbots, which are computer programmes designed to simulate conversation with a person. Our findings show that while these tools can offer clear benefits, such as 24/7 learning support and a non-judgemental space to ask questions, they pose ... more

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L’essor des technologies numériques en Côte d’Ivoire: Réalités et enjeux

Jean-Jacques Maomra Bogui

Paris: L'Harmattan (2025), 227 pp.

"Au début du troisième millénaire, la Côte d’Ivoire, à l’instar d’autres pays africains, au sortir de sommets internationaux, tirant la « sonnette d’alarme » sur la nécessité de combler le fossé numérique entre le Sud et le Nord, va prendre des initiatives en vue de favoriser la p ... more

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Measuring Digital Development. Facts and Figures: Focus on Landlocked Developing States
Deep Insights

Geneva: ITU (2025), iv, 33 pp.

"Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) face unique development challenges. Higher transportation costs, trade barriers, and limited connectivity impede economic integration. LLDCs rely on neighbouring countries for access to trade routes, resulting in delays and higher costs. These countries also ... more

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Von Hashtags und Geschichte: Vergangenheitsbezogene Hate Speech und ihre Multimodalität auf TikTok

Andrea Lorenz

Publizistik, volume 70 (2025), pp. 261-287

"Die audiovisuelle Plattform TikTok bildet mittlerweile einen relevanten Aushandlungsort für soziale Gruppen aller Art. User*innen bietet sich die Möglichkeit, eigene Räume für Vernetzung zu schaffen und Identitätsmanagement zu betreiben. Aufgrund der Plattformaffordanzen – vor allem Multimod ... more

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Contesting personalized recommender systems: A cross-country analysis of user preferences

Christopher Starke, Ljubisa Metikos, Natali Helberger, Claes de Vreese

Information, Communication & Society, volume 28, issue 1 (2025), pp. 41-60

"Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube wield substantial influence over digital information flows using sophisticated algorithmic recommender systems (RS). As these systems curate personalized content, concerns have emerged about their propensity to amplify polar ... more

Measuring Digital Development. Facts and Figures: Focus on Landlocked Developing States Deep Insights

Measuring Digital Development. Facts and Figures: Focus on Landlocked Developing States
Deep Insights