New project: Modelling the future: Understanding the impact of technology on adolescent’s well-being (FUTURE)

5 Dec 2018

We are happy to announce that our team succeeded in the hard grant competition EXPRO (funded by the Czech Grant Agency). We received money for a 5-year long project: “Modelling the future: Understanding the impact of technology on adolescent’s well-being (FUTURE)”.

Although impacts of technology usage on well-being have been examined from the onset of Internet development, the existing research lacks consistency and complexity in capturing diverse dimensions of well-being. Further, the advancing technological development creates a need for models enabling the prediction of future technology impacts based on comprehension of the general principles related to technology’s effects. Acknowledging these gaps, this project will develop a complex integrative theory depicting the short- and long- term impacts of technology usage on adolescents’ physical, psychological, and social well-being. We will integrate theories from diverse fields, notably media studies, psychology, and health. The theory development will be based on empirical data from (1) existing research, (2) 3-wave longitudinal study, (3) series of experimental studies, and (4) intense data collections with the support of innovative research tools. The project will develop prospective models what will help to understand and predict future impacts of technology on well-being.

The project aims to develop a complex evidence-based theory depicting the impacts of technology usage on physical, psychological, and social well-being of adolescents aged 11 to 18. Innovative research methods based on the software using artificial intelligence will be developed.