Chapter 2

Between Self-Actualization
and Waste of Time: Young
People’s Evaluations of
Digital Media Time
Andrea Kleeberg-Niepage and Johanna L. Degen

Abstract
Children and young people’s time is generally structured by adults’ ideas and
interests, be it in the family (sleeping or eating times), in the social world (time
of school) or in the cultural realm (holidays and festivities). Children’s auton-
omy of how they spend their time is reduced to certain spaces, which again are
assigned to them by adults. For the past two decades, digital media has entered
many people’s – adults as well as children’s and young people’s – everyday life.
With the omnipresent and growing use of digital media by young people –
fueled even more by mobile devices – grows a discourse around possible (nega-
tive) effects and supposedly necessary pedagogical monitoring and restrictions
of their digital media time.
These discussions regarding negative effects on well-being and school
performance include formal recommendations for limiting the quantity of
time spent online. Hereby, mainly the digital time outside school is addressed
and potentially problematized. Despite numerous studies on the effects of
digital media time on different aspects of young people’s lives there is little
research asking for children’s and young people’s perspectives on digital
media use and time.

Children, Youth and Time

Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, Volume 30, 29–47
Copyright © 2022 by Andrea Kleeberg-Niepage and Johanna L. Degen
Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited
ISSN: 1537-4661/doi:10.1108/S1537-466120220000030002
29
30 Andrea Kleeberg-Niepage and Johanna L. Degen

This study uses questionnaires (509) and qualitative interviews (15) to

explore young people’s perspectives in terms of meaning, quality and quantity
of the time spent with digital media. The participants were youth aged 12–20
from northern Germany. Using qualitative content analysis, findings point to a
necessary differentiation between the purpose of usage, respective effects and
evaluations.
Accordingly, being online can be an act (a) of self-actualization including posi-
tive effects creating great meaning for well-being, identity and appropriation of
the digital world for their own future, (b) a waste of time when, for example,
using social media or gaming to pass the time including a feeling that time is
accelerated and rushing, personal regrets and references to loss of control and
the need for self-control, and (c) a pragmatic naturalization of the digital as
one part of life for various individual or social purposes and developments.
The article discusses young people’s evaluations and perspectives addressing the
possibly artificial adult differentiation of analog and digital time or activities
as well as adults’ presumptions about young people’s digital time and the strive
for control resulting from these. Additionally, insights from the circumstances
of the COVID-19 lockdown are included in gaining knowledge about what is
actually important and rewarding when young people spend time digitally. The
chapter aims at an intergenerational understanding of the significance of digi-
tal media in young people’s lives questioning alarmist scenarios of a generation
that is lost in the digital world.
Keywords: Young people; digital media use; time spent online;
childhood studies; self-actualization; COVID-19 lockdown

1. Introduction: Children, Time and

Digital Media Use
The universalized western construction of childhood includes clear ideas regard-
ing how, with whom and with what children and young people (should) spend
their time. For more than a century (Wartella & Robb, 2008), these ideas apply to
the life phase as a whole and to everyday life routines, where care and family time,
play and leisure time, and school and learning time have not only their periods
but are also assigned to specific places. By this, the single day as well as childhood
and youth in general are pre-structured by adults’ schedules and their ideas of
what makes a good childhood and what belongs to proper child development.
Children’s options to organize their daily routine independently are rather limited.
During the last decade with (mobile) digital media devices, a new player entered
children’s and young people’s everyday lives – at least in the western world or in
the affluent populations. While screen-based media like television or computer
games have been part of children’s lives long before and have been criticized ever
Between Self-Actualization and Waste of Time 31

since (Wartella & Rob, 2008), for more than a decade mobile media devices like
smartphones brought significant changes for daily activities like communication,
entertainment and learning. (Mobile) digital media potentially allow children and
young people to enter the sphere of the internet anywhere and anytime and to cre-
ate spaces and times on their own without the immediate control of adults. This
potential, together with the current generation of parents’ and teachers’ compa-
rable lack of familiarity with these media, might explain the often concerned or
even anxious discussion about the influence of digital media on children’s and
young people’s development and socialization.
The amount of time children and young people spend with digital media is
especially often the subject of debates: How much time per day is adequate, to
what extent must this be differentiated according to age and at what times of the
day is it appropriate or harmful to use it? Across the very heterogeneous and
controversial positions on these questions, there is a consensus that children’s and
young people’s digital media time needs to be regulated and controlled. Yet, these
debates on children’s digital media time often entail significant contradictions: on
the one hand, digital media and the ability to use it appropriately – which often
means to use it in the context of (school)learning – is seen as an important com-
petence and preparation for later (mainly professional) life. On the other hand,
young people’s media use – for example, social media use, gaming – is classified as
a potential waste of time and a threat to young people’s development and health
(Buckingham, 2004; Kleeberg-Niepage, 2020).
Young people themselves are often researched in terms of their usage of digi-
tal media (regarding time and content) but seldomly asked about their views on
these media and their use. In view of the now nearly 30-year-old call by the New
Childhood Studies to elicit the perspectives of children and adolescents and to
conduct research with rather than about them (James & Prout, 2015), this rep-
resents a notable gap in the current research literature. Furthermore, given that
digital media use – especially the time spent with it – appears to be a battlefield in
families and schools (e.g. smartphone bans), young people’s implied perspectives
are important to overcome adult-centric views on “good” or “appropriate” media
use and to promote a common understanding among the generations regarding
the significance of digital media in everyday life.
This article originates from an ongoing research project about children’s and
young people’s use of digital media, which includes different sets of data (ques-
tionnaires, interviews, drawings, essays). Here we refer to a questionnaire study
from spring 2019 focusing on participants’ answers to open-ended questions
regarding their view and opinions about adults’ concerns about young people’s
use of digital media. In conjunction with the questionnaire, we analyze qualitative
interviews from spring 2020 with a specific focus on how our young participants
perceive and evaluate their time spent with digital devices or online respectively
as well as their future perspectives and – given the time of the interviews – with
some additional insights from the specific circumstances of the first COVID-19
lockdown in Germany.
32 Andrea Kleeberg-Niepage and Johanna L. Degen

2. How Young People Spend Their Time (Online)

The increasing availability of digital devices for young people1 – for example,
today most young people own their own smartphone and other digital devices in
addition2 – also increases the possibility for them to spend time online. The vari-
ous options of usage, as, for example, research and learning, entertainment and
gaming or social media activities offer a broad range of activities and make digital
media an important part of young people’s everyday life. Furthermore, increasing
demands from peers and parents to be available at any time, their own ambition
to be always up to date, fear of missing out and the increasing digitization of
more and more areas of life (e.g., e-payment or e-tickets for public transport) even
make digital media a necessity. These options and requirements go along with an
enhanced use of and urge for the respective devices. For many years, large-scale
representative studies have regularly shown that the amount of time young people
spend using digital media per day is increasing. In Germany for instance, such
studies revealed that in 2018 youth between 12 and 19 years spend on average 214
minutes per day online with different devices (self-assessment). This online time
had increased massively in the preceding decade – in 2008, the average online time
lasted 117 minutes (mpfs, 2018b). Under the pandemic circumstances in 2020,
however, the average time used for online activities amounted to 258 minutes per
day (mpfs, 2020b).3 Both gaming and entertainment activities especially increased
over the years and in 2020, which means that school and learning related online
activities do not account for the overall increase.
The various discussions about this increase in young people’s digital media
or online time share a potential problematization either with regards to the con-
tent (e.g., violent games) or to the duration of use. A recurring issue is the topic
of “excessive use” and its assumed detrimental consequences on physical, for
example, obesity, lack of movement skills, sleep disorders, or mental health, for
example, addictive behavior, attention deficit, or the overall development of chil-
dren, for example, decrease of analog activities like reading or sports and analog
social interactions (BLIKK-Medien, 2017; Knop & Hefner, 2018; mpfs, 2020b;
Przybylski & Weinstein, 2019; Vandewater & Cummings, 2008).
Yet, what exactly “excessive use” means remains unclear.4 Studies often use
general recommendations from institutions and organization5 as points of refer-
ence for “appropriate” digital media or online time thereby implying that there is
a sound basis for such recommendations. However, this does not seem to be the
case.6 Blitzer, Bleckmann, and Mößle (2014) define the usage behavior of the top
10% of the statistical group of frequent users as “problematic with regards to
time” and Rehbein (2014) claims that more than 4 hours per day would qualify
for an “excessive use.” He emphasizes, however, that excessive use does not auto-
matically result in pathologies such as computer-game addictions and further-
more stresses that indeed most people with addictive behavior would show an
“excessive use” while the converse does not apply.
Furthermore, the idea of what is “excessive” has changed significantly over the
last decade as can be seen in the study conducted by Smahel and Blinka (2012): at
the time of their data collection in 2010, the largest possible time span that could
Between Self-Actualization and Waste of Time 33

be selected by the participants was “every day or almost every day” (p. 195), indi-
cating at least a certain arbitrariness of such a category.
While some studies reveal positive correlations of digital media or “screen”
time and the above-mentioned detrimental consequences (e.g., BLIKK-Medien,
2017; Klar et al., 2019), others deny a linear dependency and emphasize the
importance of other factors, for example, the kind and content of the usage or if
the usage occurs on weekdays or on the weekend (Ferguson, 2017; Przybylski &
Weinstein, 2017, 2019). Furthermore, the amount of time and the content used
vary related to socioeconomic status and gender and is also related to individual
factors like a low academic self-concept and self-esteem and a lack of social inte-
gration (Ferguson, 2017; Przybylski & Weinstein, 2017, 2019; Rehbein, 2014).
However, one fact these considerations rarely address is the relation between
those periods of time digital media is used for school or learning related activi-
ties compared to leisure activities like entertainment or gaming. Implicitly most
studies only address the latter while the former is being ignored thereby implying
that digital media time beyond school is potentially problematic while media time
in school is not.7
Parents’ strategies to supervise the digital media use of their children at home
often involve the implementation of time limits (e.g., partly via technical aids) or
the restrictions of usage at certain times (e.g., in the evening or on school days)
while the used content is checked much less frequently (Festl & Langemeier, 2018;
Knop & Hefner, 2018; Pfetsch, 2018).
Under the situation of the first COVID-19 lockdown in spring 2020 chil-
dren’s and young people’s lives changed significantly and especially in relation
to digital media use. As stated above, the daily time spent online or in front of
a screen8 increased tremendously. Interestingly, at least in Germany, this cannot
be explained by the sudden implementation of distance/online learning tools.
In contrast, the time school children (elementary and secondary schools) spent
with school and learning related activities reduced by half – 3.6 hours instead of
7.4 hours before the lockdown (parents’ assessment) while entertainment activi-
ties in front of screens increased by 1.2 hours (Wössmann et al., 2020).
Despite the considerable body of research in this area, the question how chil-
dren and young people themselves perceive and evaluate their digital media time
has rarely been addressed thus far. This is quite remarkable given the longstand-
ing demands from the New Childhood Studies to include young people’s perspec-
tives into respective research programs. In this paradigm, young people are social
agents and capable subjects who are not just adapting to social conditions and the
adult world as such but rather shaping and co-constructing it. Within this frame,
children and adolescents are not perceived as objects of adult research but as
experts of their life and development whose perceptions and experiences have to
be elaborated and not just explained through an adult lens (James & Prout, 2015;
Raby, 2007; Wells, 2018).
Especially one sphere of life – the word of digital media – that currently seems
to be more closely bound to the lifeworld of youth than to those of adults, is – like
all technologies before – often invested with our most intense fears and fantasies
(Buckingham, 2004, p. 108). The former in particular lead to an ever-increasing
34 Andrea Kleeberg-Niepage and Johanna L. Degen

search for adult means to control the use of such media with regard to content or
time of usage while children’s perspectives are underrepresented (ibid). Therefore,
when researching young people’s digital media use adult’s concepts and ideas
need to step back or be at least explicitly challenged to make way for young peo-
ple’s views.
The study of Knop and Hefner (2018) indicates that youth are very aware of
adults’ discussions about digital media time: many of their participants evaluated
their own smartphone time as “too much.” However, what means “too much”
and what results from it? How do youth negotiate the discourses of digital media
time, how do they relate to adults’ assumptions, recommendations and limita-
tions? What does the use of digital media mean to them and what can adults learn
from their perspectives? These questions will be addressed in the following.

3. Method: Qualitative Content Analysis to

Explore Young People’s Perspectives
The questionnaire study we refer to was conducted in spring 2019 with 509 young
people between 12 and 20 years in several secondary schools in northern Germany.
Two hundred twenty-nine of them were male, 227 female and 53 would not state
their gender. Included in the sample were five schools, one private and four pub-
lic schools, two offer a secondary school leaving certificate (Realschulabschluss)
and at the other three (including the private school), it is possible to study up to
the A-levels (Abitur). Four of the schools are situated in an urban area, one in a
rural area.
Beside questions regarding the possession of digital media devices, the time
spent with such devices and the used contents we asked several questions in an
open-ended format concerning participants’ perspectives about the impact and
significance of digital media in their current life, and their views about prevalent
adults’ concerns about the usage. By this, we aimed at making the adults stance
explicit and elicit the participants opinions and views on it. For this paper, we
focus on the answers of three of the six open-ended questions (OQ) which implic-
itly refer to issues of time:

• OQ 1: “Adults – like parents or teachers – sometimes say that using smart-

phones would harm academic success. What is your view on that?”
• OQ 2: Adults – like parents or teachers – sometimes say that using smart-
phones would prevent people from talking and meeting personally and thereby
endanger social life. What is your view on that?
• OQ 3: Adults – like parents or teachers – sometimes say that using smart-
phones would reduce other activities like sports, helping in the house or read-
ing. What is your opinion on that?

Most participants answered these open-ended questions with written texts of

different lengths (between 1 and 49 words, average of 15.6 words per answer)
which were analyzed using qualitative content analysis following Mayring (2015,
see procedure below).
Between Self-Actualization and Waste of Time 35

Additionally, 26 children and young people took part in an interview study in

spring 2020. As the age of our participants ranged from five to 24 years, we here
include those 15 interviews with participants in the same age range as in the ques-
tionnaire study (12–20 years). Eleven interviewees were girls and four of them
were boys. Participants were recruited via social networks of student researchers
and were not part of the 2019 questionnaire study.
The interview guideline entailed questions regarding the contents, the time of
digital media usage and the feelings and evaluations involved (e.g., What do you
(like to) do with digital devices? How long do you use the devices per day/per week?
Is that okay or too little or too long and how do you know? What role will digital
media play for you in the future?). These interviews took place during the first
COVID-19 lockdown in spring 2020 when for many young people digital devices
were the only means to stay in contact with extended family, friends and teachers/
school with the time of usage often increasing significantly. Given this extraor-
dinary situation, questions also addressed possibly related changes in media use
and associated perceptions (What has changed through Corona? What do you think
about it? How do you feel about it?). Due to restricted contact opportunities, most
of these interviews took place via video conferencing tools.
Both types of data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis (Mayring,
1991, 2015). This procedure allows for developing deductive as well as inductive
thematic codes and categories subsequently. In this study, both types of coding are
relevant. Deductive coding detects theoretically grounded assumptions that are
part of both the interview guide and the questionnaire (Mayring, 2000). Alongside
deductive coding, we could find answers and reactions to assumptions we con-
fronted the subjects with, for instance that there is a distinction between analog
and digital activities as such. Inductive coding enabled us to conduct an explora-
tive search for new knowledge developed from the data and thereby construct
theoretical insights beyond the existing body of knowledge and implemented
assumptions, for instance the self-actualization as one mode of being online.
For the analytical process for both sets of data, we worked in teams. For
the questionnaire data, one team of researchers analyzed the answers to ques-
tion one (OQ 1). Another team of researchers studied the answers to the two
other questions relevant from the questionnaire (OQ 2 & QQ 3). Each team
determined recurring themes in the data and developed a preliminary code
tree which was compared, discussed and revised through joint meetings of the
whole team. The resulting code tree was used to code all answers in MAXQDA.
Subsequently, codes were combined to form more abstract categories and
subcategories.
For the interviews, again two teams – each working with half of the data –
identified themes and developed a preliminary code tree which was then compared
and revised by the whole team. After coding all the interviews in MAXQDA, cat-
egories and subcategories were developed and defined.
This process involved several loops in which unambiguous categories and sub-
categories as well as respective descriptions were elaborated.
Both kinds of our qualitative data are directed at the same research questions,
analyzed by the same analytical procedure. They thereby contribute equally to
answer our research questions, compensate for the respective weaknesses and
36 Andrea Kleeberg-Niepage and Johanna L. Degen

enrich the strengths (Flick, 2008). As in a kaleidoscope, different perspectives

and depths of the participants engagement with the subject matter come together
to form a multilayered picture of our participants perspectives on their digital
media use. While the open-ended questions in the questionnaire aimed at provok-
ing an explicit reaction to adults’ presumptions regarding youth’ digital media
use, the interviews enabled insights into subjects’ feelings and meaning making
processes.
In terms of ethics, we follow the EECERA – European Early Childhood
Education Research Association – and UNCRC – United Nations Convention on
the Rights of the Child – as discussed by Harcourt, Perry, and Waller (2011) and
Nairn and Clarke (2012) stressing the significance of children’s rights and agency
in the research process. Thus, throughout the data collection we ensured the prin-
ciples of well-being, voluntary informed consent and confidentiality/privacy (Nairn &
Clarke, p. 4). For the questionnaire study, first, the ministry of education of the
respective federal state was asked for permission to conduct this research. With
this, second, the headmasters of the participating schools were consulted for the
possibility for data collection at their schools. Third, the respective teachers dis-
tributed written information about the study to the students and their parents
upfront. Fourth, students took part voluntarily and, if under age, only if parents
granted permission. Moreover, it was explicitly possible at all times to withdraw
the participation during the process. Any questions that showed up during data
collection could be met by the research team that was present in the schools at all
times. The interviews, however, could not be collected via school due the school
lockdown at this time. Therefore, research assistants contacted children and
young people online and beyond the context of school. Most of the interviews
had to take place via video conferencing tools, they were audio-recorded, tran-
scribed, and anonymized.

4. Findings: Young People’s Perspective on

Spending Time Digitally
4.1 “None of Them Have a Clue!” Young People Responding to Adults’
Presumptions on Digital Media
The open-ended questions in our 2019 questionnaire addressed the issue of time
implicitly in the context of everyday life controversies between adults and youth.
The answers show the significance of these topics for our participants and we
received various signs of intra- and intersubjective negotiations. Three categories
concerning these negotiations of time have been developed, namely 1. (Not a)
Waste of time, 2. Fight for control, 3. The (ab)normal and me.

(Not a) Waste of Time

While relating to common adults’ concerns as formulated in the open-ended
questions our participants frequently negotiate and evaluate the time spent with
digital devices. The answers follow different, partly intertwined modes of being
Between Self-Actualization and Waste of Time 37

anxious, justifying, defensive, or rejecting – and often entail comparisons of one’s

own behavior with that of others, mainly peers.
Anxious considerations describe digital media as a kind of time thief against
which it is difficult to defend oneself:
P 1239: “Smartphones are in continuous use and all of a sudden two hours are gone, without
one noticing. The user is wasting time on useless social platforms and hours formerly spent for
reading or other leisure activities are simply swallowed by the mobile.” (f, 19)10

The time as such when spent online is perceived as accelerated, flying or rush-
ing, leaving the subject helplessly subjected to the medium, and in a state of lost
control reducing other activities which one actually would like to do, despite one’s
own negative evaluation.
Justifying positions either stress that digital media time is but one of many
activities, that the media are used more as a side line or that it is used for impor-
tant activities that are not at all a waste of time:
P 129: “I often use the smartphone casually – when I’m helping around the house, I listen to
music or a podcast; when I’m jogging, I listen to music as well. I still take time to read – despite
the smartphone!” (f, 19)

P 413: “I think you can learn with your mobile too and there are many good apps for learning
that are helpful too.” (m, 14)

Here, young people present themselves as competent users who can master
their devices and use their (digital media) time consciously.
A more defensive position is taken by accusing adults of having no under-
standing for the young peoples’ need for digital media and furthermore that
adults use, for example, the smartphone to a similar extent:
P 205: “None of them have a clue. They didn’t grow up with it. […] Technological progress!
Without an arm extension [= mobile phone], it turns out to be an ordeal.” (f, 18)

P 97: “I find it difficult when adults say such things, although they themselves hang out in front
of these devices just as much.” (f, 15)

Answers in a rejecting mode stress the advantages of mobile digital devices as

availability and communication and a tool by which the analog life can be organ-
ized and thereby become meaningful:
P 12: “Through the smartphone you can always stay in touch with your friends and organize
meet-ups.” (f, 14)

P 256: “I would perform worse in school without my mobile, because I can use Google when I
need help and that is positive. Google is indeed a huge help for me.” (f, 18)

Fight for Control

Participants frequently relate to the assumed need for controlling the time spent
with digital media or online respectively. In their view, without such control nega-
tive aspects of digital media like addiction or declining academic success might
prevail:
38 Andrea Kleeberg-Niepage and Johanna L. Degen

P 255: “If you are really only on your mobile phone and can’t control yourself, it has a bad effect
on your success at school, of course, but if you can control yourself and consequently don’t
neglect school, I think it’s okay to have a cell phone in harmony with school performance.”
(f, 16)

For exercising time control, participants take either the self or parents to task.
Teachers, however, remain unmentioned when it comes to both controlling one’s
own digital media use and acquiring media competency or getting guidance. In
contrast, the implied lack of some teachers’ teaching skills is used as a justifica-
tion and is presented as a direct cause for the use of online media.

The (Ab)normal and Me

In their negotiations of time and its control related to digital media usage
these young people often compare their behavior to that of peers. Hereby, they
either create a gap between their own – moderate, controlled – usage and the
enhanced and uncontrolled usage of peers or a rather undefined other or, in
a different mode, by using others usage patterns as justification for their own
behavior:
P 63: “Of course, one likes to be distracted by the mobile phone, but for me it’s like this: I still
try to concentrate. You just have to be consistent and not use your mobile for 1-2 hours.” (f, 14)

P 412: “Maybe, but I still talk to others. It’s not like that with me, but maybe these people have
an addiction or something.” (f, 14)

By this, young people construct a space of normality or even superiority for

their own digital media usage and at same time project potentially dangerous or
even risky behavior onto the other.

4.2 “I Think it Varies.” Young People’s Perspectives on Digital Media Time

From the 2020 interview data, four categories have been developed usage (1),
evaluations (2), changes under COVID-19 (3) and the digital future (4). These cat-
egories are described below alongside examples from the data with a specific focus
on the negotiations of “time.”

Usage
Regarding the estimated time spent with digital devices all participants claim to
use digital media several hours per day:
IP 1711: “Probably three to four hours. Even more at the moment because we have to do so much
for school at home.” (f, 14)

Social media and computer games are especially perceived as time consuming,
with some people spending eight to ten hours a day on these activities.
Time spent with digital media is often differentiated according to the context,
meaning where young people are online, the mode of being online and for what
purpose:
Between Self-Actualization and Waste of Time 39

IP 19: “In school I use my smartphone here and there, I mean not during lessons, but before,
after and in the breaks. I am unsure, but it might add up to one hour for sure. And when I am at
home, I go directly to the computer, and then I actually eat dinner and then I turn back to the
computer. And then I most certainly reach around five or six hours.” (m, 15)

Here, digital media time appears partly fragmented and – as activities are
sometimes randomly and sometimes exclusively performed – it is not perceived as
a connected period of time.
The estimates about the time spent online per day often contain indications of
how one’s own time with digital devices is evaluated:
IP 1: “Probably too often. But my screen time is usually (.) already 3 hours.” (f, 14)

IP 22: “I think too often, unfortunately (LAUGHS).” (m, 16)

Apparently, participants consider it probable that their own digital time is too
much or at least feel obliged to add this for the interviewer.
With regard to the estimation and measurement of the time spent online,
young people’s perspectives demonstrate that one’s usage cannot be under-
stood monolithically. In contrast, usage is differentiated according to its mode,
for instance fragmentation, incidence, and purpose. Consequently, the time
spent online is hard to estimate and generally under the moral suspicion of
being too much.

Evaluations
Asked specifically how the interviewees evaluate their digital media time, many
interviewees naturalize the digital time as necessary and argue rather pragmatic
that nowadays there is often no way out. However, especially extensive usage is
generally perceived negatively, for example, in terms of health and well-being:
IP 15: “One day has 24 hours and I am from time to time 10 hours on my phone. This is not
healthy.” (f, 16)

Being online for no specific purpose is considered meaningless:

IP 15: “I know that I waste my life, if I just watch something.” (f, 16)

Nevertheless, not every purpose of being online is judged meaningful, espe-

cially being in social media is perceived as time consuming and fruitless:
IP 17: “If I spend all the time somehow on Instagram, I do think that it’s too much […] because
it just (.) doesn’t get you that much further. It’s kind of interesting to watch, but it’s also a bit of
a waste of time sometimes.” (f, 14)

Often, time seems to fly and subjects find it hard to stop and although some-
times one perceives it as immediately entertaining when seeing funny things, it
seems not to have sustainable worth or meaning but rather negative effects. When
they quit, they are left with feelings of regret and dissatisfaction.
In contrast, acting out hobbies or actively connecting with others over specific
interests, that is, to be creative, play together with friends or to work on one’s own
40 Andrea Kleeberg-Niepage and Johanna L. Degen

future (e.g., create music, maintain a channel12), is perceived as advantageous,

satisfying and rewarding:
IP 25: “So I prefer to play around and try things out. For example, I started to control my
room via Alexa, so that I no longer have to, for example, light control, voice control, all kinds
of things to really try out, because I also work in this area, I’m very interested and like to play
around with it and just try out new things.” (m, 18)

IP 19: “IP: […] And I think it’s actually cooler when you play together with friends. Then it’s
just more fun than if you just always play alone on the console or something. […] And there
are also audio programs where you can talk to each other, Teamspeak and Discord, and that’s
quite good. So, I can simply communicate with them like that and that’s pretty cool.” (m, 15)

In this mode, referred to by rather few participants, even though subjects

spend many hours online no negative feelings or effects are mentioned. In con-
trast to the negative feelings when consuming the digital passively, active usage
creates positive feelings of self-efficacy, self-actualization, social integration and
meaningfulness.
The evaluations demonstrate that the adult-centered idea of a distinction
between the digital and the analog realm seems to be inappropriate with regard
to the complexity and differentiation of purpose and mode of being online.

Changes Under COVID-19

COVID-19 is addressed as highly impactful from the subjects’ perspectives in
terms of time spent online, meaning and evaluation. According to their estima-
tion, their digital media time has increased tremendously during the lockdown.
They explain this on the one hand with the need for exchange and communication
with friends or family members and on the other hand, with home-schooling and
homework that is now done online. Sometimes, the poor quality of online lessons
increases online time even further as students feel forced to be self-reliant and to
research additional information or alternative explanations (e.g., videos on cer-
tain topics) on their own and online.
IP 15: “But you have to do something to avoid getting depressed. So (.) you have to distract
yourself somehow and not watch the news all the time, for example, and only look at what’s
going on in the world with Corona. Then you just get sad.” (f, 16)

Furthermore, digital media activities although sometimes evaluated as tire-

some themselves are used as a coping strategy, for example, to overcome feelings
of sadness and despair.
Additionally, the interviewees feel dependent on digital media to communicate
with people beyond the core family and as a means to pass time when getting
bored:
IP 22: “It just makes it clear how dependent you are on these media and if you don’t know
what to do with your time, you actually prefer to use some media rather than some games or
some other activities that you can do together or for yourself, like sports or something.” (m, 16)

Although some participants give positive evaluations regarding, for example,

the effectiveness of online learning, most held a rather critical view on their lack
Between Self-Actualization and Waste of Time 41

of schedule and social isolation, just thrown back to digital media, which can-
not compensate for what has been lost. For these young people, the assumption
that digital media would be a suitable substitute for analog social encounters and
school is invalid. Instead, it leaves feelings of loneliness both in regards to educa-
tion and social cohesion. While many adults changed their attitude from limit-
ing young people’s digital media time to prevent them from presumed harm to
encouraging them to use it for (self-)education and communication, youth narra-
tives change from a continuous urge to expand digital media time to highlighting
its shortcomings and dysfunctions.

Digital Future
Today, future life without digital media is certainly hard to imagine. However,
beside this assumed certainty, the future perspectives of our participants vary.
First, when evaluating the role of the digital in the future interviewees assume
that digital media use will continue to increase due to the digitalization of further
social areas both in the social sphere and in their private life. This increase is
judged pragmatically, the digital appears rather naturalized as entangled with all
spheres of society in the future. Participants mention mainly school and work-
related conditions that will make it necessary for them to (increasingly) use digital
media in their future.
Second, environmental effects (e.g., less need to drive anywhere), efficacy and
a general metaphor of progress is mentioned as a positive scenario:
IP 17: “In any case positive, because everything develops to become more modern, there rises a
multitude of possibilities, everything becomes faster and easier.” (f, 14)

Third, some participants anticipate a rather dystopian scenario including neg-

ative effects like social isolation and fears about surveillance and dependency:
IP 11: “I think it’s scary that you’re so dependent on it and that you might be controlled even
more or something, which is not yet the case.” (f, 17)

All perspectives share a hope for a better future or at least for avoiding a
­ ystopia. Digital media is considered unavoidable and generally supportive in the
d
future, as an integrated part of every sphere of life with a special emphasis on the
professional sphere. Therefore, digital media time is nothing special that can be
measured anymore but rather the whole future life becomes digital.

5. Discussion: Digital Time as a Field of

Inter-and Intrasubjective Negotiations
The findings show that digital media time is an important and integrated part of
young people’s everyday life. Hereby, adults’ abstract and generalized measure-
ment (and limitation) of the time spent with digital media hardly makes sense
from the young person’s perspective. For them, digital media time is deeply
ingrained in almost all aspects of their life and closely intertwined with analog
42 Andrea Kleeberg-Niepage and Johanna L. Degen

activities – those that adults also appreciate (e.g., research and learning, being
available when not at home, meeting/communicating with friends, doing house-
hold chores or sport).
The fact that the average daily usage of digital media is far beyond every adult
recommendation leads most young people to ongoing negotiations about appro-
priate time limits with their parents. Those in turn are the object of educational
advice on how (behavioral, technological) and to what extent they should con-
trol and limit young peoples’ digital media time. Such advice is backed up by
apparently countless studies on parental strategies, that is, which strategy works
best (e.g., Özgür, 2016), and by numerous attempts to identify possible detrimen-
tal effects of extended digital media time (e.g., Hygen et al., 2019; Vannucci &
McCauley Ohannessian, 2019). But, just as it is difficult to define “extensive use”
(see Section 2), previous attempts to clearly link possible, for example, health risks
to digital media “time” have generated contradictory results. This might be due
to the different design and focus of the studies (e.g., either on gaming or on social
media use) which are not consistent in the variables measured (for a respective
critique see Kardefeldt-Winther, 2017).
Yet, young people often address both the issue of control and the possibility
of a kind of overuse with detrimental effects on health in terms of the psyche
and the body, well-being, social competencies and academic success. Self-control
is often demanded for the exercise of such control or its absence (in oneself or
others) is deplored, but how this is to be achieved remains rather vague. However,
for them detrimental effects apply to a specific kind or mode of usage, which is
only partly connected to time. A consuming, passive mode, which young people
often connect to social media use and although it is considered to some extent a
source of fun and pastime, is evaluated as a worthless waste of time. This results
in physical (headache, gaining weight) and psychological (feeling of loss of con-
trol or helplessness) discomfort followed by discontent and regrets.13 An active
usage, however, in which young people use digital media for self-actualization
(e.g., via creative activities), improving skills (e.g., understand and apply specific
technology) or engaging in producing virtual content leads to well-being and even
happiness, feelings of competence and being in control. Using digital media in
this mode is thus understood as an investment in one’s future as this technology
has come to stay.
Consequently, when looking into their future, passive consumption of digi-
tal media is completely erased while an ongoing increase of usage for work or
educational reasons is seen either positive and as a sign of further advancing
technological progress or at least pragmatic. Nevertheless, there are also some
concerns or rather uncertainties connected to the assumed increasing significance
of digital media in the future regarding the social life of the future society and
the upbringing of the next generation. However, the visions of the future are all
underpinned by the hope that an even more digitalized world will be better or
at least not worse – for example, a cyborg dystopia. How this hope is justified
remains an open question.
During the first COVID-19 lockdown, when digital media time increased
significantly in most young people’s lives the same distinction applies to the
Between Self-Actualization and Waste of Time 43

evaluation of digital media time: the usage for communication and exchange
for educational or entertainment reasons brings about at least some variety into
everyday life and thereby supports well-being in isolation, although the loss of
the analog world – that is, personal encounters – cannot be compensated for.
Predominantly passive consumption, however, leads to boredom and discontent
and thereby reinforces loneliness, helplessness and anxiety.14
Almost 20 years ago, Buckingham (2004) argued against deterministic views
on the effects of digital media on children’s and young people’s lives and called for
ensuring that media use is a social and collaborative process instead of an indi-
vidualized and thereby individualizing endeavor. The importance of the social
aspect of young people’s digital media use became quite obvious in our data. We
add the importance of a self-determined, appropriative use instead of a passive,
consuming use, which is not just a matter of time.
Looking at the results, one might consider that the questionnaire data was col-
lected in a school context and by adults. This context might have fueled comply-
ing and explaining as well as rejecting negotiations of the subject matter. At the
same time, a more informal setting where youth keep largely among themselves –
for example, a focus-group discussion setting – would elicit more independent
and even radical views.

6. Conclusion: Using Digital Media

for Expanding the Self
In our data, the issue of digital media time as a contested area among the genera-
tions becomes obvious. For young people, digital media time is not a monolithic
period that has definite effects or could be measured and regulated accordingly
but consists of various usages which are deeply ingrained in other, analog activi-
ties. Although they agree to a certain extent with adult calls for limiting digi-
tal media time, our analyses point to an aspect that is currently neglected in the
discourse of young peoples’ use of digital media: It is not about the time spent
with such devices per se but about the purpose and the mode of spending time
digitally. While a passive, consuming mode (especially ascribed to social media)
impinges negatively on young people’s well-being, a productive, appropriative
mode does not only support their well-being but also promotes self-efficacy and
extending the scope for action. For this, the challenge regarding young people’s
digital media time is not the implementation of limitation and control but how to
promote such a productive way of usage.
Hereby, young people, their perspectives and experiences, are to be included,
firstly, because these considerations directly affect them and secondly, because
their experiences with digital media in many cases exceed those of adults. This
corresponds with an understanding of young people as beings (vs. becomings)
and as competent social actors.
Yet, to include young people in decision-making processes does not mean that
they do not need any support. So far, many of them are struggling to gain the
skills for a self-actualizing and appropriative use of digital media. Adults are
44 Andrea Kleeberg-Niepage and Johanna L. Degen

directly called in for help – also to develop an understanding for the young peo-
ple’s perspectives. Here, mainly parents are addressed while teachers apparently
are not considered a possible source of support, which is an indication of the
subordinate role that schools currently play in this regard. This also applies for
the complete exclusion of digital time in schools from the discourse on appropri-
ate digital media times for young people.
Research in the field needs to turn to children’s and young people’s perspec-
tives on digital media (time) more consequently instead of focusing on threats
and detrimental effects based on deterministic assumptions, that is, that more
digital media time would increase worrisome effects. Furthermore, to acquire a
sound basis of knowledge and reduce the contradictions in the current state of
research there is a need for acknowledged criteria for digital media time that take
young people’s actual usage and its significance for them into account.
Finally, digital media time – at least if it is not spent in school and on learn-
ing – is mainly treated as a potential problem that should be – if not avoided –
regulated to prevent negative effects. Instead of such a negative view, we could
first ask why digital media time is seen as so challenging compared to other activi-
ties and, second, why research does not look for positive and potential-oriented
aspects and for a more balanced perspective or generally for the quality of usage.
This would include the effort of researching the quality of digital activities,
understanding children and young people as responsible actors and experts of
their own life, and exploring effective ways of guidance and being digital together
beyond time measurement and control.

Notes
1. In this chapter, we refer to data from participants between 12 and 20 years of age.
Although most of them are still children by the definition of the UN-Convention of the
rights of the child, they are also youth in a developmental perspective. Therefore, we will
use youth and young people in this text from now on when this age group is especially
addressed.
2. Ninety-eight percent of the German youth (12–19 years) and in the UK 83% of the
12–15-year-olds have their own smartphone (mpfs, 2020b; Ofcom 2020).
3. The average digital media time of younger children between 6 and 13 years only
slightly increased from 45 minutes in 2018 – with an internal differentiation of 15 minutes
for the 6-year-olds and 83 minutes for the 13-year-olds – to 46 minutes in 2020 (as rated by
the parents, mpfs, 2018a, 2020a).
4. The same applies for the concept of “problematic use” (e.g,. Blitzer et al., 2014;
Mößle, 2012).
5. In Germany, the Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA), for example, makes
such recommendations in the United States it is the American Academy of Pediatrics
(AAP).
6. In Germany, beside the BZgA various other institutions and associations give
such recommendations, which differ slightly (e.g., BZgA: 1 hour per day or 7 hours per
week for 10–12-year-olds vs. schau-hin.de: 1 hour per year of age per week for 10-year-
olds and above). Searching the respective homepages for an empirical basis of these
guidelines remains without results (see https://www.ins-netz-gehen.info/eltern/beratung-
und-informationen-zur-mediennutzung/zeitlimit-handy/; https://www.schau-hin.info/
bildschirmzeiten#sec4431).
7.  Klar et al. (2019) for instance asked their participants for the daily use of the inter-
net for “unnecessary things” (meaning not for school or work) thereby implying that, for
Between Self-Actualization and Waste of Time 45

example, entertainment or communication with family and friends are either unnecessary
or could/should be achieved and done in other ways.
8. Research in the field is not homogenous in its definition of digital media time. Some
studies ask for online time, others for screen-time or for the use of specific devices like
smartphones or for certain contents or activities like social media or gaming. By digital
media time, we mean here both time that is spent online with different devices and the time
digital devices are used which do not necessarily have to be also online.
9. Participant number in the questionnaire study.
10. The written answers as well as the interviews were received resp. conducted in Ger-
man. All examples from the data in this article have been translated by the authors, all
translations have been checked by professional proof reading.
11. Numbers of the interview partners (IP) refer to the whole sample of 26 interviews.
12. Two of the interviewees who mentioned creative activities with digital media could
not be included here for their age: a 10-year-old male who creates Playmobil-stories for his
own YouTube channel and feels good about it and a 23-year-old male who is producing
music digitally and reported to feel satisfied, happy and balanced.
13. These outcomes cannot be attributed to social media per se but to a specific – pas-
sive, consuming – mode of usage, which might be facilitated by social media and has been
linked to heightened concerns regarding body image or eating (Rodgers & Melioli, 2016).
As other studies show, social media use can also contribute positively to young people’s
well-being (e.g., to life-satisfaction) when the use among young people is considered to be
the norm (Boer et al., 2020).
14. Of course, cultural and gender aspects as well as the social background might be
also important to understand the effects (positive and negative) of digital media time on
young people’s health and well-being. However, from our data we cannot offer conclusions
on this thus far (for recent cross-cultural insights see Kardefelt-Winther, Rees, & Living-
stone, 2020, for considerations on gender, see Twigg, Duncan, & Weich, 2020).

Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the reviewers for their helpful and encouraging comments
regarding the first version of this text. Special thanks to Scott Simpson for his
excellent English proofreading.

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