Publication Update

The relationship between adolescents' media use and its impact on school performance is hotly debated. As a result, educational policy and practice place strong demands for empirical evidence to inform decisions on issues such as smartphone bans at schools or social media restrictions for young users. Research findings are divided: while some emphasize negative correlations, others see a thoroughly positive influence of media use on school-related skills, depending on the type and extent of media use.

A new article by Michaela Kramer and Katrin Kreutz gives a systematic overview of these controversies. Based on this, it presents the learning-related media repertoire approach, which makes it possible not only to include the individual media practices of young people from an actor-oriented, relational, and cross-media perspective but also to take social and societal influencing factors into account.

The article has just been published in the Weizenbaum Journal of the Digital Society (Open Access):

Kreutz, K., & Kramer, M. (2026). The Controversial Relationship Between Adolescents’ Media Use and School Performance: A Call for a Repertoire-Oriented Perspective. Weizenbaum Journal of the Digital Society, 6(2). https://doi.org/10.34669/wi.wjds/6.2.5