Digital Technology and Human Development: Risks, Resilience, and Inequalities

Dear Colleagues,

Digital technology now permeates daily life across the entire lifespan. Internet penetration among minors exceeds 95% in many countries, while older adults represent the fastest-growing segment of new users. Yet research on how digital engagement affects human development has relied heavily on aggregate screen-time measures, an approach that cannot explain why the same usage intensity produces beneficial outcomes for some individuals and harmful ones for others.

This Topic invites empirical and theoretical contributions examining how digital technology use shapes developmental outcomes across the lifespan, from childhood through old age. These developmental outcomes span multiple domains: cognitive and intellectual development; social-emotional development; and physical development. We are interested in work that moves beyond dose–response models to investigate how the type, context, and quality of digital engagement interact with individual capacities, family structure, socioeconomic conditions, and institutional environments.

Topics of interest include internet and gaming addiction across age groups; digital literacy as a protective competence; health and healthcare, parental mediation and intergenerational technology use; structurally disadvantaged populations such as left-behind children, migrants, and digitally excluded older adults; digital inequality; longitudinal and person-centered methods; and intervention or policy evaluation.

Contributions from psychology, sociology, education, social work, gerontology, and public health are welcome.

Dr. Shan Jiang
Dr. Chaoxin Jiang
Topic Editors