Digital Relationships Erasmus Project

Project Title

Digital Relationships

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The increasingly digitalised world in which we live and in which our children move as “digital natives” poses ever new challenges for parents, but also for society as a whole. In recent years, a rapid technological development has taken place, which has led to the fact that the social life of many young people, and increasingly also of children, takes place online to a large extent. Grandparents skype with their grandchildren, family and class chats and friends in social networks make it possible to stay in constant contact, etc. Parents who come to our counselling services are often unable to understand the naturalness with which their children move around in social networks and chat groups, as well as the high value that these digital relationship tools have for their children. They are worried, have no strategies for action and run the risk of damaging contact with their children through simple prohibitions. At the same time, they are often not sufficiently aware of their role model function in this respect and do not reflect the digital parts of their own social relationships, or only to a limited extent. We wanted to find out to what extent and in what form digital relationships are lived in families and how this affects families. A further question was whether parents in other European countries feel the same way, how they deal with this challenge and what solutions they have found. Therefore, we exchanged ideas in the consortium, worked together on the topic and made our ideas and results available to as many parents, grandparents and people working with children in Europe as possible.
We have started with a research in the individual partner countries, which gives an overview of the current state of knowledge and research on the topic. Subsequently, each partner interviewed at least 5 families (traditional, patchwork families and single parents) in his or her country within the framework of partially standardised interviews, evaluated the interviews and presented the results to the other partners in a meeting. In social science research, this type of survey is used to investigate facts that are represented in subjective experience and to conduct basic research. Both conditions apply here, since digital relationships are a relatively new phenomenon and inductive conclusions can give a first impression of the facts. The results of the survey were summarised and published. This means that the survey alone reached at least 30 families in different countries (approx. 80-100 people), who in turn reported to befriended parents. By disseminating the results via various online platforms, the reach was greatly increased. Further dissemination will take place via the homepages and institutional events of the partners. The findings of the project have also been incorporated into the counselling and teaching activities of the partner organisations. Thus “DigiRe” has raised awareness of the topic, stimulated public discussion and further professionalised and interlinked the partner organisations.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 60140,58 Eur

Project Coordinator

Systeme in Bewegung e.V. & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Sambucusforum vzw
• UCHEBNA RABOTILNITSA EVROPA SDRUZHENIE
• Stiftung Medien- und Onlinesucht
• ASOCIACION DE INNOVACION FORMACIONY EMPLEO PARA EL DESARROLLO SOSTENIBLE
• FUNDACJA AUTOKREACJA