Intercultural Collabration Bridge to Decipher Internet Addiction Erasmus Project

Project Title

Intercultural Collabration Bridge to Decipher Internet Addiction

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 youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Social dialogue; Reaching the policy level/dialogue with decision makers; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy)

Project Summary

This project aims to initiate a productive dialogue and establish a dynamic network between Turkish (namely, three different cities of Turkey), French, Lithuanian and Romanian students, with the ultimate goal of facilitating experience exchange and empowering youth participation in policy level engagement.
Internet addiction, highlighted by disproportional uncontrolled electronic device usage, has recently emerged as a common problem for all age groups. Despite the growing body of academic research in this area, a comprehensive understanding of the underlying problematics and countermeasure approaches are still mainly lacking. Importantly, especially young people with internet addiction problem face increasing difficulties associated with social isolation and lack of discipline, which in the long run can result in socioeconomic disadvantage. In other words, the significant number of the young generation is currently under the risk of internet addiction and are expected to hinder the social environment. Since it has been demonstrated that this issue mainly constitutes a risk for children and youth, alternative bottom-up solutions originating from this age group provide indispensable opportunity. To bridge this research gap, we propose a holistic assessment of current issues and collaborative effort for shifting problematic technology usage towards improved utilization. The participants of this project will pro-actively take part in internet addiction research by determining its possible causes, discussing obtained results, and proposing potential solutions. The participants from different countries and cultural backgrounds will examine the risks of internet addiction in the context of the social environment, interaction networks, and active democratic participation.
Additionally, the project members will also talk about potential definite advantages of high-level computer, effective internet usage, and alternative social activities against internet addiction. Moreover, the students will, on the one hand, present their novel findings to decision-makers and, on the other hand, share their ideas with a broader community, including student peers, as an excellent communication practice. Finally, participant students will acquire crucial skills to solve standing problems using a comprehensive assessment based on the proposed innovative ‘Six Thinking Hat’ education methodology model. In conclusion, this project is expected to contribute to the cumulative struggle against internet addiction by establishing long-term international bridges among growing communities and interactively exploring understudied aspects of this complex issue.

This project will be carried out under 6 main activity groups:
A. Project Preparation Period (first 3 Months)
– Visibility Planning
– Planning for Transnational Project Meetings
– Preparation for Field Study
– Learning, Teaching and Training Activities Planning (LTTs)

B. Transnational Project Meetings (01-2021/ 12-2022, five TPMs)
– Planning, following all the stages and periods of the project.

C. Learning, Teaching and Training Activities (04-2021/ 11-2022, five LTTs)
– LTTs are the main activities of the project, and their agenda specified by TPMs.
– Analyzing, interpreting, and commenting on the results of the field study by young people.
– Sharing these discussions with decision-makers, professionals, and experts.
– LTT-1: Youth Dialogue in Eskişehir/ Turkey
– LTT-2: Youth Dialogue in Constanta/ Romania
– LTT-3: Youth Dialogue in Paris/ France
– LTT-4: Youth Dialogue in Rıetavas/ Lithuania
– LTT-5: Workshop “creating a common language” and Symposium in Mardin/ Turkey

D. Symposium
-The symposium will be the second stage of the sixth LTT.

E. Visibility Activities (01-2021/ 12-2022)
F. Dissemination Activities (01-2021/ as long as possible, after the project)
G. Sustainability (01-2021/ as long as possible, after the project)

This project continues cumulatively and all the activities will complement each other. The field study will be applied in cities where each partner settled and including 500 questionnaires and 7 interviews for each partner. With this field study, this sought to compare perceptions and attitudes of university students in different countries with regard to problematic internet use/internet addiction. According to the results of the field study, we will create our sessions in each LTT. All the LTTs will be including the assessments of the survey results, discussions on different subjects about the field study and struggling against addiction, good practice visits, general assessment sessions, and reporting. These discussions will be evaluated together with observations from good practices, and create a policy paper. At the end of the project, there will be a symposium in Mardin/ Turkey to disseminate the project results and to inform the audience about the critical points of struggling against addiction

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 161455 Eur

Project Coordinator

Eskişehir Umut Mucadele ve Uyum Derneği & Country: TR

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITATEA OVIDIUS DIN CONSTANTA
• Ankara Youth Club
• NGO Veikiam.Lt
• MARDIN ARTUKLU UNIVERSITESI
• SOLUTION: SOLIDARITE ET INCLUSION
• Fark Grup Eğitim Danışmanlık Turizm Araştırma Organizasyon ve Yayıncılık Ticaret Limited Şirketi