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This report provides base findings from longitudinal evidence in 6 European countries. The two key topical areas of interest focus on a) the development of digital skills in youth and b) the role of digital skills in youth’s online experiences and wellbeing. The evidence from a longitudinal survey showed a need for a more nuanced multidimensional approach to the construct of digital skills, as it has diverse trajectories of development, various factors affecting their change, and there is a diversified impact on digital engagement, experiences with online risks, and children’s and youth’s wellbeing. The analyses which focused on the trajectories of digital skills development showed that the increase in digital skills has generally been rather small and the most pronounced between Wave 1 and Wave 2. However, the trajectories were diversified across the skills dimensions. While technical and operational skills, programming skills, and digital knowledge items progressed within the time frame, the change in information and navigation skills, communication and interaction skills, and content creation and production skills were only small or even negligible. These differences in the development of separate digital skills dimensions highlight the importance of identifying the factors that contribute to their change. In this report, we focused on the role of selected individual, digital, and social factors, which showed similar patterns and varied effects across the separate dimensions. Our findings showed that self-efficacy positively impacted almost all digital skills dimensions. A higher number of online daily activities had a positive impact on information navigation and processing skills and communication and interaction skills. Restrictive parental mediation negatively impacted technical and operational skills. On the other hand, programming skills and digital knowledge were not impacted by any of the selected factors. The further analysis investigated how digital skills affect digital engagement, online risks, and youth’s wellbeing. More frequent online communication was positively impacted by technical and operational skills, communication and interaction skills, and negatively by programming skills. Content creation skills positively impacted not only the increased tendency to create online content but also the tendency to search for health information online. The analysis of risky experiences showed that most digital skills did not directly impact risky experiences, with one exception: content creation and production skills increased the chance of both intended and unintended exposure to health-oriented harmful content. From the four studied dimensions of wellbeing (psychological, social, cognitive, physical), only higher communication and interaction skills increased the perceived academic performance indicating cognitive wellbeing. In summary, the findings presented in this report provide new evidence supporting the need for a more nuanced approach to digital skills, acknowledgement of its multidimensional character, and recommendations for further investigations that could focus on the moderated and mediated effects of the diverse dimensions of digital skills.
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