Teaching Digital Citizenship in Today's World (v2) 2021

Teaching Digital Citizens in Today's World:

Research and Insights Behind the

Common Sense Digital Citizenship Curriculum

Credits

Authors:

Carrie James, Ph.D., Project Zero

Emily Weinstein, Ed.D., Project Zero

Kelly Mendoza, Ph.D., Common Sense Education

Copy editor:

Jen Robb

Designers:

Elena Beroeva

Suggested citation:

James, C., Weinstein, E., & Mendoza, K. (2021). Teaching digital citizens in today's world: Research and insights behind the

Common Sense K–12 Digital Citizenship Curriculum. (Version 2). San Francisco, CA: Common Sense Media.

This is an updated version of the original report published in 2019.

Common Sense Education and Project Zero are grateful for the generous support provided for

the work described in this report from the Bezos Family Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation,

Niagara Cares, and Susan Crown Exchange.

Table of Contents

A Letter from Our Founder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

The Digital Landscape by the Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Children and Digital Media: An Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Children, age 0 to 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Tweens and Teens, age 8 to 18 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Our Approach to the Digital Citizenship Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

What Is Digital Citizenship? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

About the Digital Citizenship Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Our Guiding Theory: A Skills and Dispositions Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

Five Core Dispositions of Digital Citizenship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Cornerstones of the Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Rings of Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Digital Life Dilemmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Repetition and Routines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Poems, chants, and songs (elementary school) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Thinking Routines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

1. Digital Habits Check-Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

2. Feelings and Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

3. Take a Stand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

A Look Inside the Curriculum: Six Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Media Balance & Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Privacy & Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Digital Footprint & Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Relationships & Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Cyberbullying, Digital Drama & Hate Speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

News & Media Literacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Implementing Digital Citizenship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Engaging Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Project Zero Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Appendix: About the Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

A Letter from Our Founder

Digital media and technology continue to evolve at a dizzying pace,

bringing extraordinary opportunities as well as real challenges for our

nation's young people. Kids and teens are using the immense power of the

internet and mobile technologies to explore, connect, create, and learn in

ways never before imagined. But with this power come ethical dilemmas

and challenging issues, such as cyberbullying, hate speech, privacy

violations, digital distraction, and more, which are surfacing both in

schools and at home.

As a result, educators and parents are struggling with how to make sense of this new world and

how to empower kids to use technology responsibly to learn, create, and participate—in other

words, how to be digital citizens.

Since we released our original digital citizenship curriculum in 2010, educators have turned to

Common Sense Education as a trusted guide on digital citizenship. We reach over 60 percent of

U.S. schools and are committed to continue that work to reach a new generation of students.

To that end, we are so grateful to again team up with our longtime collaborators at Project Zero.

Project Zero's deep expertise on issues of thinking, learning, and young people and technology

ground our curriculum in the most current research, providing an instructional framework that

supports developing both students' skills and dispositions so they can conﬁdently navigate the

thorny and puzzling issues of the digital age.

At Common Sense, we believe that digital citizenship is a foundational skill for learning and life.

As the lines between digital life and real life merge, we must prepare young people to harness the

power of technology for responsible participation and active engagement. Today's students are

our next generation of leaders, product designers, engineers, educators, and businesspeople.

Without a ﬁrm grounding in the ethical and moral questions of digital life—our students' real

lives—we cannot prepare them for the future. This is a call to action for all educators and parents.

Join us in bringing digital citizenship education to every student everywhere.

Sincerely,

Jim Steyer

Founder and CEO

The Digital Landscape by the Numbers

V. Rideout & M. B. Robb, "The Common Sense census: Media use by tweens and teens, 2019," San Francisco, CA:

Common Sense Media, 2019, https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/the-common-sense-census-media-use-by-

tweens-and-teens-2019; V. Rideout and M.B. Robb, "The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Kids Age Zero to Eight,

2020: Common Sense Media," Common Sense Media: Ratings, reviews, and advice, November 17, 2020,

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/the-common-sense-census-media-use-by-kids-age-zero-to-eight-2020.

Introduction

In 2009, Common Sense Education explored expanding their education programs to schools, and

began a collaboration with researchers at Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of

Education. Project Zero (PZ) has a long history of conducting research and developing powerful

pedagogies for schools and other learning environments. This collaboration supported the

development of Common Sense Education's ﬁrst curriculum, at that time called the Digital

Literacy and Citizenship Curriculum, which launched in 2010. The curriculum built on key insights

from Project Zero's research on how young people engage with moral and ethical issues in digital

life. This was the ﬁrst comprehensive digital citizenship curriculum, and at the time "digital

citizenship" was not a well-known term.

Digital citizenship is the responsible use of technology

to learn, create, and participate.

Fast-forward to today, and Common Sense Education has more than 1.3 million educator

members registered worldwide. While the free Digital Citizenship Curriculum has been highly

successful on many counts, the ever-changing digital landscape brings forth new issues for young

people themselves and for schools.

Our collaboration with Project Zero (PZ) allows for timely, research-backed resources to schools

to help students navigate digital life. A collection of PZ projects—led at various times by Carrie

James and Emily Weinstein, Howard Gardner, and Katie Davis —have focused on the ways apps

and digital tools intersect with young people's social and emotional well-being; imagination and

creativity; intimacy and close relationships; moral and ethical responsibilities; and civic agency.

And since 2017, a suite of research initiatives at PZ led by Carrie James and Emily Weinstein have

zeroed in on digital dilemmas: the personal, moral, ethical, and civic dilemmas of today's

Thanks to Common Sense Education's supporters for making Digital Citizenship Curriculum free and available to

schools.

networked world. This research has foregrounded the experiences of young people and the

perspectives of innovative educators.

This report includes key insights about young people and digital life, and explains how they lay the

framework for Common Sense Education's Digital Citizenship Curriculum. We describe the

curriculum's unique approach, grounded in Project Zero's research, which focuses on pedagogical

strategies that support both skills and dispositions. We explain our approach to digital citizenship,

including the importance of a whole-community approach among educators, students, and families

in creating a positive culture around media and technology.

Children and Digital Media: An Overview

Since the 2010 launch of what is now called Common Sense Education's Digital Citizenship

Curriculum, digital and social technologies have become increasingly pervasive, and now are

arguably indispensable tools for navigating our world. Today's young people lead profoundly

connected and networked lives.

Children, age 0 to 8

Young children engage with media early in life, from the time they can look at a screen and hold a

device. This section outlines the latest results of the Common Sense Census study of media use in

the lives of children age 0 to 8.

Children age 0 to 8 spend an average of nearly 2.5 hours per day with screen media, with 5- to -8

year-olds spending three hours per day with screens. More than two-thirds (67%) of 5- to

8-year-olds have their own mobile device, and on average, children in this age group spend an hour

and 15 minutes a day using mobile media. TV and video viewing is the most popular activity among

this age group, and though this ﬁnding hasn't changed much since 2011, the platforms and devices

where children watch videos have changed. It's important to note that screen time from child to

child varies: On any given day, 23% of 0- to 8-year-olds don't use any screen media, while 24%

spend more than four hours with screens.

Rideout & Robb, "The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Kids Age Zero to Eight, 2020: Common Sense Media."

See Appendix (About The Research) for further details about relevant Digital Dilemmas research

Mobile media devices are almost universally accessible in young children's homes, with 97% of

homes having at least one smartphone and 75% having a tablet. Nearly half (48%) of all children

have their own mobile device (46% of 2- to 4-year olds, and 67% of 5- to 8-year-olds).

The study revealed some differences as it relates to children from different socioeconomic groups,

including race/ethnicity, household income, and parent education. Children in lower-income

households spend an average of nearly two hours a day more with screen media than those in

higher-income homes (3:48 hours vs. 1:52). Black children average 2:17 hours more screen use per

day than White children, and 1:06 hours more than Hispanic/Latinx children. The growing

differential in screen use by race and income may be due to both the expansion in access to and

embracement of mobile devices, but also socioeconomic factors. In addition, the frequency and

amount of time spent reading among children from lower-income households has increased, with

daily reading time up from 26 to 43 minutes a day from 2017 to 2020.

Parents of children age 0 to 8 are the most involved in selecting, monitoring, and co-using media

with their children. Parental involvement decreases as children get older. The majority of parents

report positive views overall about screen media, such as the amount of time their kids spend with

screens, the impact screen media has on their child, the quality of the content available to them, or

the challenges of getting their children to disengage with screens when it's time for other

activities. Six in 10 (60%) parents say their child spends "the right amount of time" with screens,

and 75% say they are satisﬁed with the amount and quality of the educational media available to

their children.

Parents also agree that media helps their child with learning (72%) and creativity (60%). In a

landscape analysis of digital media use on children's executive functioning age 0 to 8, there is

evidence that children who consume high-quality media content are more likely to develop strong

executive functioning skills.

H. Smith, "Children, executive functioning, and digital media: A Review," 2020, https://www.commonsensemedia.org/

research/children-executive-functioning-and-digital-media-a-review-2020.

Executive functioning refers to attention-regulation skills developed in the prefrontal cortex, such as working memory,

inhibitory control, and cognitive ﬂexibility.

Various socioeconomic factors may be at play, including access to child care, extracurricular activities, and lack of safe

outdoor spaces for kids to play. Screen media provide affordable activities compared to other options. See Vicky

Rideout's explanation in: R. Molla, "Poor kids spend nearly two hours more on screens each day than rich kids," 2019,

Vox, https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/10/29/20937870/kids-screentime-rich-poor-common-sense-media.

Tweens and Teens, Age 8 to18

As children get older into the tween and teen years, media use increases and diversiﬁes. This

section outlines the latest results of the Common Sense Census study of media use in the lives of

tweens and teens age 8 to 18. As of 2019, the amount of daily screen time—not including for

homework or school work—was on average 4:44 hours for tweens and 7:22 hours for teens. By

age 11, 53% of kids have their own smartphone, and by 12 this percentage leaps to 69%.

Smartphone ownership has grown since 2015 among all age groups, from 24% of tweens in 2015

to 41% in 2019, and from 67% to 84% for teens.

What are tweens and teens doing on their screens? For tweens, 53% of time is spent watching

television or videos and 31% gaming. Teens spend 39% of time watching television and videos,

22% gaming, and 16% on social media. The least amount of time for both age groups is spent

video-chatting, creating (writing, art, music), or e-reading. The activities and proportions are very

similar to the same study conducted in 2015. The use of computers for schoolwork increased

from 2015 to 2019, with 27% of tweens and 58% of teens reporting that they use computers for

school daily.

The amount of time watching online videos has increased substantially from 2015 to 2019. The

percentage of tweens and teens who say they watch online videos "every day" has doubled, from

25 to 56 daily minutes for tweens, and 35 to 59 daily minutes for teens. YouTube is the top

platform where tweens and teens watch videos. Social media use increases from tween to teen

years, with the average amount of time teens spend on social platforms at 1:10 hours per day,

virtually unchanged from 2015, but the proportion of teens who say they use social media daily

increased from 45% in 2015 to 63% in 2019. The median age of ﬁrst social media use is 14.

Twenty-seven percent of tweens use computers for homework every day, as do nearly six in 10

teens (59%). This is a substantial increase from just four years ago, when only 11% of tweens and

This is true even though YouTube is for those age 13 or older.

Rideout, "The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweens and Teens."

Note that TV and video watching includes streaming platforms such as YouTube and Netﬂix.

V. Rideout, "The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweens and Teens," Common Sense Media, 2015,

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/ﬁles/uploads/research/census_researchreport.pdf

Tweens are deﬁned as 8 to 12 years old, and teens are deﬁned as 13 to 18 years old; Rideout & Robb, "The Common

Sense census: Media use by tweens and teens, 2019."

29% of teens said they used a computer for homework every day. On average, teens spend 41

minutes a day doing homework on computers, a 12-minute increase from 2015.

As tweens and teens participate in the media environment, they are developing their identities,

learning about relationships, and communicating with both known and unknown others. Young

people's online identities are routinely tied to their real names, identities, and ofﬂine relationships.

Their digital footprints are increasingly coproduced with peers who casually snap images

throughout the day, upload group pictures, and tag each other in posts. And their app use is

undoubtedly a moving target: Tweens and teens periodically discover and migrate to new apps,

and they leverage existing app features in novel ways (e.g.,

using geolocation to track social gatherings in real time;

tagging friends who aren't in pictures so they will receive

push notiﬁcations; utilizing apps to manage multiple

accounts so they can intentionally split their audiences). We

have seen a rise in young people's uses of apps that allow

content to be ephemeral (i.e., posts set to default disappear in

a few seconds or after 24 hours) and a noteworthy interest in

apps that allow them to solicit and exchange anonymous peer

feedback to sensitive questions, such as "Am I attractive?,"

"Do people really like me?," and "Be honest: Are we friends?"

Beyond dynamics among friends and peer groups, the wider

world also plays a consequential role in young people's digital

lives. The current media context, fake news concerns,

political polarization, and activism around urgent public issues—including gun control,

immigration, sexual harassment, hate speech, and racism—involve a dynamic digital component.

The tone and content of social media posts can mislead, intimidate, or dissuade. However, there

T. Leaver, T. Highﬁeld, & C. Abidin, "Instagram: Visual Social Media Cultures," Polity, 2020; B. Robards & S. Lincoln,

"Growing up on Facebook," Peter Lang Publishing, 2020.

S. Zhao, S. Grasmuck, & J. Martin, "Identity construction on Facebook: Digital empowerment in anchored

relationships," Computers in Human Behavior, 24(5), (2008): 1816–1836; K. Davis & E. Weinstein, "Identity

development in the digital age: An Eriksonian perspective," in M. F. Wright (Ed.), Identity, sexuality, and relationships

among emerging adults in the digital age (pp. 1–17). Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2017; S. M. Reich, K. Subrahmanyam, & G.

Espinoza, "Friending, IMing, and hanging out face-to-face: overlap in adolescents' online and ofﬂine social networks,"

Developmental Psychology, 48(2) (2012): 356–368.

are positive opportunities for young people when it comes to voice, dialogue, and civic

engagement.

Tweens and teens can leverage the ability to reach broad audiences, but they must wrestle with

the persistent or "forever" nature of online posts. They are tasked with anticipating invisible and

even unintended audiences for their posts. Apps and platforms are designed to highlight metrics

such as likes, streaks, shares, viewer counts, and favorites, which provide quantiﬁed implications of

social acceptance, approval, or disapproval. Young people sometimes struggle with the always-on

nature of digital media, feeling the need to check, respond to, and be tethered to devices. Features

such as these can alter, amplify, and transform adolescents' experiences of their peer relationships.

Despite these challenges, teens perceive a range of upsides to social media. Teens view social

media as important sites for connection, entertainment, socialization, and learning. They can

participate civically and engage their interests. They can deepen relationships and express

themselves in ways that support key developmental tasks. This doesn't mean that there aren't real

challenges, too. Teens who think social media has had a negative inﬂuence cite bullying and the

spread of rumors, disruption of meaningful human interactions, a sense that social media gives an

unrealistic view of people's lives, and concerns that their peer group spends too much time on

social apps. What's more, teens can feel pulled into screens even when they wish they were

engaged in other activities. Also, urgent civic issues that demand attention can create pressures to

post on social media, even when teens question the impact.

In this mixed landscape, adults are poised to play crucial roles in guiding young people. Kids are

observing and learning how to navigate the internet and digital devices, whether from family or

E. Weinstein & C. James, "Behind their screens: What teens are facing (and adults are missing)," Cambridge, MA: The

MIT Press, Forthcoming, 2022a.

M. Anderson and J. Jiang, "Teens, Social Media, & Technology," Pew Research Center, 2018,

http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2018/05/31102617/PI_2018.05.31_TeensTech_FINAL.pdf

Weinstein, E. (2018). The social media see-saw: Positive and negative inﬂuences on adolescents' affective well-being.

New Media & Society, (20)10, 3597–3623.

J. Nesi, S. Choukas-Bradley, & M. J. Prinstein, "Transformation of adolescent peer relations in the social media context:

Part 1—A theoretical framework and application to dyadic peer relationships," Clinical Child and Family Psychology

Review (2018): 1–28, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10567-018-0261-x.

J. Kahne, E. Middaugh, & D. Allen, "Youth, new media and the rise of participatory politics," in D. Allen & J. Light (Eds.),

From voice to inﬂuence: Understanding citizenship in a digital age. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2015; A. Kaskazi

& V. Kitzie, "Engagement at the margins: Investigating how marginalized teens use digital media for political

participation," New Media & Society, 2021; R. Marchi & L. S. Clark, "Social media and connective journalism: The

formation of counterpublics and youth civic participation," Journalism, 22(2) (2021): 285–302.

educators, regarding online privacy and what's OK or not OK to share, how we communicate with

others, how we search for and make sense of information and news, and overall how we

participate in our interconnected world. Early on, kids are developing habits of media use in their

everyday lives that they'll carry into adulthood.

Parents also have concerns around their kids' media use, and they look to schools for advice on

parenting in a digital age. For younger kids, parents are often most concerned about content (sex,

violence, depictions of drugs and alcohol, gender and racial stereotypes) and overall screen time.

For older kids, parents are still concerned with content and screen time, but they're also worried

about what kids are posting and with whom they're communicating.

As young people and adults navigate the digital world, they also face dilemmas and sticky

situations that lack clear-cut right or wrong answers, such as, "How much communication with

friends is too much?," "What is the boundary between being authentic and oversharing?," and "If

someone posts an offensive comment on social media, should I leverage the technology at my

ﬁngertips to call them out publicly, even if it might damage their reputation?"

Digital life is here to stay, and supporting young people requires more than simply managing

screen time and setting strong passwords. We believe that preparing young people to leverage the

positive potentials, navigate the challenges, and manage thorny dilemmas is our best way forward.

Educators play a vital role in this preparation, and today's landscape requires reexamining what

and how we teach.

Our Approach to the Digital Citizenship Curriculum

Children are growing up with the power of digital media and technology to explore, connect,

create, and learn in new ways. With this power, young people have great opportunities, but they

also face challenges and dilemmas. Schools are dealing with the ramiﬁcations, including issues

such as online safety, cyberbullying, privacy, hate speech, misinformation, and digital distraction.

Rideout, "The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweens and Teens"; Rideout, "The Common Sense census: Media

use by kids age zero to eight."

Rideout, "The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweens and Teens"; V. Rideout, "The Common Sense census:

Media use by kids age zero to eight," Common Sense Media, 2017,

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/ﬁles/uploads/research/csm_zerotoeight_fullreport_release_2.pdf.

To address these issues, many schools are working to create a positive culture around media and

technology by incorporating digital citizenship education as part of their curricula.

The Digital Citizenship Curriculum addresses topic areas that are based on academic research and

concerns from children, educators, and parents. The lessons are intentionally designed to cultivate

both skills and dispositions to help young people thrive in our interconnected world. This is all the

more important because children and teens face many decisions and dilemmas as they live their

lives with and through media and technology, from what they're consuming and what they're

sharing, to how they're interacting and communicating with others.

What Is Digital Citizenship?

We deﬁne digital citizenship as the responsible use of technology to learn, create, and participate. To

break it down simply, it's the combination of "digital" and "citizen." "Digital" refers to a unique set

of skills and dispositions within online spaces and with the media and technology we interact with.

For example, the way we communicate online is different from the way we communicate

face-to-face, because it comes with a unique set of challenges (e.g., texting lacks vocal tone or

facial expressions, the ability to be anonymous online, feeling less inhibited in digital

communication, etc.). The term "citizen" refers to being a member and inhabitant of a community,

including the rights and responsibilities we all have to ourselves, to our communities, and to the

broader world. In this sense, the "digital world" is our community, and anyone who participates is

an inhabitant. As digital citizens, our individual and collective actions work together to create the

kind of digital world we want to live in. Our goal is to support students, educators, and families in

participating positively in the digital world.

However, navigating the digital world can be tricky. As young people participate, they face

dilemmas that don't always have clear-cut right or wrong answers. As we updated lessons in the

curriculum, we focused on addressing relevant challenges for students, schools, and families. This

meant ensuring we understood not only predictable challenges, but also more complex dilemmas

or tensions are relevant to young people's digital lives and participation. Part of this work involved

an exploratory survey where we asked questions such as, "Is it OK to take a break from social media

We are aware of the complex political and cultural connotations and history with the term "citizen." However, we ﬁnd

the term valuable in its broadest, idealistic sense.

Many thought leaders have been pivotal in deﬁning digital citizenship framework, including: Mike Ribble's Nine

Elements of Digital Citizenship, International Society for Technology in Education's Digital Citizenship Competencies of

Digital Citizenship, the UK Council for Internet Safety's Education for a Connected World framework.

for a few days?" In our surveys of more than 3,600 middle and high school age students (see

Appendix), a strong majority (83%) agreed that it's OK to take self-care breaks. This is

encouraging. And yet, a majority (71%) also said that being a good friend means being available for

friends whenever they might need you.

We also collected open-ended insights from young people, and explored their perspectives

through formal focus groups, advisory sessions, and classroom observations. This data deepened

our understanding of the tensions they feel and face. For example: Young people describe feeling

pressure to stay accessible in case friends have 'emergencies' or need support. Some also fear that

failing to be responsive might cause conﬂict or make friends mad.

In a 24/7 digital world, this can mean that values like self-care and being a good friend are pitted

against each other as teens and tweens try to navigate their personal media balance. In this

context, we see why core social and emotional competencies are crucial, including relationship

skills, social awareness, and self-management skills, all of which are essential for developing

healthy identities, managing emotions, showing empathy, and developing fulﬁlling relationships.

When it comes to the topic of digital footprints, we know that young people are divided on key

dilemmas, like the use of online content to determine college admissions. When asked whether it's

fair for college admissions to consider applicants' social media posts, 39% of agreed, 33% disagreed,

and 28% were undecided. Interestingly, data from educators that we collected at the outset of this

project in 2017 showed that they tended to agree overwhelmingly (72%) with colleges'

consideration of online content. This dilemma touches on key tensions between accountability and

privacy that are arguably all the more relevant today. The ways that the views of young people and

adult can misalign is also a relevant consideration as we identify how to support reﬂective and

responsible attention to digital footprints most effectively.

A ﬁnal example relevant to the broader world and civic life: Is it OK to share violent videos online to

call attention to what's going on in the world? In our surveys of students in 2018 to 2019, we

observed polarized responses to this dilemma (41% of students disagreed, 35% agreed, and 24%

were undecided), which are suggestive of tensions between the importance of documenting

injustices and protecting vulnerable online audiences who may be negatively impacted by explicit

Digital citizenship has strong intersections with social and emotional learning (SEL). Our Digital Citizenship

Curriculum is aligned to CASEL's Standards.

content. These kinds of dilemmas call for students to learn strategies to support responsible

decision-making, and being able to take others' perspectives in considering how to take action.

The Digital Citizenship Curriculum is designed with tensions like these in mind.

Digital citizenship curricula are increasingly being implemented in schools, and can be seen as an

essential foundation for digital learning. In Common Sense's 2019 nationally representative

survey of 1,200 K–12 teachers, approximately 60% used some type of digital citizenship

curriculum or resource with students in their classrooms. Seventy percent of teachers report

teaching at least one type of digital citizenship competency, and 60% said they did so at least

monthly. The most commonly taught topics included cyberbullying (46%), privacy and safety

(44%). Common Sense Education aims to equip young people with the knowledge and skills to

navigate the digital world as well as the dispositions and agency to apply those skills with intention

in their everyday lives.

About the Digital Citizenship Curriculum

Our original Digital Literacy & Citizenship Curriculum was ﬁrst launched in 2010. Since then,

we've revised the curriculum several times. The most recent comprehensive revision was launched

per grade level between 2019 and 2020, based on the latest research ﬁndings from Project Zero.

This version included a revision of the core topics of digital citizenship that are essential to teach

students. We will delve into these core topics and how we approach them in our lessons later in

this report, but list them here with links to the topic overviews:

● Media Balance and Well-Being

● Privacy & Security

● Digital Footprint & Identity

● Relationships & Communication

● Cyberbullying, Digital Drama & Hate Speech

● News & Media Literacy

V. Vega & M. B. Robb, "The Common Sense census: Inside the 21st-century classroom," San Francisco, CA: Common

Sense Media, 2019,

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/ﬁles/uploads/research/2019-educator-census-inside-the-21st-cent

ury-classroom_1.pdf.

E. Weinstein & C. James, "School-based initiatives promoting digital citizenship and health media use" In J. Nesi, E.

Telzer, & M. Prinstein (Eds), The Handbook of Adolescent Digital Media Use & Mental Health, Cambridge University

Press, Forthcoming, 2022b; Cortesi et al., "Youth and Digital Citizenship+ (Plus): Understanding Skills for a Digital

World," Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, 2020.

Responsible decision-making is one of CASEL's ﬁve core competencies for SEL.

The curriculum, available in U.S. and U.K. versions, includes 73 easy-to-implement lessons across

13 grades/years (age 5 to 18), with 32 videos. We also provide "quick activities" for informal

learning and time-limited settings, and engaging interactive games that jump-start students'

learning (Digital Passport™, Digital Compass™, and Social Media Test Drive ). There are also

collections that provide a deeper dive into topics related to digital citizenship, including social and

emotional learning, civic learning, news and media literacy, and cyberbullying. For more

information, see the Curriculum Overview.

In addition, we strongly believe in a whole-school approach to digital citizenship including

educators, school leaders, and families. To that end, every lesson includes a take-home family

activity and family tip sheet. Common Sense also provides Family Engagement Resources to

educate parents and guardians about supporting children's digital lives, making a home-school

connection from children's learning in school to home.

We also provide professional development and support in implementing our program, primarily

through synchronous and asynchronous online workshops, webinars, videos, and articles, and a

Common Sense Education Recognition Program to recognize educators, schools, and districts

committed to teaching students digital citizenship. And for school and district leaders, we provide

our Digital Citizenship Implementation Guide with planning documents and case studies to help

schools integrate digital citizenship into their curriculum.

Our Guiding Theory: A Skills and Dispositions Approach

The Digital Citizenship Curriculum is designed to foster both necessary skills and essential

dispositions for digital citizenship. Though it's important for students to learn the practical skills to

navigate the digital world, they also need to cultivate dispositions to then enact those skills in their

everyday lives. Dispositions guide students' thoughts and behaviors as they go about their lives.

They shape what students think and care about, and they inﬂuence when they use their skills.

D. N. Perkins, E. Jay, & S. Tishman, "Beyond abilities: A dispositional theory of thinking," Merrill-Palmer Quarterly:

Journal of Developmental Psychology, 39(1) (1993): 1–21; D. N. Perkins & S. Tishman, "Learning that matters: Toward a

dispositional perspective on education and its research needs," Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2006,

http://www.pz.harvard.edu/sites/default/ﬁles/Learning%20that%20Matters.pdf.

Social Media Test Drive is a collaboration between Common Sense Education and Social Media Lab at Cornell

University.

We need to help students develop crucial digital citizenship skills, like how to create strong

passwords and protect private information, assess the credibility of online sources, and consider

how an online comment might make another person feel. But we also want to build dispositions

that will help them put those skills into practice. We want to support dispositions like slowing

down and recognizing dilemmas as they arise, seeking facts and evidence to make informed

decisions, and being curious about views that differ from their own. Ultimately, focusing on both

skills and dispositions is key if we aim to help young people be responsible, reﬂective, and ethical

decision makers in their connected lives.

Skills

Examples

Abilities, competencies, or things one knows how to

Creating a strong password

Customizing privacy settings

Assessing the credibility of a website

Expressing an idea in a coherent way

Identifying phishing and clickbait

Dispositions

Examples

Ongoing tendencies that guide thinking and behavior

and shape whether and how people use their

knowledge and skills

Thinking through possible outcomes before posting or

replying to something

Noticing an offensive comment and carefully weighing

whether or how to respond

Slowing down to reﬂect before posting a photo or

information about someone else

Five Core Dispositions of Digital Citizenship

Which dispositions should we target? The Digital Citizenship Curriculum is designed to support

ﬁve core dispositions the Project Zero team and Common Sense Education believe young digital

citizens should embody in all domains of life—in school, at home, and in their communities. Across

the curriculum, we've incorporated ways to foster the ﬁve dispositions:

Five Core Dispositions of Digital Citizenship

Disposition

Strategies for Students

Slow down and self-reﬂect

Notice your gut reaction.

Push beyond your ﬁrst impression.

Recognize that situations can be complex.

Routinely take stock of your habits.

Pay attention to "red ﬂag feelings."

"Red ﬂag feeling" is a term used in our middle and high school lesson plans, meaning "when something happens on

digital media that makes you feel uncomfortable, worried, sad, or anxious."

Perkins, Jay, & Tishman, "Beyond abilities: A dispositional theory of thinking."

Explore perspectives with

curiosity and empathy

Be curious and open-minded.

Think about other people's points of view.

Care for other people's feelings.

Weigh different people's values and priorities as well as your own.

Consider moral, ethical, and civic responsibilities (the rings of responsibility).

Seek facts and evaluate

evidence

Investigate and uncover relevant facts.

Seek, evaluate, and compare information from multiple credible sources .

Be alert to disinformation and conspiracy messages.

Envision options and impacts

Envision possible courses of action.

Consider how different choices reﬂect your values and goals.

Stay alert to responsibilities to yourself and others.

Evaluate possible impacts.

Take action and responsibility

Decide on a course of action that feels positive and productive.

Make changes in digital habits to support well-being.

Ask for help when you need it.

Be an ally and upstander for others.

Cornerstones of the Curriculum

The cornerstones of the curriculum are (1) the Rings of Responsibility framework, (2) Digital Life

Dilemmas that reﬂect real situations kids may face in their everyday lives, and (3) Repetition and

Routines that strategically build dispositions for digital citizenship. These cornerstones of the

curriculum work together across every grade level and every topic.

Rings of Responsibility

Our digital habits and choices affect ourselves, our friends and families, our communities, and

unknown others across the globe. The Rings of Responsibility framework guides us to consider our

personal well-being alongside broader moral, ethical, and civic

considerations. This means that we have a responsibility not only

for the impact of our actions for ourselves but also for our

communities and the broader world. The outer rings are especially

important given the challenge of ethical blind spots when making

choices online. We use Rings of Responsibility as a lens in our

overall curriculum design. Some lessons emphasize the role of the

Self (as in lessons teaching students about personal media balance,

digital footprints, or representing one's identity online), whereas other lessons focus more on

one's role as a digital citizen in their Community and the World (as in lessons that focus on

cyberbullying, hate speech, healthy relationships, and building positive online communities).

C. James, "Disconnected: Youth, new media, and the ethics gap. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2014.

Key Orienting Lesson & Video

The Rings of Responsibility lesson (third grade, age 8 to 9) introduces the concept of having responsibilities to

yourself, your community, and the broader world. Students watch a video in which the Rings of Responsibility

framework is explained through the importance of recycling. Our actions are compared to a ripple effect … that

what we do affects not only ourselves, but others. Students then make a connection to how this plays out in digital

life, and reﬂect on how the rings apply to their own lives.

With the rings of responsibility, students are encouraged to consider how their choices impact

themselves, others, and the world. These concepts are also well-aligned with CASEL's

social-emotional learning competencies of self-awareness, social awareness, self-management,

relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.

Digital Life Dilemmas

We incorporate the Digital Life Dilemmas throughout the curriculum to help students engage with

real-life, practical examples of situations they may face in their digital lives. A digital life dilemma is

a tricky situation related to tech or social media use—and it doesn't always have an obvious right

or wrong answer. Even when someone has been hurt or wronged, the right way to respond in a

dilemma is often unclear. Acknowledging this complexity helps students dig into the messiness of

real issues they face, and come up with thoughtful and realistic action steps.

For students in elementary school, we incorporate dilemmas younger children may face in the

digital world, from what to do when you don't want to get off of a device (as in Pause for People),

to what to do when someone uses mean or hurtful language on the internet (as in The Power of

Words). We bring these dilemmas to life using colorful and relatable characters called the Digital

Citizens, and animated videos that demonstrate stories and situations for students to explore,

such as what to do if:

● Your password is stolen. (Password Power-Up)

● Someone is mean in an online game. (Keeping Games Fun and Friendly)

● An interaction with a stranger becomes uncomfortable. (Digital Friendships)

● You see a friend or peer being bullied online. (Is It Cyberbullying?)

For students in middle and high school, Digital Life Dilemmas in the lessons become more

complex. Adolescents are increasingly participating in social media and gaming, and the dilemmas

Digital Life Dilemmas are woven into several lessons throughout the Curriculum. But we've also pulled them out into

individual activities. Visit our educator center for templates and guidance on using Digital Life Dilemmas and Thinking

Routines.

See CASEL's Standards.

they face become more complicated, ranging from mis- and dis-information, risky communication,

sexting, conﬂicts with friends, and hate speech. Dilemmas for secondary students provide rich

opportunities to lean into and deeply consider genuine tensions that surface in digital life.

Dilemmas provide teachers with a way to raise relevant issues before they arise and to help

students develop effective and empathic responses. The following three domains are addressed

throughout middle and high school lessons in the Digital Citizenship Curriculum, and also reﬂect

the Rings of Responsibility:

● Self & Personal Well-Being: Dilemmas related to digital footprint, identity, reputational

concerns, self-care and well-being.

● Community & Close Ties: Tensions and dilemmas that arise between close friends,

romantic partners, family members, and other so-called close ties.

● Wider World & Civic Life: Online scenarios that implicate distant individuals and wider

communities, or that raise questions about civic, political, or social justice issues.

The following chart lists lesson examples for secondary students, and indicates which domains

they ﬁt in. Notice how many issues span more than one domain.

Lesson Title

Essential Question

Self &

Personal

Well-Being

Community

& Close

Ties

Wider

World &

Civic Life

Finding Balance in a

Digital World

How do we balance digital media use in our

lives?

The Power of Digital

Footprints

How can information you post online affect

your future opportunities?

Chatting and Red Flags

How can you tell when an online relationship

is risky?

My Social Media Life

How does social media affect our

relationships?

Sexting and

Relationships

What are the risks and potential

consequences of sexting?

Responding to Online

Hate Speech

How should you respond to online hate

speech?

How Young Is Too Young

for Social Media?

At what age should people be allowed to use

social media?

Risk Check for New Tech

What privacy risks do new technologies

present, and how do we decide if they're

worth it?

Protecting Online

Reputations

How can you respect the privacy of others

online?

Dilemmas in the lessons are presented as part of structured activities that support students to

lean into the dilemmas. For example, the Digital Life Dilemmas in middle and high school are

paired with a thinking routine (see the Thinking Routine section below) that provides students

with a structure to think through the dilemma. In dissecting and exploring Digital Life Dilemmas,

students can develop dispositions to slow down and self-reﬂect, explore perspectives, envision

options and impacts, and then have practical strategies to take action. These dispositions can

prepare them to navigate dilemmas in their real lives.

Repetition and Routines

Research on how to cultivate dispositions points to the power of repetition. The logic is if we

repeatedly ask students to use the same thinking steps, we can support a disposition or habit of

mind to think in those ways without having to ask. This is crucial as we teach toward digital

citizenship. We won't be sitting next to our students as they make real decisions in their digital

lives. So our best bet is to help them develop dispositions to do the kind of thinking we hope to see,

whether it be exploring perspectives, evaluating evidence, or envisioning options and possible

impacts before they act. We do this through using different types of repetition and thinking

routines which students can apply to their digital lives.

Poems, Chants, and Songs (primary)

In elementary or primary grades, we use different forms of repetition and routine, including

poems, chants, and songs. Repetition is useful because we want to help students have memorable

ways of thinking to enact healthy decision-making. Just as we teach kids to "stop, look, and listen"

when crossing the street, our Digital Citizenship lessons teach them chants like "slow down, pause,

and think" online (Pause and Think Online). Poems, chants, and songs provide a developmentally

appropriate approach for leveraging the power of repetition, and provide memorable routines

children can apply in their everyday lives to support their thinking and decision-making.

Repetition and Routines

Lesson Examples

Essential Question and Key Activities

Songs: Our friendly

animated characters, the

Digital Citizens, appear in

Media Balance Is

Important

How do we ﬁnd a happy balance between our online and ofﬂine

activities?

R. Ritchhart, M. Church, & K. Morrison, Making thinking visible, San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass, 2011.

sing-along songs.

Students can sing on

their own, repeating the

concepts learned in the

song.

Students learn a song about media balance, featuring the Digital

Citizens characters.

Pause & Think

Online

How can we be safe, responsible, and respectful online?

Students learn a song about slowing down before we act online,

featuring the Digital Citizens characters.

We, the Digital

Citizens

How can we be good digital citizens?

Students learn a song about ways we can be good digital citizens,

featuring the Digital Citizens characters.

Poems and Chants: The

Digital Citizen characters

appear in videos and

activities to teach

students poems and

chants. This repetition

helps students remember

ways to stay safe and

responsible online.

Internet Trafﬁc

Light

How do you stay safe when visiting a website or app?

Students learn a poem about using red, yellow or green to assess

whether sites are "just right" for them.

Putting a STOP

to Online

Meanness

What should you do if someone is mean to you online?

Students learn the STOP acronym and chant to use if they see

bullying online.

A Creator's

Rights and

Responsibilities

What rights and responsibilities do you have as a creator?

Students learn the Ask-Attribute process when using other people's

creative work.

Thinking Routines (secondary)

In secondary grades, we incorporate thinking routines across 15 select lessons. Thinking routines

are short, accessible, easy-to-remember structures that direct thinking in speciﬁc directions.

Developed by our team of Project Zero researchers in close collaboration with the Common Sense

Education team, we use three original thinking routines, all with unique purposes: Digital Habits

Check-Up, Feelings & Options, and Take a Stand. We created, tested, and reﬁned these routines

with students to develop the core digital citizenship dispositions. These routines are meant to be

used repeatedly with students, so that students can have thought structures which are useful to

apply to dilemmas they face in their everyday lives. The routines align with the themes in the Rings

of Responsibility:

● Digital Habits Check-Up supports challenges

and dilemmas relevant to the self.

● Feelings & Options supports digital life dilemmas

related to community and close ties.

● Take a Stand focuses on the wider world and

civic life.

See the Educator Guides and student materials on teaching with thinking routines and digital life dilemmas.

Ritchhart, Church, & Morrison, "Making thinking visible,"; Perkins & Tishman, "Learning that matters: Toward a

dispositional perspective on education and its research needs."

Below is an explanation of the three routines:

1. Digital Habits Check-Up

Digital Habits Check-Up is a routine that helps students take stock of their digital habits and

exercise control over their digital lives. The routine draws on principles from habit science to

empower both mindful reﬂection and positive action that supports students' media balance and

well-being in a world of constant connectivity. This routine supports students' social and

emotional learning, including self-awareness, self-management, and responsible

decision-making around the role media and technology play in their lives.

Digital media habits can become default forces that shape our lives in ways we don't even realize

or intend. There are ﬁve steps to Digital Habits Check-Up, and students begin with a "Check" of

their habits by taking stock of all of their current digital habits: good, bad, and mixed. Adults may

be tempted to focus just on bad habits. Asking about good habits too changes the tone of our

conversations about media balance and creates opportunities for more nuanced self-reﬂection.

Then students "Choose" one habit they want to try changing, and consider why this change might

be important or meaningful. After that, they "Challenge" themselves by creating a time-limited

personal challenge to change some aspect of their technology use. Next, students "Boost" their

challenge with strategies to help them succeed. Lastly, students "Track" their journey to monitor

their progress. Tracking facilitates accountability while providing a chance to build community in

class and a sense of digital agency in students.

Digital Habits Check-Up

Steps

Key Questions

Digital Citizenship Dispositions

Check

Check your habits. What are your current digital habits? How does

each habit make you feel?

Slow down and self-reﬂect

Choose

Choose one habit you want to change or try to do differently. Why is

it important that you change this habit?

Envision options and impacts

Challenge

Create a personal challenge to change it.

Take action and responsibility

Boost

How can you boost the likelihood of succeeding at your challenge?

Slow down and self-reﬂect

Track

Track your habits challenge journey by recording or journaling.

Slow down and self-reﬂect

See competencies of CASEL's Social Emotional Learning Standards.

See the Educator Guides and student materials on teaching with thinking routines and digital life dilemmas.

Disrupting old habits is easier when we take intentional steps to interrupt an old routine we want

to stop in order to make it easier to implement a new routine. For students, this might mean

learning how to turn off app notiﬁcations, temporarily moving a device out of reach during

homework time, or pre-downloading a news podcast so that it's readily accessible to kick start a

fresh habit of following the news. The Digital Habits Check-Up routine is not about just limiting

technology use, but instead about tapping into students' personal goals for themselves and

thinking critically about ways their current technology use might not be supporting those aims.

The steps of Digital Habits Check-up are also directly designed to support digital citizenship

dispositions, like slowing down and self-reﬂecting, envisioning options, and taking action.

2. Feelings & Options

Feelings & Options is a thinking routine that supports social skills and thoughtful decision-making

for thorny social and emotional Digital Life Dilemmas. This routine is designed to be paired with

a Digital Life Dilemma, and it can be used again and again with a variety of different dilemmas. The

routine packs a lot into four steps: It scaffolds perspective-taking, empathic problem-solving,

ethics spotting, and communication skills. All these skills are essential building blocks for social

and emotional learning, including self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship

skills, and responsible decision-making.

Middle and high school students are regularly using technology to connect with their peers.

Today's technologies have key features like permanence, "cue absence," and quantiﬁable social

metrics that amplify and even transform their interactions. Feelings & Options, paired with

exploring a digital life dilemma, is designed to support students in exploring different perspectives,

thinking about possible impacts and outcomes, and practicing language that supports constructive

and kind communication.

Nesi, Choukas-Bradley, & Prinstein, "Transformation of adolescent peer relations in the social media context: Part

1—A theoretical framework and application to dyadic peer relationships."

See competencies of CASEL's Social Emotional Learning Standards.

See the Educator Guides and student materials on teaching with thinking routines and digital life dilemmas.

Charles Duhigg, "The power of habit: Why we do what we do in life and business," Random House, 2012.

Feelings & Options

Steps

Key Questions

Digital Citizenship Dispositions

Identify

Who are the different people involved in the scenario? What dilemma

or challenge are they facing?

Slow down and self-reﬂect

Feel

What do you think each person in the dilemma is feeling? Why might

the situation be hard or challenging for each of them?

Explore perspectives with

curiosity and empathy

Imagine

Imagine options for how the situation could be handled. Come up with

as many ideas as possible. There's no one "right" answer! Then choose:

Which option might lead to the most positive outcome, where all

parties feel good or taken care of?

Envision options and impacts

Say

Thinking more about the idea you chose for handling the situation,

what could the people involved say? What would they say? How would

they say it? Who would they say it to? Write out the conversation.

Envision options and impacts,

Take action and responsibility

The steps prompt students to ﬁrst "Identify" issues and the people involved, which builds on the

idea of "ethics spotting" to build sensitivity to moral and ethical issues in real life. Second,

students consider what the different people involved might be feeling ("Feel"). The 'might'

language recognizes that while we cannot fully know another person's perspective, it is important

to consider their viewpoints, supporting social awareness and relationship skills. Third is the

"Imagine" step. Here, students imagine an array of possible options for handling the situation,

which supports expansive thinking. They also make intentional choices that seem most positive for

everyone involved. Finally, students develop and practice language to actively address the issue.

The "Say" step provides an opportunity for teachers to support students toward practical ways of

communicating that are both effective and, ideally, authentic.

By using the Feelings & Options routine repeatedly, educators can help students develop

sensitivity to recognize digital dilemmas and the Digital Citizenship Dispositions to: 1) explore and

care about others' perspectives; 2) envision options for responding to dilemmas; 3) consider

potential impacts; and 4) lay a foundation for thoughtfully taking action. Dilemmas that we

developed for use alongside Feelings & Options cover topics like setting boundaries in close

relationships, responding to offensive memes, forwarding sexts, and cyberbullying behaviors.

Max H. Bazerman & Ann E. Tenbrunsel, "Blind spots," Princeton University Press, 2011.

3. Take a Stand

Take a Stand is a thinking routine designed to be used repeatedly and alongside thorny Digital Life

Dilemmas that lack clear right or wrong answers—particularly dilemmas relevant to privacy,

community, and civic life. It's a four-step routine that gets students in the habit of reﬂecting on

their own stances on a dilemma, listening to and considering the perspectives of others, and then

reconsidering their own perspectives. Learning how to explore and discuss complicated and

polarizing issues with civility and empathy are core aspects of social awareness, relationship skills,

and responsible decision-making.

The four steps of Take a Stand support skills and dispositions for deliberative discourse (sharing

and listening to perspectives on controversial issues), which is a hallmark practice in civic

education. Repeatedly using the Take a Stand routine can prepare students to engage in

productive civic dialogue beyond the classroom, both ofﬂine and online.

Take a Stand

Steps

Key Questions

Digital Citizenship Dispositions

Take a

stand

What do you think? Explain your perspective.

Slow down and self-reﬂect

Envision

options

and

impacts

Stand

back

Listen to others' perspectives.

Explore perspectives with

curiosity and empathy

Look

again

Look back at your original response. What had you not

considered? How has your perspective shifted after hearing

other's responses?

Slow down and self-reﬂect

Look

beyond

How does this dilemma connect to real world situations?

Seek facts and evaluate

evidence

Dilemmas in the civic realm span issues such as streaming school ﬁghts online, creating fake news

for clicks and advertising revenue, and determining the appropriate age to join social media sites.

When using the Take a Stand routine, students ﬁrst reﬂect on their own perspectives and values

and "Take a Stand," writing out their stance on the dilemma at hand. Then they "Stand Back" to

Cynthia Gibson & Peter Levine, "The civic mission of schools," New York and Washington, DC: The Carnegie

Corporation of New York and the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning, 2003; Diana E. Hess & Paula

McAvoy, "The political classroom: Evidence and ethics in democratic education," Routledge, 2014; Peter Levine & Kei

Kawashima-Ginsberg, "The republic is (still) at risk–and civics is part of the solution," Medford, MA: Tufts University,

Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, 2017.

See competencies of CASEL's Social Emotional Learning Standards.

See the Educator Guides and student materials on teaching with thinking routines and digital life dilemmas.

listen closely and carefully to their classmates' views. After listening, they purposefully revisit or

"Look Again" at their initial stances with the aim of identifying considerations they had not

thought about at ﬁrst. This sequence of steps aligns with pedagogies in moral education that

deepen student engagement with dilemmas through scaffolded exploration of perspectives that

differ from their own.

As students explore different perspectives, they often envision options and possible impacts of

different responses to the dilemma. Finally, students "Look Beyond" and draw connections to real

world situations. This ultimate step has a few distinct aims: 1) to support transfer by inviting

students to make authentic connections and to see the relevance of dilemma scenarios to their

own lives, and 2) to invite students to seek facts and evaluate evidence relevant to dilemmas (e.g.,

"Is it legal to ﬁre someone for 'liking' hate speech on social media?).

In sum, the steps of Take a Stand are designed to foster Digital Citizenship Dispositions, including

slowing down and self-reﬂecting, exploring perspectives, envisioning options and possible impacts,

and seeking and evaluating evidence.

These research-based cornerstones of the curriculum —the Rings of Responsibility, Digital Life

Dilemmas, and Repetition and Routines—contribute intentionality to the scope, sequence, and

pedagogies across the lessons. The ultimate aim of the curriculum is to support students to

develop skills and dispositions that they can apply to situations they face in their real digital lives.

Moshe M. Blatt & Lawrence Kohlberg, "The effects of classroom moral discussion upon children's level of moral

judgment," Journal of moral education 4, no. 2 (1975): 129-161; Ann Higgins, "The just community approach to moral

education: Evolution of the idea and recent ﬁndings," Handbook of moral behavior and development 1 (1991): 111-141.

A Look Inside the Curriculum: Six Topics

The Digital Citizenship Curriculum is framed around six core topics that pose opportunities and

challenges for young people. Each grade level includes one lesson per topic, with the exception of

kindergarten and ﬁrst grade. Each topic is addressed using developmentally appropriate

pedagogical approaches throughout grades K–12. This section expands upon the six core topics,

including research from the ﬁeld and highlights from the Curriculum.

Based on our research with teachers, and developmental stages of children, we address introductory topics in

kindergarten and ﬁrst grade, and begin addressing all topics in second grade.

From 2019 to 2020, Common Sense Education revised the Digital Citizenship core topics from the previous version of

the curriculum, which addressed eight topics. Some of the same topics in the latest curriculum have been combined

(such as Digital Footprint & Identity), while other topics are expanded upon (such as News & Media Literacy).

The topics and approaches in the Digital Citizenship Curriculum are informed by research

including the Project Zero team's studies of digital youth. As part of the research, over 3,600

tweens and teens were asked about their perspectives on the best, most challenging, and most

worrying parts of growing up with today's technologies as well as their views on different

dilemmas. Their perspectives informed the focal topics, dilemmas, and approaches in the

curriculum updates. (Note: The surveys were conducted before the start of the coronavirus

pandemic.)

Media Balance & Well-Being

A common concern expressed by parents, teachers, and kids themselves is the sheer amount of

time kids spend on devices and with media each day. A national poll of parents of teens age 14 to

17 found that 44% of parents report their top concern is "spending too much time on devices."

And one of the top concerns for educators is that "technology distracts students from the learning

experience and interferes with learning," with 26 percent of teachers citing this as a "frequent" or

"very frequent" problem in their classrooms.

While the quantity of screen time is what's often focused on, we advocate for the conversation to

move beyond screen time alone and to explore the quality of screen time, meaning what kids are

actually doing when they are on devices. Ultimately, we want to support kids in practicing media

This issue was also reported more often as grade levels increased; Vega & Robb, "The Common Sense census: Inside

the 21st-century classroom."

Common Sense Media & Survey Monkey, "Social Media Disconnect: Teen Internet Use," Common Sense Media,

December 13, 2017,

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/ﬁles/uploads/research/commonsense-surveymonkey_teeninternetu

se-topline_release.pdf.

More information about the survey and insights related to the curriculum appear in the Appendix of this report;

Insights from the Digital Dilemmas survey and subsequent data collection with teens during the coronavirus pandemic

are reported in Weinstein and James's forthcoming book, Behind Their Screens: What Teens are Facing (and Adults are

Missing) (The MIT Press).

balance: using technology in meaningful ways that add value to life, and that feels healthy and in

balance with other life activities.

How can I use media in ways that give

meaning and add value to my life?

We ﬁrst want to acknowledge that how much kids used devices and media changed

drastically—and necessarily—during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and 2021, so the issue of

media balance shifted for educators and families. Kids and teens' only access to school, friends,

and family members outside of their household was through devices and technology. The amount

of screen time and what kids were doing online changed, ranging from using school platforms like

Google Classroom, accessing curriculum and tools for learning, gaming, and using social media,

which allowed young people to stay connected to school, friends, and family as they had to stay

home and shelter in place.

"Zoom" and "distance learning" became household terms. Teens increasingly sought support for

mental health issues linked to pandemic-related anxieties and stresses. And a stark proportion of

kids in the United States did not have technology at home, with distance learning unearthing grave

inequities in young people's access to technology, revealing a stark digital divide.

Although our Digital Dilemmas research was carried out prior to the pandemic, our surveys

clariﬁed that young people have been harboring concerns about their feelings of dependence on

their devices and the ways technology disrupts other activities. Of teens age 13 to 17, roughly

90%. Fifty-four percent of teens say they spend too much time on their cellphones, with 44%

Anderson & Jiang, "Teens, Social Media, & Technology."

S. Chandra et al., "Closing the K–12 Digital Divide in the Age of Distance Learning," Common Sense Media & Boston

Consulting Group, 2020,

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/ﬁles/uploads/pdfs/common_sense_media_report_ﬁnal_6_26_7.38am

_web_updated.pdf.

Rideout, Fox, Peebles, & Robb, "Coping with COVID-19: How young people use digital media to manage their mental

health."

V. Rideout, S. Fox, A. Peebles, & M. B. Robb, "Coping with COVID-19: How young people

use digital media to manage their mental health," San Francisco, CA: Common Sense and Hopelab, 2021,

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/ﬁles/uploads/research/2021-coping-with-covid19-full-report.pdf.

saying they "often" check their phones for notiﬁcations as soon as they wake up. And 65% of

parents are concerned about their teens' screen time. Yet, about half of teens say they have tried

to limit the amount of time they spend with technology, such as on their cellphone, social media, or

playing video games.

The nature of kids' experiences on social media also

inﬂuences well-being. The effects of social media on

well-being vary for different teens. What's more,

individual teens can have social media experiences that

are positive in some ways and challenging in others; and

the nature of their digital experiences may change over

time. This suggests a need to help students learn to take

stock of their social media use, curate their online

experiences, and adapt their everyday practices to

support wellness. Because people often present idealized

highlight reels of their lives on social media, browsing can

reveal large amounts of distorted social information that

elicits comparison and jealousy. Further, young people

who tend to struggle with challenges such as depression

merit particular attention given that they report more

intense and "heightened" emotional responses to social

media use.

V. Rideout & M. Robb, "Social media, social life: Teens reveal their experiences," Common Sense Media, 2018,

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/ﬁles/uploads/research/2018_cs_socialmediasociallife_fullreport-ﬁn

al-release_2_lowres.pdf; Rideout & Fox, Social media, social life: Teens reveal their experiences.

M. K. Underwood & S. E. Ehrenreich, "The power and the pain of adolescents' digital communication: Cyber

victimization and the perils of lurking," American Psychologist, 72(2) (2017): 144.

M. Ito et al., "Social Media and Youth Wellbeing: What We Know and Where We Could Go," Irvine, CA: Connected

Learning Alliance, 2020, https://clalliance.org/publications/social-media-and-youth-wellbeing-what-we-know-and

-where-we-could-go/; Weinstein, "Positive and negative inﬂuences."

I. Beyens et al., "The effect of social media on well-being differs from adolescent to adolescent," Scientiﬁc Reports 10,

10763 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-67727-7; V. Rideout & S. Fox, "Digital health practices, social media

use, and mental well-being among teens and young adults in the U.S.," Hopelab & Well Being Trust, 2018,

http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/1083077/27955627/1532756096717/B_Hopelab_techreport_

073118_2.pdf?token=D43bMzrJGYoJZ1sdCe49%2Fc%2FxyqA%3D.

P. Verduyn et al., "Do social network sites enhance or undermine subjective well‐being? A critical review," Social

Issues and Policy Review, 11(1) (2017): 274–302.

J. Jiang, "How Teens and Parents Navigate Screen Time and Device Distractions."

J. Jiang, "How Teens and Parents Navigate Screen Time and Device Distractions," Pew Research Center, 2018,

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/08/22/how-teens-and-parents-navigate-screen-time-and-device-distract

ions/.

Devices, websites, and apps are designed in ways that can lead to dependence and contribute to

feelings of attachment. Many apps are strategically created with built-in features such as likes,

alerts, and notiﬁcations. Video streaming apps like YouTube and Netﬂix have autoplay features

that make it easy to keep consuming content without interruption … or noticing how much time

has passed. Most teens are well aware of attention-grabbing practices, at least conceptually:

Seventy-two percent of teens believe that tech companies manipulate users to spend more time

on their devices. The pull of these techniques is strong, and awareness is not always enough to

ignite protective habits. Still, ﬁeld experiments with adolescents demonstrate the value of lessons

that help adolescents recognize how addictive tech designs undercut values like autonomy, which

boosts students' interest in regulating social media use.

In the Media Balance & Well-Being lessons, students learn about the concept of addictive design.

They also go beyond screen time to explore the impact that their use of media and technology can

have on their health, well-being, and relationships, while learning practical strategies for balancing

media in their everyday lives. Many lessons focus on the dispositions "slowing down" and "taking

action." Students slow down by taking stock of their digital media habits with a media inventory

(completed at every grade band), evaluating their emotions around their media use, and examining

how different digital activities either support or hinder their well-being. Students take action by

developing a personal media challenge to take responsibility for their own media balance. Below

are lesson examples on Media Balance & Well-Being:

Lesson

Example

Key Question

Core Dispositions

Cornerstones of the Curriculum

Media

Balance Is

Important

(elementary

school)

How do we ﬁnd a

happy balance

between our

online and ofﬂine

activities?

→ Slow down and

self-reﬂect

→ Explore

perspectives with

empathy

Using repetition and a focus on self and others in the

Rings of Responsibility, students sing along with the

Digital Citizens and consider the feelings of themselves

and others when making decisions about when, where,

and how much to use technology.

Digital Media

and Your

Brain

(middle

school)

How does digital

media try to hook

you, and what can

you do about it?

→ Slow down and

self-reﬂect

→ Envision options

and impacts

Students explore the concept of addictive design versus

humane design by exploring the ways that apps are

designed. They then apply these concepts to dilemmas

around humane design, and also think of how to improve

humane design in an app they use often.

The Health

Effects of

Screen Time

(high school)

Can screen time

be bad for us?

→ Slow down and

self-reﬂect

→ Take action and

responsibility

Students watch a video that helps them reﬂect on their

own media use and how it compares to other teens. They

then use the Digital Habits Checkup routine to challenge

themselves to change a media habit.

The Five Core Dispositions of Digital Citizenship are addressed in different ways within lessons for all topics. Our

highlighting of speciﬁc dispositions does not mean that these lessons are limited to select dispositions.

B. Galla et al., "Values-alignment messaging boosts adolescents' motivation to control social media use," Child

Development, 2021.

Rideout & Robb, Teens reveal their experiences.

Privacy & Security

The Digital Citizenship Curriculum covers the issue of privacy from two angles: data privacy and

privacy as it relates to students' digital footprints and reputations. In Privacy & Security, the focus

is on data and information privacy, which covers practices that keep young people's private data

secure and protects them from risk. As students increasingly share information online, whether

through signing up for accounts, making online purchases, or sharing on social media, data about

them is collected by devices, internet algorithms, companies, third parties, data miners, facial

recognition, and the internet of things (e.g., voice-activated technologies). As internet-connected

devices—from phones and tablets to toys and voice-activated speakers—become more ubiquitous,

managing children's privacy becomes increasingly challenging. Children need to learn

privacy-protection practices early on to instill habits they can carry into adulthood.

How can I keep my data safe and secure?

As consumers, we all have rights to online privacy. As a vulnerable population, children have

special privacy rights and protections. The United States has federal laws related to data collection

and use for minors in both personal and educational contexts. The Family Educational Rights and

Privacy Act (FERPA) deals with the rights of students in schools, and the Children's Online Privacy

Protection Act (COPPA) deals with consumer data collection for children under the age of 13. In

addition, there are state-speciﬁc laws, like California's Student Online Personal Information

Protection Act (SOPIPA), which protects children's data use by edtech companies and applications

used in schools. Schools need to comply with federal privacy laws to protect students. But

students need to be aware of digital privacy issues and the steps they can take to protect their own

data and their rights to privacy both within and outside of a school context.

Tracking and proﬁling young people's activity online has

become widespread practice, despite privacy laws. Some

toy company websites and other sites that target

kids—sites that are supposed to follow COPPA—have

instead been found to track and collect personal

information from kids. In 2019, YouTube paid a ﬁne of

$170 million dollars for violating COPPA by tracking and

collecting underage kids' data.

Teens (starting at age 13) are no longer protected by

COPPA. They can legally be tracked and targeted with

ads, and their data can be shared with third parties for

other purposes. Teens, who are active in signing up for

accounts and sharing information online, are targeted

with personalized ads, articles, and information based on

their online behavior.

Identity theft is another online privacy risk for children,

and is a salient concern for some young people, as the sampling of student quotes (in inset box)

highlights. More than 1 million U.S. children were affected by identity fraud in 2017, with $2.6

billion in total losses and families paying a combined $540 million out of pocket. Identity thieves

target children because their Social Security numbers are "clean," meaning they are not associated

A. Pascual & K. Marchini, "2018 Child identity fraud study," Javelin Strategy & Research, 2018,

https://www.javelinstrategy.com/coverage-area/2018-child-identity-fraud-study.

Though users of applications opt in to data usage when they sign up for accounts, privacy policies are long legal

documents that are difﬁcult for most consumers to read and understand; G. Das et al., "Privacy policies for apps targeted

toward youth: Descriptive analysis of readability," JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 6(1), e3 (2018), https://doi.org/10.2196

/mhealth.7626.

Weintraub Schifferle, Lisa. (2019). YouTube pays big for tracking kids. Federal Trade Commission: Consumer

Information.

L. H. Newman, "NY cracks down on Mattel and Hasbro for tracking kids online," Wired, September 13, 2016,

https://www.wired.com/2016/09/ny-cracks-mattel-hasbro-tracking-kids-online/.

Common Sense Education's Privacy Evaluation Initiative helps clarify privacy policies so teachers can make smart

choices about the learning tools they use with students and so schools and districts can participate in evaluating the

technology used in K–12 classrooms.

with debt or records. Because kids aren't applying for loans or credit cards, signs that their

identities have been stolen may not surface until years later. Moreover, the risks can be complex.

For example, minors who are bullied online are nine times more likely to be victims of fraud than

minors who are not bullied. This might be due to kids' vulnerabilities with oversharing personal

information in an anonymous environment, or with being taken advantage of when seeking

friendship online.

In one interview-based study, children (age 5 to 11) recognized the importance of basic privacy

practices, like not sharing their name, birthday, or address. Children also recognized the

importance of having strong passwords and keeping them private. Most children relied on

parents for information about privacy, and to a lesser degree, some children provided false

information (like a fake name) to protect their privacy or used extra precautions, like a password

for their device, to protect themselves. Children relied on explicit rules—rather than internalized

norms—about disclosing information online, and they cited fear of punishment as a deciding factor

rather than understanding actual threats to their privacy and security. Parents tended to wait to

teach kids about online privacy until they were older, missing opportunities to develop habits and

skills from a young age.

Teens are even more aware of their online privacy and in fact, do take steps to protect themselves.

Most teens restrict and curate their proﬁles and posts, manage their networks, mask information

they don't want others to know, and use other strategies, such as falsifying information to protect

their privacy. In our research, risks to privacy topped the list of teens' worries about growing up

with today's technologies, suggesting more concern about these issues than adults might assume

Their descriptions of these worries reveal fears about safety and bad actors as well as fears about

putting themselves and their families at risk.

See Appendix.

D. E. Agosto, & J. Abbas, "Don't be dumb—that's the rule I try to live by: A closer look at older teens' online privacy and

safety attitudes" in New Media & Society (2017), 19(3), 347–365.

Kumar et al., "Understanding children's mental models."

During the interviews in this study, more than 25 percent of children revealed their passwords, and a few said there

were instances when they would reveal their address in a message online (Kumar et al., 2017).

P. Kumar et al., "'No telling passcodes out because they're private': Understanding children's mental models of privacy

and security online," Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 1, 2017,

http://pearl.umd.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/kumar-etal-2018-CSCW-Online-First.pdf

Pascual & Marchini, Child identity fraud study.

In the Privacy & Security lessons, students learn the difference between private information

(personally identiﬁable information such as name, phone number, and address), and information

that is OK to share (hobbies, interests, or other information that's not personally identiﬁable).

Students learn the risks of sharing different types of information as well as the beneﬁts of safe

online sharing, such as learning and connecting to their interests. They think about relevant risks,

and the importance of interpersonal considerations. Lessons support the dispositions to "slow

down and self-reﬂect," to think carefully prior to sharing private information, to "envision options

and possible impacts" by knowing about the possible risks of sharing certain information, and to

"take action and responsibility" by advocating for privacy rights for themselves and others. The

lessons build a sense of agency around privacy and empower students to feel more conﬁdent

about steps they can take to support privacy and security.

Below are lesson examples on Privacy & Security:

Lesson

Example

Key Question

Core Dispositions

Cornerstones of the Curriculum

Private and

Personal

Information

(elementary

school)

What

information

about you is OK

to share online?

→ Slow down and

self-reﬂect

→ Take action and

responsibility

Students learn that online sharing comes with risks, the

difference between personal and private information, and

what's OK and not OK to share online. They learn there is

one unique "you," and to protect their own privacy,

drawing on the self ring of the Rings of Responsibility.

Being Aware

of What You

(middle

school)

How can you

protect your

privacy when

you're online?

→ Slow down and

self-reﬂect

→ Envision options

and impacts

Students analyze ways that advertisers collect

information about users to send them targeted ads. They

then apply these concepts to a dilemma around a targeted

advertising scenario to explore how and why it happens,

and identify ways they could protect themselves,

including customizing privacy settings and opting out.

Risk Check

for New Tech

(high school

school)

What privacy

risks do new

technologies

present, and

how do we

decide if they're

worth it?

→Explore

perspectives with

curiosity and empathy

→Seek facts and

evaluate evidence

→Envision options

and impacts

Students consider whether or not the beneﬁts of new

technologies outweigh their privacy risks. They use the

Take a Stand routine to consider a dilemma about the

beneﬁts and the risks of new technologies. They consider

the impact of online privacy not only on themselves, but

on the wider world and civic life, drawing from the Rings

of Responsibility.

Digital Footprint & Identity

Identity exploration and self-expression are key developmental tasks for young people as they

move from childhood through adolescence and into adulthood. Kids develop their identities with

access to digital media as spaces to express, curate, broadcast, and record their lives. Younger kids

explore their identities through the types of content they consume or by choosing avatars to use in

apps or games. Older kids snap selﬁes and videos and carefully choose which posts to share. Some

teens also live-broadcast through social video chat. These activities all make up kids' digital

footprints, a unique trail of their individual online activities.

How can cultivate my digital identity in ways

that are responsible and empowering?

On the one hand, digital media is an important avenue for self-expression and creative sharing in

ways healthy to identity development. More than one in four teens say social media is "extremely"

or "very" important for expressing themselves creatively. Expression through digital media has

become a key feature in adolescent development, wherein kids ﬁgure out who they are and

communicate their identities to others. Teens appreciate opportunities to see their own

development and the progression of their close relationships over time. Adults who grew up in a

world without the internet likely remember photo collages, bulletin boards, and photo books.

K. Davis, "Coming of age online: The developmental underpinnings of girls' blogs," Journal of Adolescent Research,

25(1) (2010): 145–171; Weinstein, "Positive and negative inﬂuences."

D. Boyd, "Taken out of context: American teen sociality in networked publics," Doctoral dissertation, University of

California, Berkeley, 2008, https://www.danah.org/papers/TakenOutOfContext.html; Davis & Weinstein, "Identity

development in the digital age."

Rideout & Robb, Teens reveal their experiences.

Today's young people similarly value opportunities to store and revisit their images, though their

collections are in digital formats.

While digital media provide a space for young people to explore identities, apps can constrain

them. Tweens and teens can feel pressure to conform to idealized societal norms when they

present themselves online and to post only content that they think their followers and friends will

approve of and "like." The ability to curate a "perfect" life

in proﬁles, and the functionality of ﬁlters and

photoshopping that transform images to make them look

ﬂawless and idealized, can present a picture to the world

that does not reﬂect the authentic realities of everyday

life. These pressures harken back to social comparison

theory in psychology, in which people develop their

self-concept by comparing their own self-image in

relation to others . A constant barrage of scrolling

through other people's lives on social media can make

young people feel inadequate and insecure about their

own lives.

As they navigate a landscape of opportunities and

challenges related to identity expression, young people

ﬁnd strategies, like audience segmentation, that help them curate posts for different recipients.

Some young people use multiple accounts across different social media platforms or intentional

"stories" groups to segment their audiences so they can express themselves differently to

different groups. While 60 percent of teens have created online accounts that their parents are

unaware of, only 28 percent of parents suspect their teens have accounts they don't know about.

National Cybersecurity Alliance, "National Cyber Security Alliance Survey Reveals the Complex Digital Lives of

American Teens and Parents," 2016, https://staysafeonline.org/press-release/survey-reveals-complex-digital-lives/.

Some young people have multiple accounts on the same platform, designed to allow different aspects of their

identities for different audiences. For example, they might have a main account that's more broad and polished, versus

another account to share personal, authentic, unpolished moments with just their inner circle of friends; J. Walsh,

"Adolescents and their social media narratives: A digital coming of age," New York, NY: Routledge, 2018; Weinstein,

"Positive and negative inﬂuences."

A. Manago, "Identity Development in the Digital Age" In R. Scott & S. Michael, Emerging Trends in the Social and

Behavioral Sciences: An Interdisciplinary, Searchable, and Linkable Resource, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2015.

See Social Comparison Theories: Key Readings in Social Psychology (2006, 1st Edition) by Diederik A. Stapel and Hart

Blanton (Editors).

H. Gardner & K. Davis, "The app generation: How today's youth navigate identity, intimacy, and imagination in a digital

world," New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013.

Newer features that enable audience segmentation from a single account create more

opportunities for intentionally differentiated expression, but also add to the complexity.

Speciﬁcally, peers can be intentionally excluded and posts can be strategically shared in ways that

preclude certain followers' from viewing.

In addition, the fact that anything posted online is persistent, searchable, replicable, and scalable

can raise the stakes of online participation. In 2015, 88 percent of teen social media users

already believed people shared too much information about themselves, and sharing has only

become easier with device and app features designed to support seamless posting in real time.

Both seemingly innocent and objectively problematic posts may have future negative

ramiﬁcations. One-off comments, compromising pictures (including images or videos from parties,

sexualized images, and images that contain alcohol or drugs), or the expression of hateful views,

such as racist or sexist speech, can result in kids' suspensions or expulsions, revoked college

admissions, loss of scholarships and jobs, and more. Adding to the stress, digital footprints are not

always in kids' own control as peers can record and post moments online, tagging or naming those

featured without their permission.

Along with online expression comes consequential dilemmas: When does trying out a new identity

online cross over to deception … or harm? Should people face consequences later in life for social

media posts they shared when they were young? Should parents or schools monitor young

people's digital content and footprints, including text messages and social media accounts, or does

such monitoring violate young people's privacy? Is it fair for college admissions ofﬁcers to consider

applicants' social media posts? Rather than trying to simply evoke fear about ambiguous future

consequences, we believe classroom approaches to exploring digital footprints must reﬂect the

vexing realities of today's co-constructed footprints and the rapidly evolving digital landscape.

In the Digital Footprint & Identity lessons, students consider the beneﬁts and risks of online

sharing of one's digital footprint, and exploring how digital expressions affect one's sense of self,

reputation, and relationships. Students consider the personal, moral, and ethical issues associated

with the potentially persistent nature of their online identities. Dispositions which are emphasized

include, "slow down and self-reﬂect" prior to sharing things online; "explore perspectives with

A. Lenhart, "Teens, technology and friendships," Pew Research Center, 2015, http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/08

/06/teens-technology-and-friendships/.

Boyd, "Taken out of context."

curiosity and empathy" as students take the perspective of audiences who may view and judge

their posts; and "envision options and impacts" as students consider the impact of what they share

online on themselves, others, and the future.

Below are lesson examples on Digital Footprint & Identity:

Lesson

Example

Key Question

Core Dispositions

Cornerstones of the Curriculum

Digital Trails

(elementary

school)

What

information is

OK to have in

your digital

footprint?

→ Slow down and

self-reﬂect

→ Seek facts and

evaluate evidence

Students learn that the information they share online

leaves a digital footprint or "trail." They pretend to be

detectives to solve a dilemma of which animal left the

bigger digital footprint. Students compare different trails

and think critically about what kinds of information they

want to leave behind.

The Power of

Digital

Footprints

(middle

school)

How might our

digital footprints

shape our

future?

→Explore

perspectives with

curiosity and empathy

→ Seek facts and

evaluate evidence

→Envision options

and impacts

Students analyze how different parts of their digital

footprint can lead others to draw conclusions -- both

positive and negative -- about who they are. They use the

Take a Stand thinking routine to examine a dilemma about

digital footprints.

Protecting

Online

Reputations

(high school

school)

How can you

respect the

privacy of others

online?

→Explore

perspectives with

curiosity and empathy

→Envision options

and impacts

Students identify examples of social media posts that can

have a positive or negative effect. They use a

perspective-taking activity to consider the causes and

effects of posting about others online. They consider their

responsibilities as it affects the digital footprints of others

in their community and the broader online world, drawing

from the Rings of Responsibility.

Relationships & Communication

Students' relationships and needs for peer validation take on increased prominence as they move

from elementary into the teenage years. As parents are well aware, kids and teens increasingly

spend time with their friends online, through games, live video, and social media. As children get

older, they are ﬁguring out how to communicate and carry out these close relationships through

digital media. Social media and gaming can be key sites where these social interactions take place.

How can I communicate effectively and positively

to build relationships?

Most teens say social media generally has a positive effect on how they feel, with their top reason

being the ability to connect with friends and family members. Yet teens have mixed views on the

positive and negative effects of technology and social media on those relationships. They

acknowledge ways technology can support closeness: Eighty-three percent of teen social media

users report that social media makes them feel more connected to information about their friends'

lives, and 68 percent have received social support through social media during tough or

challenging times. In addition to using social media to support their in-person friendships, teens

are making new friends online, too. A majority have made at least one new friend online, mainly

through social media or online gameplay. Online multiplayer games can also be distinct and

Lenhart, "Teens, technology and friendships."

Anderson & Jiang, "Teens, Social Media, & Technology,"; Rideout & Robb, Teens reveal their experiences.

positive spaces for forming close friendships. Online-only friendships are often forged based on

shared interests and/or mutual friends.

Yet digital life raises dilemmas for social connection and

relational challenges. Social exclusion and fear of missing

out are familiar and painful experiences for many teens,

and they are exacerbated on social media by real-time and

photo-based sharing. Given the possibility of constant,

immediate access to others through smartphones and

other devices, young people describe struggles with

boundaries and feeling uncertainty and stress about how

much communication with friends and romantic partners

is too much, not enough, or just right. A smaller

percentage of teens, particularly those who struggle with

depression, report more intense and heightened

emotional responses to social media use, including social

challenges like feeling left out.

Adults continue to express concern about tweens and

teens being targeted by online predators, though this

experience is relatively uncommon. Kids are more likely

to pressure each other to share sexual content than to

receive such requests from predatory adults, and the

chances a child will be victimized in an online-mediated sex crime are extremely low. When these

L. Dedkova, "Stranger is not always danger: The myth and reality of meeting with online strangers," in Lorentz, P.,

Smahel, D., Metykova, M., & Wright, M. F. (Eds.) Living in the digital age: Self-presentation, networking, playing, and

participating in politics. (pp. 78–94). Masarykova univerzita: Muni Press, 2015,

https://www.researchgate.net/proﬁle/Pascaline_Lorentz/publication/277689621_Living_in_the_Digital_Age_Self-Prese

ntation_Networking_Playing_and_Participating_in_Politics/links/5570527908aeab777228c0e2/Living-in-the-Digital-A

ge-Self-Presentation-Networking-Playing-and-Participating-in-Politics.pdf; J. D. Wolak & D. Finkelhor, "Are crimes by

online predators different from crimes by sex offenders who know youth in-person?" Journal of Adolescent Health,

53(6) (2013): 736–741.

K. J. Mitchell et al., "Trends in unwanted sexual solicitations: Findings from the youth internet safety studies," Crimes

Against Children Research Center, 2014, http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/pdf/Sexual%20Solicitation%201%20of%

204%20YISS%20Bulletins%20Feb%202014.pdf.

Rideout & Robb, "Teens reveal their experiences,"; Rideout & Fox, Digital Health Practices.

E. Weinstein & R. L. Selman, "Digital stress: Adolescents' personal accounts." New Media & Society, 18(3) (2014):

391–409.

Underwood & Ehrenreich, "The power and the pain."

M. Ito et al., "Hanging out, messing around, and geeking out: Kids living and learning with new media. Cambridge, MA:

The MIT Press, 2010.

C. M. Frederick, & T. Zhang, "Friendships in gamers and non-gamers," Current Psychology, 2021,

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-01121-4.

crimes do occur, perpetrators are most likely to be known others (from school, church, or the

neighborhood).

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When students we surveyed described worries about "stranger danger," they named notably

graphic fears about kidnapping, rape, and threats to their physical safety from people online.

Looking back to studies in the early 2010s shows that tweens have long reported hearing

messages about "stranger danger" from teachers and adults, which may perpetuate enduring

fears. Supporting students to explore and pursue their interests safely online continues to be

101

critically important—and ideally this is achieved without increasing young people's fear and

anxiety. Rather than perpetuating a stranger-danger rhetoric and blaming the apps, educators

102

can focus on teaching kids about "healthy, age-appropriate relationships [and] helping them

practice refusal skills; impulse management and emotion control; and bystander mobilization."

103

Teens also use social media to "friend", "like," ﬂirt, joke around with, and get to know crushes or

potential partners. By 2015, over half of teens were already using social media to ﬂirt with or talk

to someone they're interested in romantically. In some cases, ﬂirting may escalate to more risky

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sharing. Sexting, or sending "nudes," is also a concern among parents and educators. One

meta-analysis of 39 studies with young people age 12 to 17 indicated that the mean prevalence for

sending sexts is nearly 15 percent, while the mean prevalence for receiving sexts is 27 percent.

105

Some sexting is consensual (and perhaps increasingly prevalent, as indicated by meta-analyses).

Yet notably concerning is nonconsensual forwarding of sexts 12 percent of teens report

forwarding a sext without consent.

106

Sexting is a top concern in schools' reports of digital challenges their communities are facing.

Twenty-seven percent of high school teachers, 19% of middle school teachers, 5% of third to ﬁfth

grade teachers, and 9% of kindergarten to second grade teachers reported that sexting occurred

106

Madigan et al, "Prevalence of multiple forms."

105

Madigan et al, "Prevalence of multiple forms."

104

A. Lenhart, M. Anderson, & A. Smith, "Teens, technology and romantic relationships," Pew Research Center, 2015,

http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/01/teens-technology-and-romantic-relationships/.

103

D. Finkelhor, "Banning apps won't protect kids from predators," The Washington Post, February 12, 2016,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/02/12/banning-apps-ont-protect-kids-from-predators-the

yre-in-danger-ofﬂine-too/?utm_term=.4dcb1ddcf1dc.

102

N. Finch, "Framing internet safety: The governance of youth online," Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2016.

101

K. Davis & C. James, "Tweens' conceptions of privacy online: Implications for educators," Learning, Media &

Technology, 38 (2013): 4–25.

100

Dedkova, "Stranger is not always danger,"; Wolak & Finkelhor, "Crimes by online predators."

in their classrooms at least occasionally. Educators express particular concerns about pressured

107

sexting, revenge porn, sextortion, and the nonconsensual forwarding of sexts to unintended

audiences. Given that sexts can be seen by young people as a powerful 'currency of trust' and a

108

way to convey intimacy in a digital age, simply telling them, "Don't do it," often misses the mark, as

it overlooks motivating forces—such as the desire to establish intimacy; desire for social

connection; desire for peer validation—that drive adolescents' behaviors and development.

109

Young people need effective strategies appropriately aligned with their different ages and stages,

and classroom conversations that reﬂect the complex pressures they may face when, for example,

they worry that turning down a request for nudes will damage a relationship that is important to

them. Whether and how to address sexting in school contexts remains a [hot topic], though some

sexting researchers have urged for a shift to educating about 'safer sexting' practices as an

important direction for sex education. Educators also need to scaffold young people's

110

sensitivities to the particularly problematic nature of the nonconsensual forwarding of sexts and

support them in developing healthy relationships in this complex landscape.

Educators and parents are often concerned about how technology may disrupt face-to-face

relationships. Indeed, teens prefer texting and messaging as their main form of communication

more so than face-to-face communication. As students use various forms of online

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communication, such as texting, messaging, and video chat, they need to understand the beneﬁts

(e.g., immediacy, convenience) and drawbacks (e.g., lack of verbal and nonverbal cues) to prevent

misunderstanding and miscommunication. They also need to learn how to select and use the right

modes of communication for the right audience and purpose. For example, is using informal

text-speak in an email to a teacher effective communication? Is a text the best way to resolve a

conﬂict with a friend? If students are to become clear and effective communicators, they need to

make responsible decisions about the modes and options available to them.

111

Rideout & Robb, Teens reveal their experiences.

110

J. W. Patchin & S. Hinduja, "It is Time to Teach Safe Sexting," Journal of Adolescent Health, 66(2) (2020): 140–143.

109

S. E. Thomas, "'What should I do?': Young women's reported dilemmas with nude photographs," Sexuality Research

and Social Policy, 15(2) (2017): 192–207.

108

For more resources on sexting, see Common Sense Education's The Risks of Sexting Handbook for more information

on the potential consequences of sexting, including "revenge porn" and others sharing sexts with malicious intent. Also,

see Sextortion resources from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

107

This study does not include the context or information about the who, what, or when of why sexting occurred in the

classroom; Vega & Robb, "Inside the 21st-century classroom."

In the Relationships & Communication lessons, students explore the beneﬁts and drawbacks of

digital media in their relationships. In elementary grades, students focus on the differences

between online versus ofﬂine, and between verbal versus nonverbal communication, emphasizing

the importance of taking other people's perspectives and preventing miscommunication. Middle

and high school students focus on exploring how digital media affects their relationships and learn

about self-disclosure, peer pressure, civil dialogue, and adapting messages to different audiences

(e.g., personal versus professional). Secondary grades also address risky disclosure behaviors, such

as oversharing and sexting, setting boundaries with friends, and building positive relationships.

The concept of a "red ﬂag feeling" is used in several lessons, guiding students to pay attention to

112

cues in dilemmas they may face. The Feelings & Options thinking routine is used with digital life

dilemmas throughout several secondary lessons. Dispositions which are emphasized include

"explore perspectives with curiosity and empathy" as students take the perspective of friends or

others in relationship dilemmas; "envision options and impacts" as students consider how what

they and do can impact the lives of others; and "take action and responsibility" as students identify

what exactly they might say or do if faced with certain situations.

Below are lesson examples on Relationships & Communication:

Lesson

Example

Key Question

Core Dispositions

Cornerstones of the Curriculum

Pause &

Think Online

(elementary

school)

How can we be

safe, responsible,

and respectful

online?

→ Slow down and

self-reﬂect

→Explore

perspectives with

curiosity and empathy

Students learn and sing the song "Pause & Think Online"

with the Digital Citizens characters, and also learn hand

movements that go along with the song. Through

repetition, students learn how the mantra "pause and

think online" applies to how we treat others and how our

actions impact others on the internet.

Chatting

Safely Online

(middle

school)

How do you chat

safely with

people you meet

online?

→ Slow down and

self-reﬂect

→Envision options

and impacts

→Take action and

responsibility

Students analyze how well they know people they interact

with online, what information is safe to share with

different types of online friends, and learn to recognize

"red ﬂag feelings" if something feels off. Using the

Feelings & Options routine, they explore a risky chat

dilemma.

Rewarding

Relationships

(high school

school)

How can I make

sure my

relationships are

healthy and

positive?

→Explore

perspectives with

curiosity and empathy

→Envision options

and impacts

→Take action and

responsibility

Students reﬂect on how their relationships are affected by

devices and the internet, identify the qualities of healthy

and rewarding relationships, and they use the Feelings &

Options routine with a dilemma about navigating a

potentially unhealthy relationships and setting

boundaries.

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A red ﬂag feeling is deﬁned as: when something happens on digital media that makes you feel uncomfortable, worried, sad,

or anxious

Cyberbullying, Digital Drama & Hate Speech

Just as bullying occurs in school hallways or on school grounds, it can also happen online and

through texting. It can range from full-blown cyberbullying to subtle jabs in online comments and

everything in between. Cyberbullying is the use of digital devices, sites, and apps to intimidate,

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harm, and upset someone. Young people who are targets of cyberbullying report feeling

depressed, sad, angry, and frustrated. Cyberbullying can also affect self-esteem, contribute to

family problems, disrupt academic achievement, lead to school violence, and give rise to suicidal

thoughts.

114

How can I connect positively, treat others respectfully,

and create a culture of kindness?

Research on cyberbullying in middle and high schools from 2019 indicated that, on average, 37

percent of students have been targets of cyberbullying, and nearly 15 percent of students admit to

cyberbullying others. Importantly, how cyberbullying is deﬁned affects ﬁndings on the

115

prevalence of cyberbullying experiences across different studies. A majority of teens (59 percent)

have experienced "some form of cyberbullying" when it is deﬁned to include name-calling and the

spreading of rumors. Justin Patchin of the Cyberbullying Research Center describes

116

M. Anderson, "A majority of teens have experienced some form of cyberbullying," Pew Research Center, 2018,

http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/09/27/a-majority-of-teens-have-experienced-some-form-of-cyberbullying/.

115

S. Hinduja & J. W. Patchin, "Cyberbullying: Identiﬁcation, Prevention, and Response," Cyberbullying Research Center,

2020, https://cyberbullying.org/Cyberbullying-Identiﬁcation-Prevention-Response-2020.pdf.

114

S. Hinduja & J. W. Patchin, "Cyberbullying identiﬁcation, prevention, and response," 2018, https://cyberbullying.org/

Cyberbullying-Identiﬁcation-Prevention-Response-2018.pdf.

113

Weinstein & James, What teens are facing.

cyberbullying as "neither an epidemic nor a rarity … [b]ut … something that everyone has a

responsibility to work toward ending."

117

Harmful and abusive digital behavior can also take the form of one-off mean comments and subtle

but pointed posts that send signals about inclusion/exclusion. Tweens and teens may use the term

"drama" to capture a range of behaviors that lead to harms. Of teens on social media, 68 percent

118

have experienced drama among their friends on social media. Of teens who perceive social

119

media as having a "mostly negative effect," the primary reason is the role social apps play in

perpetuating rumors and bullying.

120

While cyberbullying and digital drama are not new, they

continue to be a top concern for schools, which struggle

with how to intervene. Especially when issues appear on

social media, the line between what happens at home and

school is blurred. Ninety percent of teens believe online

harassment is a problem that affects people their age,

and the majority of them think teachers, social media

companies, and politicians are currently failing at tackling

the issue.

121

In addition to cyberbullying, hate speech is an increasing

concern. Teens' exposure to racist, sexist, and

homophobic content on social media has risen, with 64

percent saying they "often" or "sometimes" see hateful

content on social media. In a representative sample of

122

U.S. high schools, teachers in predominantly White

schools report rising polarization, incivility, and increasingly hostile environments for racial and

122

Rideout & Robb, Teens reveal their experiences.

121

Anderson, "A majority of teens."

120

Anderson & Jiang, "Teens, Social Media, & Technology,"

119

Lenhart, "Teens, technology and friendships."

118

A. Marwick & D. Boyd, "'It's just drama': Teen perspectives on conﬂict and aggression in a networked era," Journal of

Youth Studies, 17(9) (2014): 1187–1204.

117

J. Patchin, "Summary of our cyberbullying research (2004-2016)," Cyberbullying Research Center, 2016,

https://cyberbullying.org/summary-of-our-cyberbullying-research.

religious minorities and other vulnerable groups. These trends underscore a need for distinct

123

supports keyed to hate speech and incivility, in addition to cyberbullying-related supports.

124

In the Cyberbullying, Digital Drama, & Hate Speech lessons, students take on tough topics

regarding how we communicate online and how we treat others. Students learn what to do if

they're bullied online, how to be an upstander and ally for others who are bullied, and learn

strategies for combating online cruelty and building positive, supportive communities. Elementary

students explore how mean behavior and bullying can occur online, how this makes people feel,

and what to do if they see or experience cyberbullying. Middle and high school students examine a

range of abusive, cruel, and hateful online behaviors, addressing how power dynamics play a role in

bullying. Students learn thinking routines that support perspective-taking and strategies to

de-escalate harmful situations and be upstanders and allies for others. They focus on their

responsibilities to their communities and the broader online world in the Rings of Responsibility.

Dispositions that are emphasized in this topic include: "explore perspectives with empathy,"

"envision options and impacts," and "take action and responsibility."

Below are lesson examples on Cyberbullying, Digital Drama & Hate Speech:

Lesson

Example

Key Question

Core Dispositions

Cornerstones of the Curriculum

The Power of

Words

(elementary

school)

What should you

do when

someone uses

mean or hurtful

language on the

internet?

→ Slow down and self-reﬂect

→Explore perspectives with

curiosity and empathy

→Envision options and impacts

Students consider the importance of the words

we use, analyze an online bullying dilemma,

decide what kinds of statements are OK or not

OK to say online, and learn to identify ways to

respond to mean words online, using and

repeating the S-T-O-P acronym.

Responding

to Online

Hate Speech

(middle

school)

How should you

respond to

online hate

speech?

→Explore perspectives with

curiosity and empathy

→Envision options and impacts

→Take action and

responsibility

Students analyze an online hate speech dilemma

using the Feelings & Options routine. They

identify speciﬁc actions to positively affect a

situation involving hate speech.

What You

Send In "That

Moment

When … "

(high school)

How can we act

with empathy

and positivity

when we're

online?

→Explore perspectives with

curiosity and empathy

→Envision options and impacts

→Take action and

responsibility

Students identify examples of online behaviors

that may hurt, embarrass, or offend others. They

then use the Feelings & Options routine to

analyze and respond to a dilemma involving a

bullying situation with two teens.

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S. Benesch, C. Buerger, and S. Manion, "Understanding Hate and Dangerous Speech," Dangerous Speech Project,

2018, https://dangerousspeech.org/understanding-hate-and-dangerous-speech-a-practical-guide/; D. K. Citron, "Hate

crimes in cyberspace," Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016; D. K. Citron & H. L. Norton, "Intermediaries and

hate speech: Fostering digital citizenship for our information age," (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. ID 1764004), Social

Science Research Network, 2011, https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=1764004.

123

J. Rogers et al., "Teaching and learning in the age of Trump: Increasing stress and hostility in America's high schools,"

UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access, 2017, https://idea.gseis.ucla.edu/publications/teaching-and-

learning-in-age-of-trump.

News & Media Literacy

News and media literacy covers a broad set of skills and dispositions related to how students

understand, evaluate, and create media messages. This topic includes media literacy, news

125

literacy, information literacy, and copyright and fair use, all of which emphasize kids' roles as media

consumers and creators.

Students are increasingly getting their news from social media. In 2020, 77% of kids age 10 to 18

got their news and headlines from social media. Thirty-nine percent of teens "often" get news from

personalities, inﬂuencers, and celebrities on social media and YouTube, even though they don't see

these sources as particularly trustworthy.

126

Over the past few years, societal challenges related to misinformation, disinformation, and

conspiracy theories have increased. An internet that relies on an advertising model, media

platform design, user-generated content, and powerful algorithms that keep individuals in a ﬁlter

bubble can have polarized individuals on topics such as political campaigns, racial tensions, climate

change, and COVID-19. News and media literacy is seen as a solution in the "misinformation

crisis," especially with young people."

127

Though news literacy and media literacy are important solutions to the misinformation crisis, they need to be

partnered with solutions for government and industry.

126

M. B. Robb, "Teens and the news: The inﬂuencers, celebrities, and platforms they say matter most, 2020," San

Francisco, CA: Common Sense Media, 2020, https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/ﬁles/uploads/

research/2020_teensandnews-fullreport_ﬁnal-release-web.pdf.

125

U.S. media-literacy educators use a widely-agreed-upon deﬁnition and core questions to frame curriculum and

educational interventions (National Association for Media Literacy Education, Media Lit One Sheet, 2018.

https://namle.net/ml-onesheet/).

How can I be a critical consumer

and creator of news and media?

Assessing credibility online is essential, given the ways in

which news consumption is changing. Many young people

age 10 to 18 are aware that they are struggling with

information credibility: Less than half (44 percent) feel they

can tell fake news stories from real news, and 31 percent

have shared a news story online in the last six months that

they later found was wrong or inaccurate. Today's

128

tweens and teens struggle in particular with requisite tasks

for navigating online news, including 1) considering how

sources shape story content, 2) assessing the quality of

evidence, and 3) actively investigating claims.

129

Teachers are justiﬁably concerned, naming particular

worries about students' being able to assess the credibility

of online information and identify misinformation,

disinformation, and "fake news." And 35% of teachers

report that their students "frequently" or "very frequently"

"lack skills to critically evaluate information."

130

When it comes to addressing information credibility,

research shows that media literacy education makes a

difference—and in some cases matters even more than

political knowledge. Kids who have had learning

experiences focused on the importance of and approaches

to evaluating evidence in online news and opinion pieces

indeed fare better at assessing information credibility.

131

J. Kahne & B. Bowyer, "Educating for democracy in a partisan age: Confronting the challenges of motivated reasoning

and misinformation," American Educational Research Journal, 54(1) (2017): 3–34.

130

Vega & Robb, "Inside the 21st-century classroom."

129

J. Breakstone et al., "Why we need a new approach to teaching digital literacy," Phi Delta Kappan, 99(6) (2018):

27–32.

128

M. Robb, "News and America's kids: How young people perceive and are impacted by the news," Common Sense

Media, 2017, https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/news-and-americas-kids.

Educators report trying to tackle news and media literacy with their students. In addition to

teaching students how to critically examine and triangulate sources and evaluate online news,

educators we surveyed describe wanting their students to be able to recognize bias, identify

parody sites and articles, and reﬂect carefully when spreading information to their own networks.

News literacy is a bigger set of skills and dispositions than fact-checking and identifying credible

sources. Students need to focus on evaluating their own biases and the polarized culture that

encourages people to believe and share misinformation in the ﬁrst place.

An important aspect of news and media literacy is "pulling back the curtain" on the media and

technology industry to help students understand how and why media is produced, and how the

industry operates. Because much of the industry is based on advertising revenue, understanding

advertising in a digital age is an important angle on this topic in the curriculum. Recent years have

seen an explosion in new ways for advertisers to target children, including through immersion,

"advergames," viral messaging, personalized online ads, and location-based targeting. Students

132

need guidance in understanding the complicated landscape of how advertisers target them on the

internet. Educators can support students in identifying problematic stereotypes in advertising and

understanding marketers' motivations.

As educators support their students to be savvy creators—not just consumers—of online content,

students have an array of exciting digital tools at their ﬁngertips. Further, students have the

opportunity to share what they produce with authentic audiences ranging from small online

interest-based communities to large public communities. Educators also need to help students

133

consider copyright and the boundaries of fair use, especially when students incorporate articles,

books, and images into their schoolwork and when they remix, alter, or create something new.

Prior research suggests that students' considerations related to intellectual property issues rarely

extend beyond ease of access ("Can I just download it?") and negative sanctions for

misappropriation ("Will I get caught?"). Supporting students to explore and routinely consider

134

the ethical dimensions of their rights and responsibilities as creators is an important part of their

being media-literate digital citizens.

134

James, "Disconnected: Youth, new media."

133

Ito et al, "Hanging out, messing around."

132

M. Meyer et al., "Advertising in young children's apps: A content analysis," Journal of Developmental & Behavioral

Pediatrics, Advance online publication, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1097/DBP.0000000000000622.

The News & Media Literacy lessons focus on skills and dispositions to identify credibility and

trustworthiness in digital news and information sources, and for students to reﬂect on their

responsibilities as thoughtful media creators and consumers. Elementary school students focus on

basic media literacy concepts, such as deﬁning media, understanding photo manipulation, how to

search effectively, their rights and responsibilities as digital creators, and understanding the basic

elements of an online news article. Middle and high school students learn skills around how to

analyze information, misinformation, and disinformation, using strategies for close reading and

lateral reading. They also reﬂect on how personal opinion and conﬁrmation bias shape our

understanding of news. Older students explore ways to break out of ﬁlter bubbles and echo

chambers as a responsibility to themselves and others in being critical thinkers and citizens.

Lessons focus on the dispositions "seeking facts and evidence" as students learn to analyze media

and news messages, and "taking action" with practical steps they can take to be critical media

consumers and creators.

Below are lesson examples on News & Media Literacy:

Lesson Example

Key Question

Core Dispositions

Cornerstones of the Curriculum

A Creator's

Rights and

Responsibilities

(elementary

school)

What rights

and

responsibilities

do you have as

a creator?

→ Slow down and

self-reﬂect

→Envision options and

impacts

→Take action and

responsibility

Students deﬁne "copyright" and explain how it

applies to creative work, and describe their rights

and responsibilities as creators. They then use the

"Ask & Attribute" copyright principles repeatedly to

real-life dilemmas.

Finding

Credible News

(middle school)

How do we ﬁnd

credible

information on

the internet?

→ Seek facts and evaluate

evidence

→Envision options and

impacts

Students learn criteria for differentiating fake news

from credible news, and practice evaluating the

credibility of information they ﬁnd on the internet.

They apply the "Internet Investigator Checklist"

steps to analyze a breaking news dilemma in order

to ﬂag what might and might not be true.

Clicks for Cash

(high school)

How does

internet

advertising

contribute to

the spread of

disinformation?

→Explore perspectives

with curiosity and

empathy

→ Seek facts and evaluate

evidence

→Envision options and

impacts

Students describe how advertisers and publishers

make money through online advertising, and how

clickbait can contribute to the spread of fake news

and disinformation. They then use the Take a Stand

routine to a dilemma to consider whose

responsibility it is to ﬁght disinformation.

Implementing Digital Citizenship

Schools and districts implement digital citizenship for a

variety of reasons. Many schools are motivated because

they know a solid foundation of digital citizenship creates a

positive culture of media and technology in their school.

Other schools and districts note policy reasons and E-rate

funding. Increasingly, schools are seeing the value of

135

digital citizenship beyond "safety," and instead see it as

laying an essential foundation for effective digital learning.

But one question the Common Sense Education team

hears a lot from school and district leaders is: "How do we

implement digital citizenship?"

Since 2010, Common Sense Education has worked on the

ground with schools and districts to support them with

digital citizenship implementation. We've learned that

there is not a one-size-ﬁts-all approach to implementing

digital citizenship—it's taught in many different areas,

including in elective or auxiliary classes such as health and

wellness, technology, library, STEM, character development, or advisory periods. Digital

citizenship can also be integrated into subject area curricula, particularly English language arts,

history, social studies, civics, math, and science. Educators in different roles, including classroom

teachers, library or media specialists, technology coordinators, health educators, counselors, and

other advisors, can teach digital citizenship. Sometimes teaching falls on one person; other times it

is spread across a faculty team.

135

E-rate is a federal program designed to bring internet connectivity and telecommunications into schools. All schools

receiving E-rate discounts must comply with the internet safety educational requirements outlined in the Children's

Internet Protection Act (CIPA). See more Common Sense Education's Essential Guide to Digital Citizenship for CIPA and

E-Rate.

We have identiﬁed a process and best practices for implementing digital citizenship. In our Digital

Citizenship Implementation Guide, we outline three steps for school and district leaders:

The Digital Citizenship Implementation Guide includes planning templates, checklists, videos, and

success stories from school districts. We also provide schools and educators free online

Professional Development and the Common Sense Education Recognition Program as a road

map for implementation, and also as a way to celebrate their accomplishments.

Engaging Families

Parents and caregivers have many concerns about media, technology, and devices. Whether it's

screen time, inappropriate content, online privacy, consumerism, or supporting their children with

learning at home, parents look to schools and educators for advice. As part of a

136

whole-community approach to digital citizenship, schools can engage parents and caregivers,

many of whom have questions and concerns about guiding their kids' media use. Similar to

Common Sense Education's work with schools, there's not a one-size-ﬁts-all approach to engaging

parents, since each parent population is unique.

136

Common Sense Media was founded to provide ratings, reviews, and advice around children's media for parents and

families. Schools are an important channel to reach families with helpful information to guide their children's media use.

Supporting parents in an ongoing way is vital for a few reasons. First of all, successful technology

integration relies on successful school and family communication. Challenging situations, such as

conﬂict or bullying among classmates, inappropriate sharing, plagiarism and cheating, digital

distractions (e.g., cellphones), or other behavioral issues, often unfold dynamically across school

and home. School faculty and caregivers need to work together to resolve issues. In addition,

schools can build on what we learned during the coronavirus pandemic about how to strengthen

support for learning at home. Communication and partnership between schools and parents is a

necessity for supporting students and creating a culture of digital citizenship.

Second, many young people feel that their parents or

caregivers don't "get it," because they don't

understand their digital lives, or the challenges they

face. This gap can prevent young people from seeking

support from caregivers, and undermine valuable

opportunities for caregivers to offer guidance. It's not

acceptable for caregivers to say, "I don't know what my

kids are doing online." They need to be involved,

educated, and armed with strategies to support their

children.

Third, young people have their own frustrations about

their parents' digital habits—such as adults' distracted

driving or being glued to their own devices—which

they see as detracting from their relationships with

their parents. Parents' modeling of digital habits and

how they manage their own device use affects family

relationships. An unexpected theme in our Digital Dilemmas Educator surveys, school leaders and

faculty described new challenges associated with the online behaviors of parents who post

complaints or offensive comments on social media about school policies, leaders, or teachers. One

middle school parent-teacher liaison described challenges that stemmed from "[p]arents posting

negative and slanderous comments about kids and teachers and school district employees. Many

parents chimed in and joined the 'conversation' with their own negative comments." Although

"others shied away and didn't want to have anything to do with it," the comment thread was widely

seen. As these examples suggest, parents' online behaviors can inﬂuence school culture.

To create a positive culture around media and technology, Common Sense Education advocates a

whole-community approach by including a strong family education component. Family

Engagement Resources are provided to schools to host a family night, share in their e-newsletters,

or link from the school website.

Conclusion

Meeting students "where they are" is a rallying cry

among many educators. In today's world, this goal requires

attention to dilemmas in young people's digital lives and

intentional efforts to support their development as digital

citizens. We advocate an approach aimed at supporting

young people's skills and dispositions to

think and act as digital citizens.

Ultimately, we want young people to get the best out of

media and technology in their lives. Together, we can help

them tap into the positive opportunities to thrive as

learners, leaders, and citizens in the digital age.

About the Authors

Carrie James is a research associate and principal investigator

at Project Zero Her work explores young people's digital, moral,

and civic lives. Over the past decade, Carrie has led and

collaborated on research and educational initiatives focused on

ethical issues in digital life, participatory politics in a connected

age, and cross-cultural online learning experiences. Her

publications include the book Disconnected: Youth, New Media,

and the Ethics Gap (The MIT Press, 2014) as well as more than a

dozen peer-reviewed publications. Carrie has an M.A. and a

Ph.D. in sociology from NYU. She is also a parent of two

technology-loving children, age 11 and 15.

Emily Weinstein is a senior researcher at Project Zero. Her

work examines how social technologies inﬂuence the everyday

lives of tweens, teens, and young adults. Emily's research

appears in academic journals like the Journal of Adolescent

Research, New Media & Society, and Computers in Human Behavior,

and has been covered by a number of popular publications. She

is passionate about the translation of research into practical

supports for schools and families. Emily holds a master's degree

in prevention science and practice, and a doctorate in human

development and education, both from Harvard University. She

is also the mom of a toddler.

Kelly Mendoza is Vice President of Education Programs at

Common Sense Education, overseeing the Digital Citizenship

Curriculum, edtech ratings and reviews, and articles and advice

content for educators. Her goal is to create curricula and

programs that help students think critically about the media

they consume and create, and that help schools create a positive

culture around media and technology. She has also developed

curricula and resources for Classroom Champions, Resilient

Educator, Lucas Learning, and the Media Education Lab. Kelly

has a Ph.D. in media and communication from Temple University.

She is the parent of a daughter who's a fan of Harry Potter … and

rock climbing.

Project Zero Background

Project Zero (PZ) is a research center at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. For over 50

years, PZ researchers have been studying the nature of intelligence, understanding, thinking,

creativity, and ethics, and developing pedagogical frameworks to support learners of all ages,

across disciplines and learning contexts.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to our Common Sense and Project Zero colleagues for valuable guidance and

support on this report. These colleagues include Linda Burch, Eisha Buch, Katie Davis, Howard

Gardner, Barbara Huth, Liz Kline, Michael Robb, and Daniel Vargas-Campos.

We appreciate the educators and students who participated in our Digital Dilemmas surveys. We

are grateful also to the educators who participated in in-depth interviews for our study, and

shared invaluable insights about their digital citizenship efforts and approaches. These educators

include Charlie Beck, Alzada Benton, Marianne P. Burns, Michelle Ciccone, Sean R. Coffron,

Rebbecca Colley, Emily DeGroot, James Denby, Kelly Erceg, Riana Fisher, Kelden Formosa, Holly

Gerla, Gus Goodwin, Lisa R. Hack, Kristina M. Hansen, Kiri Harris, Paula Hinson, Jill Kaplan, Jessica

Kauffman, Kathleen Lane, Brenda Lawrence, Joanna Macintosh, Angela Berna Milliren, Terri

Myers, Daniel Nemerow, Tom Reddy, Andy Silverstein, Sandra Saco, Bobby Shaddox, Kaylee Yoshii

Spiegelman, Christy Tenney, Denise Tree, Leslie Salmon-Zhu, Peter Smyth, Max Stossel, Maria

Quepons, Edgar Raigoza, Christy Story, Becky Tandy, Robin Ulster, Monica Villar, Jessica Herring

Watson, Amy Williams, A. Tyshaun Wilson, Guillermina Zabala, and as well as others who

participated anonymously to support the work.

Appendix: About the Research

The Digital Dilemmas (DD) project is a mixed-methods research initiative that tours perspectives

on digital life, especially from young people and educators. The research explores how the

contemporary landscape of digital media use necessitates new or updated approaches from adults

interested in supporting students. A key practical aim of the phase of this research from 2017 to

2020 was to revisit and revise, as appropriate, the overarching topics, lessons, and approaches in

Common Sense Education's Digital Citizenship Curriculum. Our ﬁndings had theoretical,

pedagogical, and practical signiﬁcance for the curriculum. Updated features include a guiding

framework of Dispositions for Digital Citizenship, Digital Life Dilemmas relevant to current

challenges teens face, and new pedagogical approaches (Thinking Routines) intentionally designed

to support target Dispositions. This appendix provides an overview of how several key insights

from that research shaped implications for updates to the middle and high school curriculum in

2019.

STUDENT SURVEYS

Aims: To explore young people's perspectives about contemporary digital citizenship topics and

including bright spots and challenges, tap into areas where current approaches might be falling

short, and consider grade-related differences that may have implications for digital citizenship

education in the classroom.

Sample: Between 2018 and 2019, the DD team surveyed more than 3,600 ﬁfth through twelfth

graders in 15 U.S. middle and high schools. Participating schools were located across 10 U.S. states

in the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, Midwest, and West regions, and included

seven traditional public schools, seven public charter schools, and one private school. Of those

who reported demographic information, approximately 48% identiﬁed as female, 44% male, 2%

nonbinary. The sample was disproportionately middle school; 67% of respondents were in grades

5 to 8, and 33% were in grades 9 to 12. With respect to race and ethnicity, students could 'select all

that apply'; of those who responded, 52% identiﬁed as White, 19% as Hispanic/Latinx, 17% as

Black or African American, 8% as Asian or Asian American, 5% Native American/American

Indian/Alaska Native, 2% Middle Eastern or North African, 1% Paciﬁc Islander/Native Hawaiian,

and 9% Other.

Key questions: Questions asked students about their top worries about digital life, prompted for

open-ended descriptions of tech-related beneﬁts and challenges, and then used Likert-style scales

with open-ended elaboration to explore views on various digital dilemmas, including those related

to friendship, sexting, hate speech, and digital footprints.

One survey question we asked was especially revealing: What worries you most about today's digital

world? Participants chose from 10 options that reﬂected salient topics, including "being asked for

inappropriate pictures," "comparing to others on social media," "connecting with strangers," "digital

drama and cyberbullying," "digital footprints or online posts lasting forever," "pressure to always

stay connected," "risks to private information," "seeing inappropriate content," "too much screen

time," and "other (please specify)." All participants were prompted for an open-ended explanation

(Why is [response] your biggest worry?). At the time, this list of options felt like a relatively

comprehensive representation of relevant topics. If we were conducting the study in 2021, we

would include additional topics that we know are salient (e.g., fake news and political polarization).

Still, the data clariﬁed a range of perspectives on these issues from young people who were

especially concerned about them.

Key insights and implications for the curriculum:

● Responses clariﬁed the positive and even essential opportunities of digital life for social

connection, learning, civic engagement, and more. Yet they also illuminated coexisting

challenges. Many of these challenges reﬂected issues that are already well documented in

research and reﬂected in the curriculum (e.g., cyberbullying concerns, privacy issues). Yet

there were also challenges described in new ways and/or with new dimensions.

● Concerns about managing digital habits suggested a strong desire, for some young people,

to feel less dependent on devices. They wanted to feel more in control of their tech use,

and avoid getting 'sucked in' in ways that displace other needs and interests. After

analyzing their responses about issues related to screen time, we began developing a

protocol speciﬁcally designed to build both digital agency and healthy media balance,

through taking stock and taking control of digital habits (Digital Habits Check-Up).

● Young people were divided on a range of digital dilemmas. Their own discussions of digital

issues surfaced a collection of further tensions about social dilemmas that arise in their

digital lives and often lack straightforward right or wrong answers. As they described

various worries about growing up with today's technologies, they also voiced concern that

they do not (or would not) know what to do in a variety of social digital situations, from

cyberbullying to privacy issues. This fueled our focus on creating a set of realistic scenarios

without clear cut right or wrong answers (Digital Life Dilemmas) and a protocol to help

tweens and teens think through those situations in ways that could support anticipatory

reﬂection, perspective-taking, communication, and decision-making (Feelings & Options).

● Data from this group also underscored how social media intersects with civic issues and a

polarized political landscape. The process of developing one's own stances and

participating civically now takes place with and through digital spaces and tools that can be

public, permanent, and widely shared or viewed. This fueled development of a routine

speciﬁcally keyed to civic digital dilemmas, and intentionally designed to support

self-reﬂection, active listening, and discussion across differences (Take a Stand). Relatedly,

concerns about fake news and misinformation bolstered an effort that was already in

motion at Common Sense to design news literacy tools.

● Other topic-speciﬁc insights led to corresponding changes in lessons about topics like

sexting, media balance, and hate speech. For example, young people described pressures

related to sexting and particular concern about nonconsensual forwarding of nudes;

accordingly, we developed a sexting-related Digital Life Dilemma that directly raises the

issue of nonconsensual sharing of naked pictures.

EDUCATOR SURVEYS

Aims: To explore common and creative pedagogical approaches and emphases in lessons about

digital citizenship as well as topic areas of concern and educators' views on timely digital

dilemmas.

Sample: In October 2017, the DD team surveyed 1,284 educators from across the United States,

and over 80 educators in more than 24 countries. Respondents lived and taught in urban,

suburban, and rural contexts in 49 U.S. states and abroad. These educators worked in public,

private, and faith-based schools, and served young people from diverse socioeconomic, racial,

ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds.

Key questions: Questions asked educators to describe details of their past lessons and

interventions related to digital citizenship. We analyzed open-ended responses to glean common

pedagogical approaches and emphases as well as to identify potentially promising and powerful

practices (which we followed up on through subsequent in-depth interviews, described below).

We also used multiple choice and Likert-type questions to ask about major topics/areas of concern

and educator views on digital dilemmas.

Key insights and implications for the curriculum:

● Educators self-described a tendency to fall back on individualistic and

consequence-oriented messages when talking about digital topics (e.g., "Inappropriate

posts can affect you in many ways both socially, academically, and legally," and "Posting

comments online is like shouting them on the town square, except that they NEVER go

away, and they do have consequences," and "You are what you post—now, tomorrow, and

in the future." Considering the messages alongside the survey data makes it clear how and

why such well-intentioned messages can fall short. For example, advice to "take care of

your digital footprint" can fall short in a digital context where other people are co-authors

of one's footprint through (at times unwanted) photo posting and tagging. Attention to the

moral responsibilities young people have to each another in this context is also crucial. We

therefore focused on ensuring the curriculum's lessons direct both student and educator

attention to multiple spheres of inﬂuence: Self & Personal Well-Being, Community & Close

Ties, and Wider World & Civic Life, as reﬂected in the Rings of Responsibility framework

(Rings of Responsibility).

● Digital drama and cyberbullying remained a key issue from educators' perspectives, and

teachers described myriad forms of online meanness and ﬁghts that their schools grappled

with in recent years. These included: hateful online speech directed at students or groups;

hate pages and fake accounts designed to target individuals; composite, crowd-sourced

accounts or lists (e.g., 'ugly lists,' unkind polls about students); threats of physical violence;

strategic anonymity to post cruel content; videotaping and posting ﬁghts; publicly sharing

embarrassing pictures; "subbing;" meanness in group text chats; intersections with hate

speech; self-bullying; and mocking comments. These stories reinforced the importance of

social and emotional learning related to digital citizenship (reﬂected through the lessons

and thinking routines) and surfaced themes that are now reﬂected in Digital Life

Dilemmas and lessons about Cyberbullying, Digital Drama & Hate Speech.

● Educators acknowledged that students may have more digital expertise and even full

vocabularies of apps and practices that are unfamiliar to adults. Thus, teachers voiced a

recurring worry about how they, as facilitators, could and should support young people.

Thinking Routines, which can be used repeatedly without extended preparation or

requisite knowledge, provide touchstones or 'dry land' for facilitating lessons on digital

situations that may feel foreign or beyond educators' immediate expertise. We designed

the routines to help educators focus on scaffolding certain types of thinking

(self-reﬂection, exploring perspectives, envisioning options and impacts) that are both

familiar and vital.

● Educators' own responses to digital dilemma scenarios revealed deep polarization on a

number of the speciﬁc issues addressed in the Digital Citizenship curriculum. Their

polarized views on digital civic situations (such as use of social media to out and publicly

shame someone for hate speech; who is 'at fault' when a sext is shared) underscored the

complexity of thorny digital dilemmas and the need for speciﬁc facilitation tools and

guidance.

137

EDUCATOR INTERVIEWS

Aims: To deepen understanding of pedagogical intentions, moves, approaches, and facilitation

guidance from innovating digital citizenship educators.

Sample: In the fall of 2017 and winter of 2018, the DD team interviewed approximately 25

educators in North America and the U.K. Participants were respondents to the DD Educator

Survey (see above) and were recruited for interviews based on their reported use of innovative

approaches to teaching digital topics.

Key questions: In semi-structured interviews, we asked about the approaches (including

pedagogies) innovating educators used as they taught challenging digital topics (e.g., sexting,

digital footprints, online hate speech), as well as existing and desired resources that support their

digital citizenship teaching.

Key insights and implications for the curriculum

● Innovating educators expressed a need for approaches to digital citizenship that go beyond

naming risks and toward helping young people truly navigate digital life outside the

classroom (e.g., when making real-world decisions about whether or not to send a risky

picture at 10:00 p.m. on a Saturday night). This insight fueled the current focus on a

dispositional approach to digital citizenship (Skills and Dispositions).

● Innovating educators used approaches that leaned into (rather than skirting) the

complexity of thorny digital situations. Strategies included use of realistic scenarios and

dilemmas, identiﬁcation of 'red ﬂag' moments and choice points, and anticipatory exercises

137

Visit our educator center for templates and guidance on using Digital Life Dilemmas and Thinking Routines.

that help students develop language and communication skills for real digital situations.

These insights led to inclusion of the collection of digital dilemma scenarios and of thinking

routines that support personal reﬂection, ethics spotting, perspective-taking,

communication skills, and agency building. These pedagogical moves are embedded

throughout repeated lessons and all three Thinking Routines.

● Interviews also pointed to the value of classroom approaches to digital citizenship that are

student-centered, and even student-led, which has been a long-standing emphasis of

Common Sense lessons. The curriculum includes activities such as classroom debates (e.g.,

Take a Stand), engagement with authentic scenarios, and creating personal tech use

challenges (Digital Habits Check-Up).

CLASSROOM FIELD RESEARCH

Aims: To iterate and reﬁne the new thinking routines, test and develop a robust set of digital

dilemma scenarios, and identify facilitation needs

Sample: Sixteen teachers and 435 students located across ﬁve U.S. regions in a range of settings

and community contexts.

Key questions: Each educator was asked to teach the same thinking routine a minimum of three

times. We collected and analyzed student work, surveyed students to examine their

understanding of learning goals and conceptions of lesson takeaways, surveyed teachers

immediately after lessons to capture lesson details, and conducted extended debrief interviews

with educators.

Key insights and implications for the curriculum:

● Some of the new approaches we had designed were more successful than others. We

considered pilot teachers' facilitation approaches alongside pilot routines and dilemmas to

identify elements that truly supported student engagement and target thinking aims (e.g.,

nuanced reﬂection, exploration of different perspectives). Based on pilot ﬁndings, we

revised core Thinking Routines and the Digital Life Dilemmas set. We also created a guide,

Keys to Using Digital Dilemmas, to help educators avoid common pitfalls in

dilemma-based lessons.

138

Visit our educator center for templates and guidance on using Digital Life Dilemmas and Thinking Routines.

● Universally, educators in the pilot became comfortable using the Thinking Routines. In

some cases, they developed their own digital dilemmas to use with the routines (at times

teaching with the routine well beyond the three times we had requested). These dilemmas

reﬂected digital issues salient to their community contexts; we worked with several

educators to create adaptations that are included in the ﬁnal Digital Dilemmas set.

● Educators adapted language in the routines and dilemmas to align with the ages/grade

levels, learner proﬁles, and identities of their students. We examined these adaptations

and in certain cases revised the wording of Thinking Routine steps and formal guidelines

for their use.

● We initially began by testing four Thinking Routines, but included only three in the

curriculum because one routine failed to scaffold the intended kinds of thinking and

dispositional aims.

To learn more about this research and read additional publications, visit Digital Dilemmas, Project

Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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