Project ASAP - A Systemic APproach to social media and pre-adolescents through thinking skills education

The ASAP project focuses on the use of social networking sites among adolescents aged 11–13 (i.e. preadolescents) and the dangers they face. Schools already offer a number of awareness-raising programmes for adolescents about the dangers of the Internet and social networking sites, but these programmes are generally limited to the legal and psychological aspects of prevention or risk-avoidance against potential abuse. Due to the rapidly changing nature of social networking sites and the emergence of new social networking sites and media every year, most of these programmes soon become outdated and useless.

In contrast to these programmes, the ASAP project will address the digital literacy of adolescents and the safe use of social networking sites through the development of metacognition, which is the knowledge of one’s own cognitive abilities and the ability to change one’s own way of learning. Metacognition is a broader reflection on thinking and judging, and provides a structural approach for flexible, critical and safe use of social networking sites in a rapidly changing context.

The primary aim of the ASAP project is to empower schools to address the challenges related to the safe use of social networking sites by pre-adolescents aged 11–13, using approaches based on metacognition and reflection on the cognitive processes related to the use of social networking sites, not only from a psychological and pedagogical perspective, but also from a transdisciplinary perspective.