The impact of digital literacy program on digital addiction tendency in infants and digital burnout in parents

Aim: The aim of this study was to examine the impact of Digital Literacy Program on digital addiction tendency in infants and digital burnout in parents. Material and Method: The study, designed as a mixed-method research, consists of a pre-test, post-test, and permanence test with a control group, forming an experimental design. In the qualitative dimension of the research, parent opinions were examined by administering the "Semi-Structured Interview Form" prepared for parents. The study was conducted with 40 parents (15 in the experimental group, 25 in the control group) who had children aged between 6 to 36 months. As data collection tools, a personal information form, digital addiction tendency scale for infants, and digital burnout scale were used. The parents in the experimental group received a 12-session Digital Literacy training, while no intervention was applied to the parents in the control group. A two-way ANOVA method was used to determine the effect of the experimental treatment by considering the intragroup, intergroup, and interaction effects between pretest and posttest in mixed designs. T-test was conducted to examine the differences in pretest scores of the DATS and DBS scales, as well as the sub-dimensions of the DBS scale, between the experimental and control groups. To examine the permanence of the experimental procedure, only the pretest, posttest, and permanance scores in the experimental group were analyzed using the repeated measures ANOVA test. Results: The results indicate that there was a significant difference in the levels of digital burnout among the parents and the tendency of digital addiction among the babies in the experimental group after the implementation of the digital literacy training program (p<0.05). Conclusion: The findings suggest that the digital literacy program has a positive impact on reducing digital addiction tendencies in infants and digital burnout in parents.