Digital Empowerment for Youth: Experimental Evidence from India

Last registered on July 01, 2024

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Digital Empowerment for Youth: Experimental Evidence from India
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0013341
Initial registration date
June 29, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
July 01, 2024, 12:59 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Stanford University

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
UIUC
PI Affiliation
University of Glasgow

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2024-02-13
End date
2025-12-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Concerns about the negative impacts of smartphones and social media have risen alongside their surging use in developing countries. One potential solution is educational interventions to encourage users to optimize their interactions with digital technologies. We co-created a multi-week, evidence-based digital empowerment curriculum designed to expand students’ ability to exert deliberate control over their use of social media and smartphones. We implement this curriculum with college students in India as a classroom-based course and as a text message-based course. Using a randomized controlled trial, we evaluate both versions of the curriculum and estimate the effects of exposure to the curriculum on social media consumption, mental health, misinformation discernment, sleep and concentration, and academic outcomes.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Joshi, Mridul, Jalnidh Kaur and Lena Song. 2024. "Digital Empowerment for Youth: Experimental Evidence from India." AEA RCT Registry. July 01. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.13341-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We evaluate educational interventions designed to promote healthier digital behavior, using a digital empowerment curriculum and microlearning.
Intervention Start Date
2024-09-01
Intervention End Date
2024-10-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
social media consumption, use of commitment device, mental health, identifying misinformation
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
academic outcomes, concentration in class, sleep, social comparisons
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We evaluate two versions of the curriculum using a 2x2 design: a classroom-based and a text message-based version (``microlearning").

The digital empowerment intervention has two treatment arms: students in the treatment group will be exposed to the Digital Empowerment curriculum over several weeks, and students in the pure control group will only participate in surveys and not be exposed to this curriculum.

The microlearning course is designed to be a light-touch version of the classroom-based course. Students assigned to the microlearning course will receive a condensed version of the module from the corresponding week in the form of text messages.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
major-year-section in a university program
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
100
Sample size: planned number of observations
6000
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
50 treatment and 50 control clusters
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
IRB Approval Date
2023-12-04
IRB Approval Number
IRB23-0123
IRB Name
Stanford University
IRB Approval Date
2024-01-17
IRB Approval Number
IRB-73061
IRB Name
Institute of Financial Management and Research
IRB Approval Date
2023-10-30
IRB Approval Number
N/A