Digital Empowerment for Youth: Experimental Evidence from India

Last registered on October 09, 2025
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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.

Last updated
October 09, 2025, 1:47 AM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country
India
Region
Punjab

Primary Investigator

Name
Mridul Joshi
Affiliation
Stanford University
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Lena Song
PI Affiliation
UIUC
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PI Name
Jalnidh Kaur
PI Affiliation
University of Glasgow
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2024-02-13
End date
2025-12-31
Keywords
Behavior, Education, Health
Additional Keywords
social media, digital addiction, self control, habit, misinformation, digital literacy
JEL code(s)
C93, D83, D91, I23, I31, L82, L86, O33
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. 2025. "Digital Empowerment for Youth: Experimental Evidence from India." AEA RCT Registry. October 09. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.13341-1.1
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We evaluate educational interventions designed to promote healthier digital behavior, using a digital empowerment curriculum and microlearning.
Intervention (Hidden)
The digital empowerment curriculum treatment is a 3-session program designed to develop skills for intentional use of digital media among college students in India. It focuses on building awareness about the impact of social media on well-being, addressing issues of self-control associated with social media use, and providing tools to manage suboptimal usage of social media. Students are exposed to practical strategies to regulate and monitor their usage, such as using commitment devices to manage screen time. Additionally, to train students to discern misinformation, the program teaches skills such as fact-checking and lateral reading, utilizing a spectrum of misinformation types to enhance understanding. The content will be delivered in a mix of English and Punjabi, the preferred communication mode in universities in Punjab. In-person sessions will be held during regular class slots to ensure maximum student attendance.

The microlearning treatment is designed to be a light-touch version of the full curriculum. It will be conducted alongside the digital empowerment intervention. Students assigned to the microlearning treatment will receive a condensed version of the digital empowerment lesson from the corresponding week, followed by a question from the lesson. Based on their response, the user will receive another message that informs them whether they answered correctly, followed by an explanation of the correct and incorrect responses. We plan to send three sets of text messages corresponding to each of the three digital empowerment lessons, spread across the week following the digital empowerment session.
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
We will conduct random assignment for the digital empowerment intervention at the cluster level, considering students in a university-cohort-major as being in a cluster. We stratify our sample at the university-major level. Given that students with different interests and motivations might self-select into different majors, stratification on major ensures balance across treatment and control on these unobservables.

The microlearning intervention will be assigned at the individual level. Given the possibility of spillovers with an individual-level design, we aim to create groups with different levels of treatment intensity that create variation in the extent of spillovers across these groups. We will first randomize clusters to two groups: the share of students receiving microlearning within the classroom being 0 or 50 percent. Within each type of group, we will then randomize at the individual level and assign microlearning treatment.
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)
Supporting Documents and Materials
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
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials