Media use in times of COVID-19 : How children and adolescents in Austria used media to cope with the first year of the pandemic

This study explored how Austrian children (6-10 years) and adolescents (13-17 years) used media to cope with everyday challenges in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Qualitative interviews and group discussions allowed retrospective insights into nearly one year of pandemic life. A category-based thematic analysis of the data showed that participants perceived media as critical for coping with the crisis. The children and adolescents extended their usual media practices to new contexts, but also developed new media strategies for mastering school, maintaining relationships, fighting boredom, and keeping up-to-date. While fighting boredom was the dominant media topic among children, adolescents used media more broadly in all aspects of their lives. This produced ambivalence among the latter group, since they perceived media as essential in meeting their daily needs but also felt overloaded. Overall, though media helped overcome the restrictions of the pandemic, they could not completely replace the functions of non-mediated alternatives.