Children and adolescents today are growing up naturally in a digital world. With smartphones, tablets, and gaming consoles, they are establishing their own access to technology at an increasingly younger age, embracing the diverse possibilities offered by the internet, online services, apps, and digital games with relative ease. This not only provides them with various opportunities for information, orientation, and knowledge acquisition, for communicative exchange and social networking, for creativity and self-expression, and for societal participation, including political engagement, but they are also confronted with the dangers of the digital world at an earlier age. This refers to preemptive content-related and new consumption, communication, and behavior-related risks for personality development.

This foundational work provides educational professionals, caregivers, students of educational and communication studies, and all interested parties with a comprehensive introduction to the significant changes taking place. It outlines the facets of a new type of socialization in an increasingly mediatized society, carefully traces the altered media usage along with the opportunities and risks for the development of young people, and describes the challenges for legal regulation, educational practice, and everyday teaching, starting from the digital rights of children and adolescents to participation, protection, and support.