Doha, Qatar, 5 September 2024: The participation of Qatar Foundation’s Doha International Family Institute at the Kazan Global Youth Summit in the Republic of Tatarstan, Russian Federation, has resulted in the adoption of an action plan to effectively integrate technology into the lives of children and young adults. The resolutions from the summit – which delved into critical topics around technology and youth policy – are set to pave the way for establishing long-term cooperation programs across the countries of the Islamic world, BRICS, and the Asia-Pacific region with the aim to support youth development efforts on a global scale.

At the summit, Dr. Sharifa Al-Emadi, Executive Director of the Doha International Family Institute (DIFI), referenced the results of the two studies conducted by the Qatar Foundation (QF) member.

The first study, conducted in cooperation with QF initiatives—the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) and the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE)—and QF member, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, was titled “Adolescent Overuse of Digital Technology.” The second study, carried out in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education in Qatar, was titled “Adolescents’ Well-being in Qatar.”

The studies revealed that parents spend an excessive amount of time on electronic devices, averaging 8-10 hours per day, while 29.64 percent of adolescents said they prefer spending their time on the internet rather than engaging with others, including family members.

As for parents’ monitoring of their children’s online activity, 24 percent of them indicated that they regularly monitor their children’s online activity, while 35 percent responded that they often do so. In contrast, 41 percent of parents reported that they rarely monitor their children’s online and social media activities.

Dr. Al-Emadi’s presentation on the topic of opportunities and challenges facing families in the digital world called for the need to enhance and develop work-family balance policies and empower the youth by providing them with economic and training opportunities, which improves their ability to build stable and sustainable families. Dr. Al-Emadi concluded her presentation by urging research institutions and NGOs to collaborate with stakeholders to empower parents with the tools and skills needed to engage more effectively with their children. She emphasized the importance of leveraging the positives of digital life by adopting relevant government policies and developing evidence-based parenting programs to better support future generations.

The summit also highlighted the need to balance these advancements with the preservation of traditional values in an increasingly globalized world.