#What´sUP_TuDecides – Healthy Influencer of Internet and Gaming Use

Problematic internet and gaming use is a growing concern, especially among adolescents and young adults.

In 2020, we developed two programs to prevent problematic internet and gaming/gambling use and promote digital literacy: #What´sUP_TuDecides, targeted at youngs, and #WhatsUP_NetEducando, targeted at educators.

The #What´sUP_TuDecides program aims to promote skills associated with digital resilience, namely: 1) Promoting valid and empirically supported information about what constitutes healthy/problematic internet and gaming/gambling use; 2) Reducing positive expectations about the results of internet and gaming/gambling use; 3) Dispelling myths about internet and gaming/gambling; and, 4)Providing knowledge about internet safety.

The program is designed for two 90-minute sessions or four 45-minute sessions, and is targeted primarily at young people in the 2nd and 3rd cycles and secondary school. Currently, the following indicators are considered for evaluating the program: 1) student satisfaction and self-perception of impact, and 2) teacher satisfaction assessment.



The program was implemented in the academic years 2021/2022 and 2022/2023, in 116 classes in the 2nd and 3rd cycles, with a total sample of 1743 students from public schools in the municipalities of Lisbon, Amadora, Sintra, and Cascais.

The results of the student satisfaction assessment suggest, in general, above-average values ​​for satisfaction with their participation in the program and the dynamics of the same. The results related to the students self-perception of the aspects they assess to have acquired and improved related to their digital resilience also stand out with significantly positive average values. Result indicators that reinforce the usefulness of this intervention.

With regard to the teacher satisfaction assessment, the evaluations were also positive.



The #What´sUP_TuDecides program is a promising initiative for preventing problematic internet and gaming use among adolescents. The evaluation to date suggests that the program is useful and important for promoting digital literacy and digital resilience in this population.

Working with parents and educators is of extreme importance in this area, as in all other areas related to the healthy development of young people, so the existence of the complementary version #WhatsUP_NetEducando is another asset.

In the future, we intend to optimize the outcome assessment methods in order to improve the impact assessment of the program in the internet and gaming use of the youngs.