Digital technologies for healthy lifestyles? A collaborative study to develop critical digital health pedagogies with and for young people.

In the recent years, with the inclusion of digital technologies in the health field, we are witnessing to a ‘digital health revolution’. This concept of 'digital health' (also known as Health2.0, eHealth or mHealth), includes the vast array of digital technologies that are oriented not only to the prevention and treatment of health, but also to its promotion. This project focuses on the ‘digital revolution' in health promotion, in what is called 'digitized health promotion' (Lupton, 2015). Ranging from websites and online forums to the most recent technologies such as apps, social media or wearable devices (e.g.,smartwatches), these digital technologies are oriented towards the development of healthy lifestyles: physical activity, healthy diet, wellbeing, etc.

The complexities of young people's learning about health and healthy lifestyles behaviours through digital technologies provide a strong justification for this proposal. Its overall aim is to help young people to successfully navigate this complex landscape, something that has, to date, received little attention from educational researchers. Therefore, the purpose of this project is to co-develop with young people innovative and critical pedagogical ideas about digital health technologies in schools, informed by a deep understanding of the meanings, contexts and social factors that shape Spanish young people’s relation with digital health.
The relevance of the debates raised in this project takes more significance amid the COVID-19 global pandemic, which has highlighted the challenges and potentials of digital technologies to learn about and adopt healthy lifestyles in different contexts, such as homes (Clark & Lupton, 2021) or schools (Varea et al., 2020).

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