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• We investigate adolescents´ technology use before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. • Adolescents used technology more sophisticated during the COVID-19 pandemic. • Personal factors predicted type of adolescents´ technology use. • Adolescents' technology use was predicted by school type attended before COVID-19. • Adolescents' technology use was predicted by Parents' education during COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic has made adolescents´ technology use unavoidable for sustaining teaching and learning processes. In the present paper we conducted two studies using a person-centered latent profile analysis to examine adolescents' technology use before (Study 1, N = 643) and during (Study 2, N = 644) the COVID-19 pandemic in the region of Bavaria, Germany. While adolescents' technology use before the COVID-19 pandemic was divergent in terms of study-related and social technology use, the results show that during the COVID-19 pandemic, adolescents' technology use increased in terms of both, study-related and social purposes. Although our results suggest that adolescents' use of technology for study-related purposes increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, adolescents from educationally disadvantaged families still appear to be at risk of being left behind by the even more rapid digitization of the COVID-19 pandemic, for which we discuss future research and targeted interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]