The Role of New Media in Building Social Skills of Students With and Without Disabilities

Digital technologies are an integral part of our everyday life, and new media have changed the way we communicate. New forms of communication are most evident among school children, whose upbringing and education is marked by the immersion in the world of social media and internet technologies. The authors of this paper aim to analyze the influence of new media on the development of school children’s social skills. It is based on a quantitative study of the impact of the length of daily usage of new media on elementary school students’ social skills (with and without disabilities), seen from the perspective of both parents and teachers. The results were gained by the survey conducted on a representative sample of primary schools in the Republic of Croatia in the school year 2018/2019. Comparative analysis of the results obtained with similar research results led to a conclusion of the synergistic impact of new media and new communication channels on the development of social skills of students. The authenticity of this research is established in the approach involving both parents and teachers and the material on which the research was conducted (students with and without disabilities). The scientific contribution was achieved at different levels: at the cognitive level through the development of information concepts of social skills, while at the methodological level through the development of original methodology of qualitative comparison of respondents’ attitudes by making a statistical analysis of dynamic ontological parameters. Finally, on the practical level through the application of defined information concepts in the study of the impact of new media on the development of social skills.