The Controversial Relationship Between Adolescents' Media Use and School Performance

In a deep mediatized society, adolescents' media use and its impact on school performance are hotly debated. As a result, educational policy and practice place strong demands for em-pirical evidence to inform decisions on issues such as smartphone bans at schools or social media restrictions for young users. Research findings are divided: while some emphasize negative correlations (e.g., following the so-called mitigation hypotheses), others see a thoroughly positive influence of media use on school-related skills, depending on the type and extent of media use. In most studies, the focus is on specific media practices, and too little consideration is given to social and societal factors. Based on these controversies, this article presents the learning-related media repertoire approach, which makes it possible to not only include the individual media practices of young people in an actor-oriented, relational and cross-media perspective but also to take social and societal influencing factors into account.