Digital natives and lockdown: the digital life of children during the pandemic between smartphones and the “new normal”

The paper aims to present the results of the “Children and lockdown” research project conducted by the Italian Society of Primary 492 |Ricerche Ricerche Pediatric Care (SICuPP Lombardia) with the collaboration of a group of researchers from the University of Milan-Bicocca (Paolo Ferri and Chiara Bove, professors of the Department of Human Sciences for training “Riccardo Massa”) and of the spin-off of the University of Milan-Bicocca “Children Bicocca” Children and Lockdown. Two questionnaires were issued. The first in 2020 after the Lockdown and the second in 2021 after the partial winter lockdowns. The research involved more than 3,500 families in 2020 and 3,200 in 2021, all with children between zero and ten years of age residing in all the provinces of Lombardy. The aim of the research was to investigate the rhythms, rules, routines (nutrition, sleep, play, physical activity), the educational and didactic experience and the emotional states of children and parents during the lockdown (Mantovani et al. , 2021, Picca, 2021). In this article we will investigate more specifically, starting from the data collected in the two surveys (2020, 2021), the relationship of children with digital technologies