On September 12, the EUASU Academy (Ukraine) and Academia Libera Mentis (Belgium-Netherlands) held a joint international academic symposium that brought together scholars and students from Ukraine, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The discussion focused on the impact of social media and mobile devices on students’ intellectual development; however, the format of the event was much broader: participants did not limit themselves to exchanging opinions but had the opportunity to compare research approaches, ask each other questions, and discuss practical ways to address the identified issues.
Who Represented the Academic Communities and the Event Format
Representing Academia Liberamentis at the symposium were Professor Paul Frijters, co-founder and academic director of the ALM, visiting honorary professor at the London School of Economics (LSE), and professor at MBS College; Professor Gigi Foster, a professor of economics at the University of New South Wales and a researcher in education, behavioral economics, social influence, and public policy; and Professor Tjeerd Andringa, a physicist, artificial intelligence researcher, and expert on student intellectual development.
The European Academy of Sciences of Ukraine was represented by Vice President of the Academy Professor Oleg Maltsev, who works at the intersection of criminology, psychology, history, philosophy, and security studies; Olexander Sagaydak, Candidate of Psychological Sciences, a specialist in psychology, anthropology, and sociology; and Iryna Lopatyuk, a member of the Presidium and Corresponding Member of the Academy, an analyst and expert in psychodiagnostics and professional selection.
Thus, the discussion forum brought together scholars with diverse professional backgrounds but a shared goal: to explore the changes the digital environment brings to student learning and intellectual development.
The organizers departed from the usual format, in which scholars speak one after another while the audience merely listens. The symposium was structured in several rounds, with students given the opportunity to determine which of the issues raised by the scholars truly warranted further discussion. In the first round, six scholars identified the issues they considered most significant and attempted to explain their underlying causes. At this stage, the speakers were required to focus specifically on the problems themselves, without moving on to ready-made solutions. Each participant was allotted up to five minutes. Then it was the students’ turn. They selected which of the issues raised should move on to the next part of the discussion. The selection was made on an academic community basis: students from Academia Liberamentis selected questions for the Ukrainian scholars, while students from the European Academy of Sciences of Ukraine selected questions for their foreign colleagues.
Afterward, the scholars returned to the questions selected by the students with a new task: to propose possible solutions, experiments, research directions, and practical ways to respond. In this way, the students became not just a passive audience, but active participants in shaping the symposium’s agenda.
This format offers a significant advantage, particularly for international academic exchange. Each side first has the opportunity to present its own understanding of the issue, and then is required to answer questions selected by representatives from the other academic community. As a result, the exchange of experience does not take the form of two parallel sets of presentations, but rather involves a direct comparison of approaches: participants hear what specifically interested their international colleagues and students, and then respond to that with their own knowledge, research, and practical experience.
What did the scientists discuss at the symposium?
Professor Tjeerd Andringa was the first to speak. He suggested looking at the impact of smartphones not through the lens of screen time, but through the distinction between two ways humans interact with the world. One involves focusing on a limited, controlled system, while the other involves exploration, openness to uncertainty, possibilities, and interaction with the environment. In his view, smartphones are particularly well-suited to supporting the first approach: the device constantly offers users a controlled sequence of actions, thereby keeping their attention within a closed system.
Professor Andringa linked this to the broader task of intellectual development. In his view, growing up involves a transition from assimilating ready-made knowledge and controlling one’s own reactions to the ability to interact independently with the world, take responsibility, and make one’s own contribution to it. If a person remains for too long in a state where their attention is constantly directed by an external device, they risk failing to sufficiently develop the ability to explore the surrounding world on their own. This is precisely why the researcher spoke not so much about the smartphone itself as about the portion of a person’s developmental time that is taken up by constant focus on the screen.
“A smartphone is, in a sense, the ideal tool,” noted Professor Andringa, referring to its ability to function consistently and predictably. But this efficiency, in his view, has a downside: by focusing on the device, people lose some awareness of what is happening outside that system. At the end of his talk, he framed the problem even more sharply: smartphones and screens “steal time—time for development”—and can thus contribute to an imbalance in intellectual development.
Professor Gigi Foster continued along these lines, but shifted the focus from the device to the autonomy of the individual. In her view, interaction with cell phones and social media can lead a person to gradually transfer part of their own subjectivity to the device or the digital environment. She identified “the simplification of complexity” as one of the main problems. On the internet, complex issues that require lengthy reflection, contextual knowledge, and consideration of numerous interconnections are often reduced to short messages and ready-made judgments: right or wrong, yes or no, “for” or “against.”
For students, such an environment is dangerous not only because of the sheer volume of information, but also because it fosters a habit of jumping to conclusions. Foster pointed out that complex ideas require the ability to refrain from making a final judgment for a while, to remain open-minded, and to allow one’s own position to become more nuanced. If, on the other hand, a person is constantly exposed to simplified versions of complex phenomena, they may begin to seek out that same simplicity in real life.
The second aspect of her talk concerned attention. Social media constantly bombards people with new stimuli: messages, notifications, sounds, and updates. As a result, the structure of one’s attention is shaped not by the person themselves, but by the external environment. According to Foster, if a student has not learned to sustain their attention independently, the device effectively begins to do so for them. This eliminates the need to cope with boredom on their own, return to a complex task after a distraction, and maintain concentration without external stimulation.
Finally, Foster highlighted an issue that is particularly important in the academic setting: the relationship with sources of information. In the digital stream, it can be difficult to understand where information originally came from, who its source is, and what motives might lie behind its dissemination. Therefore, according to the researcher, it is not enough for a student to simply acquire information. They must be able to trace its origins, compare different perspectives, and independently determine which argument is credible. The competition of ideas, Foster emphasized, is itself part of the development of science.
Paul Frijters examined the same issue through the lens of the academic environment itself. His first point was quite practical: cell phones disrupt work right in the classroom. But he was far more concerned with what happens outside the lecture hall. According to him, a university is not only a place for the transmission of knowledge, but also a social community where people learn to interact with one another.
Frijters believes that the digital environment makes it too easy to avoid complex human relationships. If a conflict or discomfort arises, a person no longer has to stay in the situation and learn to cope with it: they can switch to their news feed, turn to another digital connection, or replace real-life communication with virtual interaction. Thus, according to the scholar, experiences that cannot be gained alone are gradually fading: the ability to negotiate, tolerate others’ personalities, resolve conflicts, and remain part of a community even when it is uncomfortable.
Another of Frijters’ observations concerned the transformation of a person into a spectator of their own life. Instead of directly participating in what is happening, people begin to record it, photograph it, publish it, and observe their own lives as a kind of content. The scholar linked this to a consumerist attitude toward the surrounding world and a decline in creative engagement, especially in academic circles.
Speaking on behalf of the Ukrainian side, Oleksandr Sagaydak proposed reframing the issue itself. He did not view digital and cyber culture as a phenomenon against which the academic community should defend itself. In his view, humanity has already gone through similar stages: in the 16th century, it was pointless to resist the culture of printed information; in the 19th century, industrial culture; and in the 20th century, radio and television. In the 21st century, information and cybernetic networks have become an objective part of the environment; therefore, the task is not to resist them, but to influence what this culture will be like.
For Sagaydak, this was not an abstract argument. He delivered his speech while in Odessa, shortly after the bombing. He directly linked the events unfolding to the symposium’s theme: combat drones, controlled using cyber and information technologies, have already become part of modern warfare. Therefore, for Ukrainian scholars, digital culture exists not only within a university lecture hall or on a smartphone screen—it is directly present in the reality around them.
Iryna Lopatyuk deliberately rejected the common explanation that students are simply distracted by their phones. She suggested looking at the situation through the students’ own eyes. According to her observations, they often frame the problem differently: “I want to study, but I just can’t bring myself to do it.” Lopatyuk then systematically listed ten situations related to phone use: automatically reaching for the device, endlessly scrolling through the feed, boredom, difficulty getting started on a complex task, fatigue from reading long texts, the lack of a natural end to a digital break, FOMO, filling every spare moment with the phone, physical presence without full intellectual engagement, and feelings of guilt.
What proved particularly important in her presentation was not the list itself, but the connection between the individual states. The complexity of an academic task can lead to reaching for the phone; this takes time; the lost time causes guilt; and that, in turn, makes it even harder to get back to work. This creates a vicious cycle. Therefore, Lopatyuk suggested not reducing what is happening to labels such as “distracted” or “addicted” student. In her words, it is much more accurate to ask, at what point does a person stop choosing for themselves what deserves their attention and simply begin to follow whatever catches their attention in the next moment.
Oleg Maltsev: “Predictability is the true enemy of methodology”
Professor Oleg Maltsev’s presentation stood out markedly from most of the others in the first round, right from the very beginning. While symposium participants spoke of smartphones and social media as sources of distraction, loss of attention, atomization, and other problems, Professor Maltsev suggested not starting by fighting the phenomenon itself. In his view, it is first necessary to understand its nature and frame the question correctly.
“It seems to me completely unnecessary to try, from the very beginning, to fight against what could be called an element of technological progress.”
In his view, cell phones, social media, and artificial intelligence are neither good nor evil in and of themselves. What matters is how people use them and what place they occupy in their lives.
From there, Professor Maltsev moved on to his main principle: before tackling a phenomenon, one must halt the process within the person who initiated it and ask the right question. Using social media as an example, he suggested looking not at Facebook as the source of the problem, but at the user themselves: why do they have this account, what exactly do they gain from their presence on the platform, and what consequences arise depending on their chosen behavior pattern.
The researcher identified several possible scenarios. A social network can be used to project a certain image of oneself; it can become a space where a person unwittingly reveals their vulnerabilities to others; it can exist in parallel with real life; or, conversely, it can become a tool for expanding one’s influence. In the latter case, according to Maltsev, the digital environment becomes a tool for personal development, rather than a substitute for it. Otherwise, a person risks paying for it with their time and reputation.
Professor Maltsev illustrated this idea not with a theoretical model, but with a short story about a naval academy. Cadets set out to sea for a practical navigation exercise, but the new rector unexpectedly shuts down all navigation systems and satellites. It turns out that without their familiar technological tools, they don’t know what to do. Upon their return, the rector explains the purpose of the experiment to them: one day, they will be held accountable not for how well the technology works, but for whether the ship made it from point A to point B and what happened to the people on board.
For Professor Maltsev, this isn’t a story about the need to abandon technology. It’s a story about the need to test one’s own abilities without technological support. That’s why the final recommendation was extremely specific:
For Professor Maltsev, this isn’t a story about the need to abandon technology. It’s a story about the need to test one’s own abilities without technological support. That’s why the final recommendation was extremely specific:
“Take your cell phone, turn it off for the whole day, and then, by the end of the day, you’ll truly see in the mirror a reflection of who you are and who you really are.”
Later, in the third round, while answering questions selected by the students, Professor Maltsev began by discussing boredom.
To explain its nature, the scientist recounted a conversation he had with American businessman Steve Lott, president of the U.S. Boxing Hall of Fame. Lott suggested he compare two situations: a person might not feel bored at all while watching a soccer game or a Mike Tyson fight for several hours, whereas an academic lecture or a book can induce boredom after just a few minutes. Why?
Professor Maltsev suggested looking for the answer neither in the length of the class itself nor in a “lazy” student. He was interested in the mechanism of predictability. If a person knows in advance how an event will end, their attention wanes. If, however, they are faced with an open-ended situation where the outcome cannot be fully predicted, interest arises.
“Predictability is the true enemy of methodology in any context,” he stated.
This thesis was unexpectedly confirmed right during the symposium. Iryna Lopatyuk, speaking from her own experience as one of Maltsev’s students, explained why his lectures continue to hold students’ attention:
“Professor Maltsev never actually repeats himself.”
According to her, students don’t know in advance how the class will end, so they look forward to what comes next. She attributed this to a distinctive feature of his methodology and his attitude toward students: the outcome depends not only on the content of the lecture but also on how deeply the student is engaged in the process.
Professor Maltsev himself expanded on this idea from a different perspective. He recalled his own teenage experiences and admitted:
“I wasn’t born a professor. I was an ordinary teenager; I was never a straight-A student. I wasn’t interested in school at all because I was completely absorbed in sports.”
According to him, the situation was changed by teachers who managed to spark his interest and guide him in his studies. Therefore, Maltsev is not inclined to automatically place the blame for a lack of interest in studying on the students.
“This is a serious problem for those who teach,” he said.
The scientist then moved on to the second topic chosen by the students—attention management. Here, his discussion once again extended far beyond the realm of smartphones.
Maltsev pointed out that the problem of attention did not arise with the advent of TikTok or smartphones. According to him, humanity has been grappling with this issue for millennia. As an example, he drew on the history of fencing—a field he has studied extensively—and demonstrated that controlling an opponent’s attention was once literally a matter of life and death. Modern digital technologies use the same fundamental principle, only on a larger scale: multimedia, social media, mobile devices, and artificial intelligence are capable of capturing and holding human attention more and more effectively.
This led to Maltsev’s practical conclusion. It is not enough for a person to learn how to concentrate. It is far more important to learn how to choose exactly where to direct one’s attention.
“It is much better to pay attention to what makes you better, rather than what turns you into a weakling,” said the scientist, boiling down a complex discussion about attention to a very practical criterion.
So, in his presentation, the smartphone gradually ceased to be the main topic of discussion. In its place came the individual, their ability to make choices, necessity, attention, interest in the unpredictable, and the quality of the educational environment. Technology, within this framework, remains a tool. The question is who controls this tool—the individual, or the mechanism designed to capture their attention itself.
And that is likely why Maltsev’s presentation proved particularly interesting to the students. He did not offer a simple answer along the lines of “phones interfere with learning—so we need to get rid of them.” Instead, he made us look at a familiar situation from a different angle: why do some classes hold our attention while others do not; why is a person capable of watching a game or a fight for hours but cannot read a few pages of a scientific text; what happens to a person when they stop independently choosing the object of their attention; and what role the instructor should play in this process.
What piqued the students’ interest and how the scholars answered their questions
The second round showed that after the first round of presentations, the students had very specific questions. The Ukrainian participants chose two topics proposed by Academia Liberamentis for further discussion: what role a mentor should play beyond direct teaching, and how a student can determine whether the solution to a problem suggested to them actually works.
The Belgian-Dutch students made a different choice. They were interested in two points raised by the Ukrainian researchers: what happens when a person stops managing their own attention and allows themselves to be constantly distracted by external stimuli, and why boredom causes discomfort. Johan Praamsma, a representative of the international students, explained that these two topics in particular seemed especially relevant to them in a world where people are constantly surrounded by a vast number of things vying for their attention.
Thus, the students’ questions quite accurately highlighted the difference in interests between the two audiences. Ukrainian students were primarily interested in who should help students cope with the digital environment and how, while their Belgian and Dutch colleagues were interested in what happens to the very mechanism of attention and the ability to learn.
Paul Frijters was the first to answer the Ukrainian students’ questions. His response began with a rather stark comparison: a mentor should not become someone who simply dispenses another “dose of knowledge” to a student, after which the student either accepts or rejects it. Frijters believes that the mission of the academic environment is much broader: it is about a person’s personal and emotional development.
Hence his proposal to bring a closer-knit academic community back into education. Frijters recalled the historical model of small academic communities, where faculty and students are in constant contact and learn from one another. In his view, such an environment offers far more opportunities for personal development than a situation where a student sees a mentor only during a single class session.
“Research and learning take place in both directions,” the professor emphasized. Young scholars and students can enrich their mentors through their quicker mastery of new methods and fresh insights.
In response to the second question—how to determine whether the proposed solution works—Frijters addressed it through the concept of personal worldview. In his view, intellectual development involves the ability to gradually select what truly works and turn it into one’s own set of tools. But to do this, a student needs an environment where they can ask complex questions, experiment, and not be afraid to make mistakes.
Frijters spoke of curiosity, confidence, and emotional safety as the conditions for such learning. Even a student who initially just stares at their phone should gradually be given the opportunity to form new habits: to participate in complex conversations, take on intellectual challenges, and find enjoyment in doing so.
Gigi Foster expanded on this idea from a different perspective. In her view, today’s students may arrive at college already accustomed to passively consuming information and expecting someone else to determine what they should study and exactly how to do so. Therefore, a mentor’s role is not only to impart knowledge but also to give students permission to be independent.
“You’re learning to be a leader for yourself, for your own mind,” Foster put it. She believes that students need to be given assignments in which the instructor deliberately refrains from intervening and allows them to seek solutions on their own. Such an experience of independent action, in her view, is especially important for the current generation.
Foster suggests a fairly simple way to assess the outcome of education: look at where a person wants to return to. If, after completing the course, a student begins to reach for their phone less often and shows a stronger desire for real interaction with instructors, classmates, and the world around them, this may be a practical indication that changes have taken place.
Tjeerd Andringa continued the discussion on mentoring across levels of intellectual development. He divided the learning process into several stages and highlighted the transition from mastering methods to understanding why a person does what they do. At higher levels, students begin to seek alternative perspectives and are able to move beyond their usual intellectual circle. For Andringa, this is the beginning of self-directed learning: a person begins to take control of their own development process.
The Ukrainian side answered the questions selected by the Belgian-Dutch students based on their own scientific and pedagogical experience.
The question about boredom proved particularly revealing. Professor Maltsev’s response, which we examined in detail above, touched on the idea of a connection between boredom and predictability. But Olexander Sagaydak suggested looking at this problem differently: in his opinion, the scientific community of the future will, in fact, find it difficult to be bored, since the main task of science is becoming the management of complexity.
“The science of the future will, first and foremost, be the science of managing complexity,” said Sagaydak. He linked this prospect to the development of cybernetics, semantics, and “human-machine” systems, in which information is important not in and of itself, but when it changes the state of the system.
Iryna Lopatyuk suggested moving from a discussion about attention to a small experiment. She asked the participants to hold out their hand, look at their own thumb, and try to keep their attention on it for as long as possible. According to her, this exercise allows people to realize just how limited their ability is to maintain focus on a single object for an extended period.
From there, Lopatyuk moved on to practical recommendations. She suggested taking four factors into account: the reason, the environment, time, and a certain element of external pressure that compels one to see the task through to the end. Particularly interesting was her idea about individual learning environments: silence helps one person, music helps another, and the presence of a specific person nearby helps yet another.
She focused separately on time. Instead of trying to force oneself to work on a single task for several hours straight, Lopatyuk suggested breaking the work into intervals of varying lengths—from one to thirty minutes—and determining in advance when to shift one’s attention. In doing so, she explicitly linked this part of her answer to Oleg Maltsev’s technological approach.
An interesting exchange ensued: the Belgian and Dutch students were intrigued by the question of how people manage their own attention, and the Ukrainian researchers addressed it on several levels simultaneously—ranging from history and methodology to a simple experiment that each participant could conduct on themselves.
The participants agreed to continue their academic exchange
In the closing segment of the symposium, Paul Frijters suggested viewing the results of the meeting as the beginning of further work. According to him, it is no longer possible to avoid the new information environment, and the technology itself is not unequivocally a negative phenomenon. Smartphones, social media, and access to a vast amount of information offer people new opportunities; therefore, the task of the academic community is to learn to live with them and use them to the greatest possible benefit.
Frijters suggested not seeking a blanket ban, but rather experimenting and studying which educational approaches actually work. He drew attention to the experience of families in Silicon Valley who consciously limit their children’s use of cell phones at an early age, and suggested treating this issue as a subject for scientific research: first, minimize potential harm, and then look for ways to make technology a useful learning tool. “We, too, will experiment and see where it leads us,” said the professor, effectively outlining the direction of future work.
This approach also opens up opportunities for collaboration between Academia Liberamentis and the European Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The participants agreed to continue their academic exchange and revisit the issues that arose during the current discussion. At the same time, the structure of the symposium itself demonstrated that such meetings can serve as a platform not only for presenting completed research but also for raising new questions, jointly seeking solutions, and conducting follow-up experiments. The moderator of the meeting also noted that many of the ideas raised could be pursued in future research and collaboration between the two academies.
After the symposium, we spoke with the students, and they noted that the opportunity to choose the questions themselves—which the scientists were then asked to answer—made them feel much more engaged in the proceedings.
“I liked that here, students aren’t just listeners. We chose the questions we really wanted to discuss ourselves, and we saw how scientists approach solving them in different ways. This helps you start to see scientific discussion as a process in which you can participate yourself.”
Another participant shared his impressions of the event:
“I think it’s important that after a meeting like this, the questions don’t end when the event does. On the contrary, it sparks a desire to continue the discussion, explore the ideas we heard, and meet with the scientists again with new questions. I’d like to participate in future events like this.”
For the European Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, hosting such meetings has a broader significance. Despite the harsh conditions of war, constant threats, and extraordinary circumstances, the Academy continues to make every effort to ensure that Ukrainian scientists remain part of the international scientific dialogue, represent the Ukrainian scientific community, and have the opportunity to exchange experiences directly with their international colleagues. This symposium served as yet another example of this work: scientific cooperation continues, and Ukrainian researchers’ international connections are gaining new opportunities for development.