TEACHING INFORMATION LITERACY AS A TOOL FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL SECURITY IN ADOLESCENTS IN DIGITAL AGE

Abstract

This article focuses on teaching information literacy as a key tool for enhancing adolescents’ psychological security. The study emphasizes the critical role that information literacy plays in the lives of young people, particularly in addressing the challenges of the digital age. The authors draw on the works of both domestic and international scholars in the field of information and psychological security. The aim of this study is to highlight the critical role of information literacy in adolescent development and investigate how strengthening these skills contributes to psychological security in the digital age. The study involved 136 tenth-grade students, divided into control and experimental groups. The analysis of results, conducted using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test and Spearman correlation analysis, revealed statistically significant improvements in information literacy and emotional well-being among students in the experimental group. The study confirmed the existence of a relationship between the level of information literacy and indicators of adolescents’ psychological security in the digital environment. The obtained results indicate that the systematic integration of information literacy into the educational process may be important for developing adolescents' ability to withstand digital threats.