Digital self-development: self-assessed criteria, preferred activities, and effective strategies among young people

Abstract

Introduction. For nearly 20 years, digital self-development has remained a key global trend among youth, giving rise to a distinct segment of the digital economy, comprising online training courses, educational programs, and workshops. These in turn shape new values, worldviews, and standards of living, activity, and competitiveness. Aim. Compare ideas about digital self-development among the youth generations. Materials and methods. The experiment was conducted in 2025 at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics and involved 110 students, including 73 bachelor’s and 37 master’s degree students. The study employed an original questionnaire and comparative data analysis using the chi-square test (contingency tables). Results. The experiment revealed that the amount of time devoted to self-development (more than 70% engage in it regularly), preferred areas (creativity and sports), and engagement in the arts (over 50%) were common to both bachelor’s and master’s degree students. The most pronounced differences concerned the motivation and ideals of an effectively self-developing individual. Young people associate digital self-development with the improvement of adaptability, purposefulness, self-confidence, independence, erudition, and creativity. Conclusion. The study confirmed the significant importance of this phenomenon among youth and validated the hypothesis that students are strongly motivated to pursue self-development in order to improve their living standards and competitiveness. This study clarifies the concept of digital self-development and provides a scientific assessment of its psychological nature through a self-assessment of criteria, ideal images, needs, strategies, and preferred activities among Generation Z representatives.