Dr Lucia Magis-Weinberg There’s two recent  important document that have come out in the   United States, where my lab is located. One is  that the American Psychological Association put   forth a “Health Advisory on Social Media  Use in Adolescence,” and very soon after,   the Surgeon General of the United States  also produced a report on “Social Media   and Youth Mental Health.” So, this just  shows us how this topical this concept it,   how much we’re concerned about how to promote  the opportunities and minimise the risks for   young people online. I’m going to focus on the  advisory that the A produced – the APA produced,   because I was part of the Authors of the  panel, alongside many of my colleagues.   And I do want to talk about the ten  recommendations that they put forward, and   I’ll also tell you a bit of the research that I’ve  done in my lab, around some of these key issues. So, the first recommendation from the APA is that  youth using social media should be encouraged to   use functions that create opportunities for social  support, online companionship, emotional intimacy,   to really promote healthy socialisation, right?  I think as I’ve shown you, social media both   amplifies the positive and negative experiences  with peers and friends. On the one hand,   we know from lots of research from different labs  around the world that social media contributes to   increased connection, to peer and friend support,  to affirmation of our many identities and the many   identities that young people are developing  in adolescence. It is, as you showed you,   a great source of mental health resources,  and it has also led to exposure to positive   messages about mental health, about seeking  support, to reduce stigma around mental health. But on the other hand, it also contributes to  digital drama, and we define ‘digital drama’ as   “the amplification of a misunderstanding  or of a conflict online” just because of   the many features of these problems happening in  social media. But on the other hand, it can also   contribute to cyberbullying, and cyberbullying is  this concerted, constant victimisation of a young   person, where there’s a power imbalance,  where the bully is constantly seeking to   harm that other person, right? So, both of these  things can also be amplified by the online world. It is interesting that if you ask young people  about their online experiences, and we’ve done   this in my lab, we asked young people about  positive and negative online experiences, and   young people perceive their online interactions  as predominantly positive, right? So, they’re   going online to feel better when they’re upset,  to get advice and counselling, to feel better   about their lives, to feel valued and to feel  connection when they’re lonely. At the same time,   they are experiencing rejection, sometimes they’re  treated badly, sometimes they can be excluded,   feel embarrassment and sadness. But it is  important that we focus on both the positive   and the negatives, and we did that in a study in  my lab, where actually, when we measure both the   positive and the negative online experiences, we  see that they have an opposite association with   loneliness, for example. So, lower loneliness  relates to more frequent positive interactions,   but also, to less frequent negative interactions,  and again, understanding the whole online   experience as a complex landscape, right, where  positive and negative things are curr – occurring. The second recommendation that in the Health  Advisory the APA put forward, is that social media   use, functionality and permissions/consenting,  should really be tailored to youths’ developmental   capabilities. Most of these products have  been designed, created for you – for adults,   and they’re not appropriate for children and  adolescents. And here, I want to talk about   the transformation framework, right? So,  typical processes – typical peer processes   in adolescence have always existed before  devices, right? So, adolescence has always   been a key period for us to develop our  friendships, our romantic relationships,   a key period where we’re very sensitive to peer  influence, where adolescents want to be popular,   and are very sensitive to status. Adolescence has  always been a period in which we try a bit with   relational aggression, we sometimes do victimise  our peers. It’s part of our learning boundaries,   learning to build relationships,  and this has always existed, right? But what happens today when a lot of these  peer processes are also happening on a screen,   and on these devices, right? And Nesi,  Choukas-Bradley and Prinstein talk about   some features of the online world that  are particularly important to consider,   right? Today, our interactions are completely  a – could be asynchronous. I can send someone a   message and receive a response three hours  later. Our conversations, interactions,   online are permanent, I can send a message,  and even if I delete it, the other person may   have already taken a screenshot and shared  with someone else, right? Our conversations,   our interactions, can now be very, very public,  right? I might think, again, that I’m talking   just with one friend, but they take a screenshot  and that screenshot get vir – gets virilised. We hear more and more from young people that they  feel this pressure to be constantly available,   right? Even in the middle of the  night, if your friend has a problem,   they’re going to contact you and they’re going to  expect that you’re answering. Our conversations   online are now much more visual, and this is  concerning in terms of body image concerns,   of social comparison, and tied to this idea  of social comparison is this idea that our   relationships or interactions currently are  completely quantifiable, right? So, as I said,   adolescents have always been preoccupied with  status and popularity. Now we can actually put   a number on li – number of likes, I can compare  how many likes I got versus my friend, right? So, all of these features of digital devices  have drastically transformed peer processes,   in positive and negative ways. So, now we are  expecting to have more frequent and immediate   experiences. There’s amplified social demands  for young people. Our social experiences are   qualitatively transformed, and we have  new opportunities and risks that are now   arising. For example, today, I’m talking to  you asynchronously at a distance, enabled by   Zoom and YouTube and all these digital  devices, right? So, that is a very positive   transformation of our relationships, but  there’s also negatives, as we’ve discussed. And some of the design features make social media  and digital media particularly engaging. So,   we’re hearing a lot from young people how they’re  finding it hard to stop. Teens describe constantly   these feelings of difficulty of controlling their  social media use, right? Here, we hear from youth   in a recent report by Common Sense Media, where  they feel that there are some features that are   causing them to spend many hours watching videos,  where they feel that it’s time consuming, and   “takes time away from doing other things I could  be doing.” Where a 14-year-old is telling us, “I   felt like I was spending too much time on social  media. It was turning into,” in their own words,   “an addiction,” or where young people are telling  us the – that the apps are wasting their time. So,   these are words, this comes directly  from youth and their opinions. As I said, we are hearing a lot this new concept  of ‘availability stress’. There’s a pressure to   remain in contact with friends and acquaintances,  and this also pulls young people to be checking   their devices constantly. They feel this pull,  and as a result, we do know that social media   sometimes, if we’re not careful, can crowd out  other very important things for young people’s   development, right? So, we know it’s displacing  sleep, it’s displacing exercise for young people,   for some of them, it’s displacing time outdoors,  and it could come and conflict with in-person   interactions. So, we want to be very mindful, very  aware, that young people are encouraged to pay   attention to balance in their lives, right? Social  media can play an important role in their lives,   as long as it doesn’t completely crowd out other  very important aspects for their development. And in line with this idea of designing better for  young people, to help young people to be in charge   of their time and of their balance, the Digital  Futures Commission and the 5Rights Foundation have   just very recently put forth the “Child Rights by  Design Principles.” And these are principles for   those designing digital products for youth, where  they’re highlighting 11 principles for design,   including equity and diversity, encouraging  everyone to keep the best interests of   children and adolescents at heart when designing  a product, consulting with young people who are   really the experts of their experiences. Making  sure, again, that our platforms or products are   age appropriate, that design is responsible,  that design allows young people to participate   as a digital public. Of course, we want to  be very mindful of young people’s privacy,   of their safety and their wellbeing. We  really want to make sure that products,   social media and other devices, are promoting  learning, imagination, play and belonging for   young people, to promote their development, and of  course, agency and autonomy of young people. So,   we’re now more and more – there’s more  and more resources for those designing   products for young people to really make  sure that they’re promoting their wellbeing. The third recommendation that the APA put  forward is that especially in early adolescence,   we do encourage adults, we encourage parents  and families, to really monitor what young   people are doing online, and this monitoring  should be reduced as autonomy increases,   as young people age and they gain digital  literacy skills. Monitoring should really   be balanced with youths’ appropriate  needs for privacy and autonomy. So,   it is important that parents recognise that  they need to be engaged in young people’s   lives in different ways, as their  children and adolescents grow older. The fourth principle is that to reduce the risks  of psychological harm, adolescents’ exposure   to maladaptive content on social media should  be minimised, should be reported and removed,   whenever there’s those tools in digital platforms,  and moreover, that technology should not drive   users to this content. We know that we are now  fully dependent on algorithms in our social media   lives, in our online lives, and algorithms can  really amplify certain content that will keep   people engaged. So, we want to make sure that  algorithms are not promoting maladaptive content. One thing that I do want to highlight is that  social media particularly impacts teens with   mental health issues. It’s very important that we  consider individual vulnerabilities and risks of   young people when interacting online. Adolescents  who have low self-esteem, who have poor   body image, who are struggling socially, or  who have underlying internalising or other   symptomatology are at particular vulnerability  for negative consequences of being online. So,   at the one hand, teens with mental health  issues are more likely to experience the   negative impacts of social media, but also,  they are more likely to find the benefits of   social media and turn to social media for support,  right? So, we cannot cut access of young people   to these very useful platforms as sources of  support when they might need them the most. And here, I want to show you some data from  the United States, from adolescent girls,   where adolescent girls are telling us that they’re  finding helpful resources and information related   to mental health resources. They’re going to  both established organisation or authorities,   right? But they’re also contacting peers  with lived experience of mental illness,   they’re getting a lot of support and  community online, and they’re doing so   in a variety of platforms. As you can see  here, 25% of the girls in the study are   going daily to find mental health resources in  TikTok, for example, in YouTube, 22% of them,   right? It’s very common for young people to  be searching for this information online. But at the same time, again, keeping in mind  the positives and the negatives, there’s also   an exposure to problematic posts, to videos,  to photos, that young people find upsetting,   that young people find triggering. They’re  also being exposed to inaccurate information   online. We’re particularly concerned about  content that can be amplified by algorithms,   as we were saying, and we know that young people  frequently are exposed to content related to   suicidality and self-harm, and especially eating  disorder-related content. So, again, on – the   online world as a source of support, but also,  of exposure to negative or triggering content. The fifth recommendation that the APA put  forward was that to minimise psychological   harm, adolescents’ exposure to cyberhate,  including online discrimination, prejudice,   hate or cyberbullying, especially directed  towards a marginalised group, should be minimised   and reduced as much as possible. And we know,  for example, that for gender and sexual minority   youth, social media platforms can offer a very  important source of connection and support,   especially when these youth cannot find  the support in their local community. We know from research that LGBTQ youth are more  likely to seek mental health content online   in these platforms. And at the same time – so,  finding a lot of support, but at the same time,   they’re being exposed to hate speech, right? So,  LGBTQ youth are roughly twice as likely as their   non-LGBTQ peers to encounter hate speech related  to sexual and gender identity online, which can   be a great source of distress, of course. We  also hear from youth of colour that social   media ha – is this double-edged sword, right? On  the one hand, it provides them with positive and   racial and ethnic identity affirming content. On  the other hand, they’re also encountering a lot of   racism and hate speech on social media. So, again,  young people need a lot of support and scaffolding   to navigate this very complicated landscape. The sixth recommendation is that adolescents   should be routwee – routinely screened for signs  of problematic social media use that can impair   their ability to engage in daily roles and  routines. And here, I want to take a second   to talk more about this idea of problematic media  use. So, I think it’s very frequent for a lot of   us to say, “I’m addicted to my devices,” and I  would want you to take from this video that we   need to be very careful with our language. I think  for most of us, we could more compare our social   media habits to either biting our nails or being  tempted by eating a very tasty fast food, right,   like chips. Where we’re really talking more about  a bad habit, something that’s hard to control,   that is automatic, that is habitual, but  that we want to minimise, but it doesn’t   really have a very impact – a very big impact  on our function, on our daily function, right? In a small percentage of youth, around five to 7%,  we do see evidence for problematic use, for use   that would fall more in the addictive category,  but again, we want to be very careful with this   language, right? We define ‘problematic use’  when it really includes symptoms of withdrawal,   of tolerance, of preoccupation with devices,  of unsuccessful attempts to control use,   of loth of – loss of interest in other  activities that aren’t our devices.   When young people continue to use their devices  despite psychosocial consequences of use. We see   young people deceiving their parents, deceiving  their Teachers, and when really young people are   losing a significant relationship or education  and career opportunities to media use, again,   this does happen, but it happens in a very  small proportion of young people, of course,   it demands our complete attention, but again,  we want to be very careful with our language. And we, in my lab, we did a study around –  just to see these frequencies of problematic   media use. This is a study that we did  in over 6,000 youth in Latin America,   and here, I’m showing you, first, we can  see – you are seeing by school grade,   and we are seeing sixth-graders, for example,  we see just how much variability there is in   their problematic media use scores. If you see  there the median is around 1.86, right? So,   we see that this is very much underneath what  we would call a ‘problematic use threshold’,   which in this case would be around a  mean of three. So, we see variability,   we see also that the majority of adolescents  are endorsing normal levels of media use.  Again, we might call this more about habit,  something that we might want to change,   but it’s not really interfering with our  functioning. We do see that around 7% of   our participants are over this threshold. So, as  a screening measure, this would suggest that these   young people should be evaluated in more depth  for really problematic media use. And I do want   to highlight that problematic media use does  go up with age. So, older adolescents are more   likely to have higher levels of problematic  media use, but again, it’s not for everyone.   The vast majority of young people fall within  the ‘normal’ or ‘bad habit’ category, right? But it is important, because in another study  that we did in my lab, data we’re looking at   from the ABCD Study in the United States, we  take a measure of internalising symptomatology,   the CBCL, and we identify young people  who are in the normal levels for CBCL,   internalising symptoms, borderline and clinical,  and we associate that with their problematic media   use levels. And as you can see there, those youth  who fall in the borderline or clinical ranges of   CBCL are having higher problematic media use,  and this is cross-sectionally. When we look at   this longitudinally, you see that green line at  the top, those are young people who at baseline,   had higher CBCL internalising symptoms, we see  that their problematic media use is going up. So, again, we talk – we hear so much in the media  of how social media use is driving mental health   concerns. We have certain evidence that mental  health concerns are also underlying an increase,   subsequent increase, in problematic media  use. So, again, it’s very bidirectional,   but an underlying mental health vulnerability can  also be triggering worse use of social media. So,   important to be screening for both  mental health vulnerabilities and   as part of the screening, also asking  about young people’s social media lives. The seventh recommendation by the APA is that the  use of social media should be limited so as not   to interfere with adolescent sleep and physical  activity. And one thing that’s very important   for us is that when you’re setting limits, you  should focus on the quality of what young people   are doing online and not the quantity. And a  useful analogy for me is the idea of calories,   right? So, if a person tells you that they  eat 2,000 calories a day and you’re wondering,   is that a good amount of calories, or  is that not a good amount of calories,   2,000 calories is incomplete information, right?  Are those 2,000 calories coming from fast food,   or are those 2,000 calories coming  from a balanced and nutritious diet? And I think we can stretch this analogy to talk  about screentime, right? And I use this 200   minutes just as an example, right? But are those  200 minutes that – those two hours and a half   coming from passive use, from low quality use, low  quality information, just consuming advertisement,   just using autoplay, just  comparing myself to others,   or am I using those two hours to be  active, to be creating, to be learning,   to be engaging in social interaction? Well,  of course, those 200 minutes are going to   have very different consequences on young  people’s mental health, mood and wellbeing. And to continue with idea of calories and a diet,  I like this idea from Harrington, who wrote about   a food pyramid – a media pyramid, sorry, for kids,  where if we compare to the idea of a food pyramid   for kids, well, at the bottom of the pyramid we  would have free use, right? So, we encourage young   people to use as – use media as much as they want,  especially when they’re connecting with family who   lives far away, when they’re using activities  that are promoting digital and creative skills,   when they’re listening to music, podcasts,  reading, right? That use should be unlimited. When we go up in the pyramid, we want moderate  use of interactive books, of movies and positive   TV shows, there’s a lot of good content out there.  In terms of occasional use, we talk about YouTube,   which requires a lot of supervision,  because YouTube has a lot of positives,   but also a lot of just not great content.  We want to limit violent videogame use,   we want to limit social media use, and  we want to be particularly careful,   minimum use, in terms of screens before  for sleep, background TV and screens   that are disrupting family moments,  such as family meals, or family time. So, again, this should be individualised by  families, but adolescents definitely need help   with setting boundaries on tech. Again, making  sure that social media does not interfere with   sleep, with exercise, with homework, with  in-person interactions and with time to   unwind. Limits, a lot of people ask me, “How much  time should young people spend online?” Again,   focus on quality and focus on something that  makes sense at an individual level for each   family. Limits should be updated as kids grow  older and their change – and their needs are   really changing. One thing that we really like  are this idea of having a contract as a family,   of being very explicit about family  expectations, of how we interact online,   when we interact online, right? Really making  something that works at the family level. The eighth recommendation is that adolescents  should limit use of social media for social   comparison, particularly use when it’s around  beauty or appearance-related content. Social   media, as we say, is visual, is public, is  quantifiable, and its use can really promote body   dissatisfaction, especially for young people  who have low self-esteem. We know that youth   of colour are encountering racist content and  toxic content, and we also know that social   media promotes hypermasculinity, promotes a  lot of messages of violence against women,   and these experiences can be very  damaging to teens’ sense of self. The ninth recommendation is that adolescent social  media use should be preceded by training in social   media literacy and digital citizenship, to ensure  that users have developed psychologically-informed   competencies and skills that will maximise the  chances for balanced, safe, and meaningful social   media use. And this is a lot of the work that  we do in my lab, the International Adolescent   and Connection and Technology Laboratory at  the University of Washington, where we work a   lot with schools to promote digital citizenship.  Digital citizenship is defined as “the skills,   supports and resources necessary for a  responsible, meaningful and intelligent use of   digital media,” that really allows young people to  learn, to communicate, to create and participate. And again, an analogy that I really like  is that of a bicycle, right? A bicycle   can be incredib – an incredible tool for  learning, for exploration, but a child or   an adolescent is not going to magically know  how to use that bicycle, right? So, first,   we need to give them the skills and knowledge,  just simply help to operate the bicycle,   we need to give them scaffolding and support,  and of course, we always need to advocate for   better systems and structures, for them to use  a bicycle in this analogy, or digital devices in   safe and positive ways. But on the level of skills  and knowledge, scaffolding and support, we know   that schools can be powerful platforms to promote  digital citizenship and healthy digital habits. In my lab, we have worked a lot with Common Sense  Education, who designed a digital citizenship   curriculum that is freely available online, where  they talk about six key aspects of being a digital   citizen, right? We need to be talking about  media balance and wellbeing. We need to make   young people aware about their digital footprints  and identities, how to craft them, how to be   responsible for them. We need to teach kids about  privacy and security, about themselves and others.   We need to talk a lot about relationships, right?  We need to help young people build, nurture and   maintain relationships online. We need to teach  them how to effectively communicate online. We   want to prevent cyberbullying, digital drama and  hate speech, and we also need to foster abilities   to be able to consume news and media literacy,  to be critical thinkers and creators. In our lab,   we have worked a lot with schools in Latin  America, to translate these materials, to adapt   them, and to use them in culturally appropriate  ways, and we’re finding initial evidence that   using this curriculum can really help set young  people in better, more positive trajectories. And one thing that I’m very excited to incorporate  in my own research is Social Media Test Drive,   which was developed by my colleagues Dominic  DiFranzo and Natalie Bazarova and the Social   Media Lab team in Cornell University. Social  Media Test Drive, again, that’s the website,   you can find it completely free online, is an  interactive simulation that combines social   media and educational components. It’s a safe  environment in which young adolescents can get   hands-on experience and guided reflection on  the risks and benefits of social media. And   like a driver simulation, Social Media  Test Drive, which sort of simulates an   Instagram or a Facebook platform, allows  young people to navigate the opportunities   and vulnerabilities of these digital highways  before they go online on their own accounts. And lastly, the tenth recommendation by APA  is that we should be devoting substantial   resources to continued scientific examination  of the positive and negative effects of social   media on adolescent development. There is a lot of  challenges in codon – in conducting the research   around the impacts of social media on mental  health. Doing solid research is time consuming,   these platforms are moving so quickly, you  all know how hard it is to recruit minors,   to work with minors, it is time consuming. At  the same time, tech companies are collecting   this data constantly from young people, so we do  want to encourage tech companies to share this   data with us as Researchers, to work together to  better understand this very complex landscape.   We need better studies to address specific  types of social media content. As I said,   we can’t really just measure screentime as a good  measure of what young people are doing online.   We need to do longitudinal research to really get  at the long-term effects. Digital content is very   diverse and fragmented, right? Screentime does not  really adequately capture what young people are   doing online. And lastly, we have a lack of focus  on understudied populations in the majority world. And I do want to show you this video who come –  that comes from the Screenomics Lab at Stanford,   from Reeves, Robinson and Ram, and I’ll play the  video here. So, this video is done with an app   that people install on their phones, that really  captures what they’re doing every five minutes,   in a passive way that is not asking young  people to constantly report on what they’re   doing. And I show in this accelerated video  that short – that, sort of, shows 15 minutes   of use over two hours of one day, just how much  young people – this is more from young adults,   but what they’re doing online and how  drastically and quickly this changes here. So, this is just looking at their screens, so let  me play the video. Well, and you can see here that   really, they’re – what they’re doing online is  drastically changing. There’s a combination –   there’s a lot of things happening. Young people  are consulting the time, they’re turning it off,   then they’re going online to do some homework,  they’re opening an Excel spreadsheet, they’re   listening to music, they’re buying products,  they’re looking at things on Instagram, right? So,   an experience online is very diverse, and if  we’re not capturing the content of what young   people are doing online, we can’t really get,  really, at the impacts on their mental health.