New report offers insights into the relationship between social media use and youth wellbeing - Social Media and Youth Wellbeing: What We Know and Where We Could Go Report: https://youthwellbeing.online/Report-AIR Authors: Mimi Ito, Candice Odgers, and Stephen Schueller. Contributors: Jennifer Cabrera, Evan Conaway, Remy Cross, and Maya Hernandez. About the report: Fears abound about how social media, smartphones, and digital games are leading to depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems. What is under-discussed and under-investigated is how such technologies can foster social connection and engagement in ways that can build wellbeing among young people. The Social Media and Youth Wellbeing position paper highlights the need to move beyond the simple question of whether more time spent using social media causes mental health problems in adolescents. Instead, people should consider the specific forms of social media engagement that amplify or mitigate mental health risks for different adolescents. The team integrated findings from existing large-scale reviews, the voices of youth who have grown up on social media, and a systematic review of digital mental health apps available for youth. The paper found that young people are actively seeking information and support for mental health and wellbeing online, and that "most teens and tweens say social media help support social-emotional wellbeing, boosting confidence and alleviating anxiety, loneliness, and depression." The position paper is a product of the Wellbeing for Connected Youth project at the Connected Learning Lab at the University of California, Irvine, an interdisciplinary research institute dedicated to studying, designing, and mobilizing digital technology in youth-centered and equitable ways. The goal of the Youth Connections for Wellbeing project is to identify, support, test, and communicate new digital strategies for tapping young people’s insights, agency, and technology engagements to support wellbeing.

From the report:

"We found that misplaced fears are deflecting attention from other real concerns, resulting in missed opportunities for leveraging technology and online communication to address adolescent mental health problems." "Our review of opportunities for intervention and design uncovered a significant gap between youth desire for mental health support and what is being offered by digital mental health professionals." "Substantial changes are required in the way we measure, conceptualize, and approach the questions of whether, for whom, and how social media engagement is influencing young people’s wellbeing." "The strongest signals we have that youth are struggling or require mental health support are not coming from tracking their social media usage or time online." Learn more and download the report: https://youthwellbeing.online/Report-AIR Respectfully, *Jamieson Pond, Communications Manager* Connected Learning Lab University of California, Irvine CLAlliance.org <https://clalliance.org/> | ConnectedLearning.uci.edu <http://connectedlearning.uci.edu/> Twitter: @TheCLAlliance <https://twitter.com/TheCLAlliance> | @TheCLSummit <https://twitter.com/TheCLSummit> Fb.com/ConnectedLearningAlliance <https://www.facebook.com/ConnectedLearningAlliance/> Connected Learning Newsletter <https://clalliance.org/newsletter>