Youth Digital Futures: Are Youth Thriving in a Digital World?

Published December 2024

Highlights:

When you picture a teenager in 2024, chances are they have a cell phone, laptop or other emerging technology that is providing context to their learning and development.
This fall, I was a co-chair for a national conference trying to understand the role and future of digital technology in positive youth development and youth mental health.
In this blog, I am kicking off our Youth Digital Future Series that will highlight youth voices summarizing and reflecting on the sessions from this conference!

Video Caption: Dr. Nancy Deutsch, Youth-Nex Director and TYDE Co-Director, introduces the conference topic and image during the welcome.

When you picture a teen these days, there’s a good chance they have a cell phone. From TikTok to texting, we hear a lot about young people’s uses of digital technology. Social media, cell phones, and other emerging technologies are a context in which youth are learning and developing.

At the same time, we know that young people have been experiencing increasing rates of depression, anxiety, and other mental health struggles. Often these two topics are talked about collectively and assumed to be joined at the hip. Yet the research suggests a more complicated picture.

So, are youth thriving in a digital world?

Youth Digital Futures

I recently co-chaired a national conference on this topic, co-sponsored by Youth-Nex and UVA’s Thriving Youth in a Digital Environment (TYDE). As an affiliate of both of these organizations, I think it is important for adults to understand how youth are engaging technologies in terms of not only technology’s impact but also its potential, both positive and negative.

During these two days, we heard from youth, practitioners, researchers, and policy makers about how youth are using technology in their day-to-day lives, digital technologies’ potential role in youth mental health equity, and how policy makers are thinking about digital technology in relation to supporting healthy youth development. We heard from researchers who have different interpretations of the current data, and from youth and adults who have different experiences and opinions about how we should think about, regulate, and engage with technology as it relates to youth.

Youth Voices on the Future

As we think about the future of youth mental health, positive youth development, and the role of digital technologies, I’m reminded of a quote from the conference:

Top-down decisions will not work here. We need to involve youth. In some cases, youth are the experts on technology & know more than most adults. Youth also provide critical insight into their mental health & what works to support them.

Dean of the UVA School of Education & Human Development, Dr. Stephanie Rowley

I think Dean Rowley is right–top-down decisions relating to youth mental health, digital technology and positive youth development, likely will not work. If we are truly interested in meaningful and lasting solutions, youth voices have to be involved in all of our future work from the ground up.

I am thrilled that young people will be involved in this Youth Digital Futures blog series going forward as we release session videos from the conference. Please listen to their ideas, summaries and reflections as you think about your future work with youth and their digital futures.

It is important that adults and youth-serving professionals ensure that all youth are, indeed, thriving in our digital world!

Conference 2024 Panel 1 teens — Teens presenting at the conference, some of which will be writing posts in this blog series reflecting on the sessions.

If you have any comments or questions about this post, please email [email protected]. Please visit the Youth-Nex Homepage for up to date information about the work happening at the center.

Dr. Stefanie Sequeira studies how teens’ brains and peer relationships are developing in today’s social world, with a focus on how social media impacts the brain, peer relationships, and mental health. She uses multiple methods in her work, including qualitative interviews and focus groups, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Dr. Sequeira is also a licensed clinical psychologist with expertise in youth anxiety disorders and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. She is currently pursuing two related lines of research: 1) Working with youth in the community to develop and test new methods to study the impact of social media on social-emotional development and mental health, and 2) Linking brain function and real-world social behavior to better understand how youths’ social experiences online and offline might impact their brain development.