Overview
Young people are often excluded from the decisions concerning their well-being, and decisions about social media regulations are no exception. The Teens & Screens project advocates for the inclusion of teenagers, as experts, in research done about them.
To that end, we have collaborated with secondary schools and community centres in the Cardiff area to organise co-production events with teenagers so they can tell us about their social media experiences. In turn, their feedback helps inform social media research.
First co-production event with Amanah Cymru, a community organisation working with minoritised children, young people and parents in Cardiff.
Outcomes
These events have helped us grasp the different dimensions of teenagers’ online lives, such as what platforms they use depending on their needs, what functions social media serves in their social life, and aspects of social media they find more or less rewarding. Additionally, following Reflexive Thematic Analysis guidelines, teens also participated in the data analysis process, ensuring that our findings resonate with their lived experiences.
Findings from this project contribute to a novel avenue in adolescent research, which involves them in the co-production of knowledge, and inform the design of lab studies that closely align with teens’ lived online experiences.
The manuscript of this work is currently in preparation for publication. More updates coming soon!
Meet the team
Developing Social Minds Lab 