A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
In 2004, the social network site was set up to connect people. But now, with lives increasingly played out online, have we forgotten how to be alone? "Thefacebook is an online directory that connects people through social networks at colleges. We have opened up Thefacebook for popular consumption at Harvard University. You can use Thefacebook [...]
Almost half of the poorer mental health we see in teenagers with a disability is due to bullying, our new research shows. If we could stop the high levels of bullying that adolescents with a disability experience, we could make a big difference to their health, learning and wellbeing. So school anti-bullying programs need to [...]
Social media platforms are being urged to be far more transparent about how their services operate and to make “anonymised high-level data” available to researchers so the technology’s effects on users — and especially on children and teens — can be better understood. The calls have been made in a report by the UK parliament’s [...]
People used to call Anika the Snap Queen. Between the ages of 19 and 21, she was “obsessed with Snapchat, to the point where I had 4,000 followers”. At the peak of her “tragic” behaviour, she reckons now – a year after quitting the image-sharing app – she was taking 25 selfies a day. She [...]
A trove of internal documents have revealed how Facebook was concerned children were spending large amounts on in-app payments without parents’ permission - but seemingly chose not to act. Discussions showed the firm decided not to implement certain safeguards as it might affect overall revenues from people paying for games. The documents formed part of [...]
A new study from the U.K. examined the link between social media use and depression-type symptoms in almost 11,000 14-year-olds. Researchers found that girls were two times more likely to be depressed than boys, primarily because of cyberbullying and harassment issues. Why are the results of this study so surprising? Almost 40 percent of the [...]
Does physical activity reduce depression, or does depression reduce physical activity? It's a quintessential chicken and egg scenario — and a question that's plagued scientists for some time. Now, thanks to the power of modern genomics, a new study published in JAMA Psychiatry provides the "strongest evidence" yet that exercise has a protective effect against [...]
Most young people in the youth justice system have been found to come from “troubled” backgrounds. However, many people with similar backgrounds don’t ever end up in youth justice services. Knowing why people with troubled childhoods may be more likely to engage in criminal activity is necessary to inform the development of effective prevention and [...]
At the beginning of this year, I was using my iPhone to browse new titles on Amazon when I saw the cover of “How to Break Up With Your Phone” by Catherine Price. I downloaded it on Kindle because I genuinely wanted to reduce my smartphone use, but also because I thought it would be [...]
This is a longer read at just under 2,000 words. Enjoy! The beginning of the 2019 school year will be a time of planning and crystal-gazing. Teachers will plan their instructional agenda in a general way. Students will think about another year at school. Parents will reflect on how their children might progress this year. [...]
