Trying to Find a Balance: A Youth Participatory Action Research Project to Explore Young People’s Relationships to Social Media &amp; Digital Technology
Creators: name: Cullen, Olivia
Publisher: name: Social Work
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Social Work
subject: FOS: Sociology

description: The increased use and expansion of digital technology has altered the way that people engage with one another and the world around them. This is important for younger generations, who are growing up in a world where digital technology is integrated into all aspects of daily life. Youth— generally accounting for the stage of life and development from adolescence to early adulthood, though highly contextual and fluid (Tilleczek &amp; Campbell, 2019)—have vastly different experiences than previous generations, and with these rapid changes comes much uncertainly but also opportunity. As such, youths’ use of social media and digital technology (SM&amp;DT) has been a topic of increased focus. SM&amp;DT refers to web-based services that allow people to collaborate, connect, create, and share content across a variety of platforms, tools, and devices (McCay-Peet &amp; Quan-Haase, 2017). The attention on youths’ SM&amp;DT use has often led to discussions of risk, harm, and concern from parents, teachers, health care providers, and other adults who are connected to young people (Phippen &amp; Street, 2021). Because of such fast-paced changes, it is important to understand not only young people’s experiences but also their conceptualizations of the influence of SM&amp;DT on their lives. Currently, much of this knowledge is informed by adult conceptualizations and assumptions, which largely focus on discussions around negative impacts and done without active youth involvement (Orben et al., 2020; Stoilova et al., 2021). There has been an assumption that, overall, SM&amp;DT is harmful for young people’s mental health and wellbeing. Framing research from an assumption of risk or harm may inadvertently have researchers focused on confirming these harms, without fully understanding the nuance of young people’s SM&amp;DT use (Orben et al., 2020; Phippen &amp; Street, 2021).Because young people have not often been actively involved in describing their experiences with SM&amp;DT, it is questionable whether research is accurately capturing the perspectives and experiences of young people (Cookingham &amp; Ryan, 2015; Slavtcheva-Petkova et al., 2015; Van Zalk, 2020). To do so, it is important to engage young people directly in research to ensure their experiences and perspectives are central to supporting societal understandings overall. Using a youth participatory action research (YPAR) approach, this research project was focused on centering youths’ knowledge and expertise to address the following research questions: (1) What are youths’ perceptions of how SM&amp;DT use impacts their mental health and wellbeing? and (2) What are the strategies and practices youth use to navigate their online worlds? Over the course of 10 months, a group of seven youth researchers, ages 14 to 21, worked with the writer to develop research questions, brainstorm ideas, and collect and analyze data. Youth researchers received training in research methods and ethics. Our research team—inclusive of adult and youth researchers—engaged in a layered, collaborative qualitative research approach (Cahill, 2005; Fallis &amp; Opotow, 2003) which included multiple phases (see Figure 1). Further, various methods of data collection and analysis were used with much data collection and analysis focused on dialogue (Kindon et al., 2007). Overall, in our time working together, we found that youth researchers themselves have concerns about the impact of SM&amp;DT on their wellbeing but also strive to find balance in their own relationships with SM&amp;DT. As a key research output, youth researchers created a social media guide to share their learnings, insights, and experiences with other youth in hopes to normalize these tensions while also sharing their own strategies for managing their SM&amp;DT use. This research contributes to what we know about youths’ experiences of SM&amp;DT, through the direct integration of youths’ own questions, knowledge and voice. Further, this research adds valuable knowledge about the process of engaging youth directly in research and through the use of a YPAR approach.