As digital natives, teenagers are among the most active users of online platforms. According to recent statistics, approximately 95% of teenagers and 40% of children between the ages of eight and twelve engage with social media in the U.S. While social media platforms offer opportunities for connection, learning, support-seeking, and entertainment—necessary for teens’ development—they also expose young users to risks such as cyberbullying, online harassment, discrimination, and even child sexual exploitation.
Recent efforts by the Biden-Harris Administration underscore the need for addressing negative experiences kids encounter online. This is highlighted in the recently released Kids Online Health and Safety Task Force Report. The report outlines various strategies to promote youth safety, including best practices for parents and caregivers, recommendations for industry, and a detailed agenda for researchers. One crucial strategy emphasized by the report is engaging youth to promote their voices through active participation in intervention strategies and policymaking.
Teenagers are devoted users of social media and other digital platforms, making their insights invaluable. They experience firsthand both benefits and pitfalls of social media and can provide nuanced feedback that adults may overlook. Teens can shed light on current trends, emerging threats, and interactions that genuinely impact their well-being. Previous research has highlighted the benefit of kids’ feedback in ensuring the effectiveness of proposed guidelines and interventions that address their online experiences.
When teenagers feel heard and see their input reflected in policies, they are more likely to engage positively with safety measures. If teens participate in making changes to online platforms to reflect their safety needs, they are more likely to accept these new changes and features. Their empowerment fosters a sense of ownership and resilience, enabling them to take responsibility for their online experiences and promote the protection of their mental health, safety, and privacy.
Recognizing this sense of agency's importance, researchers, civil society groups, and other organizations have made significant strides in promoting adolescent participation in research about their online experiences and safety. Despite this progress, gaps remain in integrating findings into policy discussions often sidelining teen voices in online safety policy conversations.
CDT has long advocated for including youth in research about their own safety. In prior research on child safety conducted by CDT collaborating with young people was essential to learn about their experiences managing unwanted content and interactions online. Continuing this approach an upcoming CDT research study seeks to explore perspectives from parents and teens on proposed online safety strategies including how youth join use social media platforms interact with content other users facilitating meaningful conversations understanding perceptions possible policy implementations bridging gap between research policy gathering insights informing policy discussions proposals based real-world experiences human-centered research uncovering nuanced perspectives informing effective practical policy designs ensuring voices directly impacted considered.
