Social media platforms are being redesigned with input from 10- to 25-year-olds, who will help researchers test which policy changes—such as altering content feeds or usage limits—actually improve their mental health. This matters because the UK is in the midst of a growing mental health crisis among young people, yet most existing social media policies are not tailored to the distinct needs of preteens, adolescents, and young adults. The project fills a gap by systematically testing interventions—from design tweaks to usage patterns—across these age groups, rather than assuming one-size-fits-all solutions. If successful, the research will produce evidence-based policy recommendations for European regulators and platform designers. For example, a field experiment with young adults on a mock website will measure whether specific design changes reduce harmful content exposure or encourage healthier usage. Computational simulations will then extrapolate those findings to younger age groups, where direct experimentation is harder. The result could be age-specific platform rules—such as different content moderation or screen-time defaults for 12-year-olds versus 18-year-olds—that quietly shape the digital environments millions of young people navigate daily.
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The last decade has been hallmarked by an explosive rise in digital communication. Technologies such as social media present a profound challenge, especially for young people. In parallel, we are experiencing a growing mental health crisis in this population. This project undertakes a transformative mission to unravel, test and enhance policies that counter the detrimental impact of social media on young people, to safeguard and amplify their well-being in our increasingly digital world. Employing a cutting-edge comparative approach, the research will encompass systematic literature synthesis, qualitative exploration, field experiments, and computational analysis. By differentiating between preteens (ages 10 to 12), adolescents (13-17), and young adults (18-25), the project will uniquely pinpoint effective policies tailored to each population. WP1: We will synthesize current policy interventions through an exhaustive and structured literature search. WP2: We will use qualitative focus group interviews with each age group, to investigate age-group perspectives and co-create potential policy interventions. WP3: Focusing on young adults, in an online field experiment we will test the effectiveness of such policy interventions on a mock website via the manipulation of designs, usage patterns, or content. WP4: Computational simulations will enable us to build theoretically informed models extrapolating our findings from WP3 to preteens and adolescents. WP5: We will integrate the project findings to assess the feasibility and usability of established and new policy interventions across Europe, providing evidence-based recommendations. Our interdisciplinary approach draws upon the expertise of leading scholars from Communication, Psychology, Sociology, and Media Studies to systematically locate, test and evaluate policy approaches that tackle the impending mental health crisis among young people, thereby contributing to the well-being of generations to come.
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