Designing Social Media for Teenagers: Reducing Harm and Promoting Well-being

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This chapter explores the potential redesign of social media apps to make them less harmful for teenagers and provides advice to parents on managing their children's smartphone use. It highlights the need for transparency from companies and the development of support systems to navigate the challenges of parenting in the digital age.

Ian Sample talks to Dr Amy Orben, who leads the digital mental health programme at the Medical Research Council’s cognition and brain sciences unit, about why the link between teen mental health and social media is so difficult to study, what the current evidence tells us and what advice she gives to parents whose children are entering the online world for the first time. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod