Speakers & Sessions "Youth in a Digital Society" 2026

Conference Sessions Overview

Keynote 1:	Digital Media, Youth Wellbeing, and Effective Intervention
Keynote 2:	Instagram as a Platform for Youth’s Politics
Symposium 1:	Growing Up Digital: Longitudinal Perspectives on Digital Media, Wellbeing, and Youth Development
Symposium 2:	Digital Media and Adolescents' Mental Health: The Role of Context, Literacy, and Resilience
Symposium 3:	To Speak Up or Not to Speak Up: The Effects of Digital Media Use on Adolescents' Political Engagement
Symposium 4:	Navigating Information in the Digital Age: Youth, Credibility, and Democratic Resilience

Details on Conference Sessions

Keynote 1: 

Vicky Goodyear, University of Birmingham

Digital Media, Youth Wellbeing, and Effective Intervention

Supporting children and young people to thrive in a rapidly evolving digital world—while safeguarding their health and wellbeing in meaningful and effective ways—is both essential and increasingly complex. Growing access to smartphones, social media, wearable devices and, more recently, AI has reshaped how young people experience and understand wellbeing. In response, governments, families, schools and researchers have intensified efforts to manage digital engagement. Restrictive approaches, such as school phone bans, removing devices from homes or delaying access until mid‑adolescence, have become common across international contexts, yet evidence on their effectiveness remains mixed. This talk examines current research on how digital media interventions influence youth wellbeing, highlighting what works, for whom and under what conditions. It will also identify evidence‑informed strategies that move beyond restriction, offering ways to support adolescents’ healthy development, agency and resilience as they navigate the transition to adulthood in a technology‑rich world

 

Keynote 2: 

Shelley Boulianne, Mount Royal University

Instagram as a Platform for Youth’s Politics

Instagram is a photo and video-sharing platform with more than 3 billion monthly active users. The platform is distinctive in patterns of widespread adoption among young people in the US, Canada, France, and the UK. The platform is ideal for creative forms of political expression, such as memes and short videos, particularly for youth who are rarely given a voice in politics. This paper uses cross-national surveys gathered in 2019, 2021, 2023, and 2025 to understand changing patterns of Instagram use, particularly for youth’s consumption of political information and political expression (n = 12,108). This study makes an important contribution to understanding a platform that is growing in importance, particularly for politics.

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Symposium 1: 

Silje Steinsbekk, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Characteristics and Outcomes of Social Media Use From Childhood to Young Adulthood: Findings From the Trondheim Early Secure Study (TESS)

The Trondheim Early Secure Study (TESS) started in 2007 and comprises a sample of 1,250 children drawn from the 2003 and 2004 birth cohorts and their parents in Trondheim, Norway. Participants have been biennially assessed from age 4 (n=1007) to 20 (n=778) with in-depth interviews, questionnaires, tests, and observations. The tenth wave of data collection (age 22) is ongoing. Social media use has been assessed from age 10 onwards.  

The presentation will focus on findings from five studies on social media use, addressing the following research questions:

1. Does increased social media use predict impaired physical appearance esteem, and does the relation differ by sex?
2. Are youth who increase their social media use over time at increased risk for clinically assessed symptoms of anxiety and depression?
3. Social media use, social skills and time with friends offline. How are they related and do sex, age, closeness to friends and social anxiety matter?
4. Is an adolescent who increases his/her social media use at increased risk for cyberbullying?
5. How common is sexting across ages 14 to 20 and whom do adolescents send sexts to and receive sexts from?

 

Melissa Bohnert, University College Dublin

Children’s Digital Futures? Evidence on Digital Use and Adolescent Outcomes From Irish Cohort Studies

As children’s daily lives are increasingly shaped by digital technologies, concerns about the effects of digital use on child and adolescent outcomes have moved to the centre of public, policy, and research debates. This presentation brings together evidence from two major Irish cohort studies — Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) and Children’s School Lives (CSL) — to explore links between adolescent digital use and mental health and educational outcomes. Moving beyond simplistic claims that “screens are harmful,” the findings show that associations differ substantially by socioeconomic status, parental mediation, and the type and context of digital engagement. The results further indicate that digital use amplifies existing vulnerabilities and social disadvantages, and that these associations appear to be strengthening among the youngest cohorts of children. Overall, this research underscores both the complexity of the relationship between digital use and youth mental health and the need for continued high-quality research on childhood, adolescence, and digitalisation.

 

Kaspar Burger, University of Potsdam

Mental Health and Educational Attainment: How Developmental Stage Matters

Developmental science suggests that the consequences of mental health problems for life-course outcomes may depend on the timing of their onset. This study investigated the extent to which mental health predicted educational attainment at ages 17, 20, and 25 and whether gender moderated the links between mental health and educational attainment. It used data from Next Steps, a nationally representative panel survey of individuals born in 1989/1990 in England (N = 15,594, 48% female, 33% ethnic minority). The findings suggest that differences in mental health were more consequential for educational attainment during adolescence than in young adulthood. On average, girls attained higher levels of education than boys, but gender did not moderate the role that mental health played for educational attainment.

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Symposium 2: 

Jolien Trekels, Universität Wien

Social Context in Adolescents’ Resilient Digital Media Use 

Conflicting research indicates that digital media can enhance users’ lives in some cases (e.g., fostering social connectedness) while creating challenges in others (e.g., inducing stress or exclusion). This underscores the importance of media literacy in helping individuals critically navigate the digital landscape and develop strategies for positive engagement. Such “resilient” digital media use refers to an individual's ability to interact online while preserving emotional well-being, mental health, and a balanced sense of self. It involves recognizing harmful interactions, fostering positive experiences, and practicing adaptive engagement behaviors (e.g., self-regulation, mindful disconnection). Media literacy equips youth with the skills to assess digital content, understand platform influences, and critically reflect on online experiences. However, given individual variation in digital media effects, there seem to exist critical boundary conditions for resilient digital media use. By examining individual (e.g., neurological sensitivity to social context), social (e.g., peer dynamics), and platform-specific (e.g., algorithmic design) determinants of adolescents’ digital media use, we can uncover why some thrive while others struggle. Understanding these factors is key to developing interventions that promote resilience and digital well-being. This talk will highlight the importance of social context in understanding digital media effects and in promoting resilient digital media use and digital media literacy. By empowering youth with the knowledge and skills to navigate digital spaces effectively, we can enhance their well-being and help them leverage media for personal and social development.

 

Laura Vandenbosch, KU Leuven

More Than Screen Time: Understanding the Nuanced Links Between Digital Media Uses and Youth Mental Well-Being

During this lecture, L. Vandenbosch will present key trends emerging from her research (2020–2025) on youths’ digital media use and mental well-being. Drawing on qualitative studies, experience sampling methodology (ESM), and longitudinal data across several European countries (e.g., the MIMIc project), this body of work provides a nuanced perspective on how and when digital media shape young people’s daily lives and psychological functioning.

Today’s youth spend a substantial portion of their time in digital environments — in some cases exceeding the time spent sleeping, at school, or with friends. At the same time, digital media have been at the center of heated public and political debates concerning their potential harmful effects on young users’ well-being. For years, scholars struggled to provide clear answers, as empirical findings often appeared inconsistent or contradictory.

Accumulating evidence now suggests that such inconsistencies reflect the complexity of the relationship rather than the absence of effects. Understanding how digital media relate to psychological functioning requires attention to platform characteristics, communication dynamics and other contextual nuances.

These insights will be discussed in relation to much needed bottom-up approaches (e.g., the potential of media literacy interventions) and top-down strategies (e.g., the Digital Services Act and its implementation). Together, these perspectives are essential for developing evidence-based pathways toward a digitally flourishing future for young people.

 

Kevin Dadaczynski, University of Potsdam & HBSC-Study Group Germany

Associations Between Social Media Use and Mental Health Among Adolescents: Findings From the German HBSC Study

The increase in the use of digital media observed in recent years has sparked a critical debate about potential adverse health effects on children and adolescents. The primary focus is on mental health, which has declined in recent years and has become a “silent crisis” in adolescent health. The presentation will draw on data from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study, which was launched in 1983 and is now conducted every four years in 51 countries within the European region of the WHO. Germany has been part of the HBSC study network since 1994, and is being conduced in all federal states since 2014. In addition to examining trend in social media use over time, the study also explores associations with various mental health indicators and considers different explanatory approaches (e.g., the displacement versus stimulation hypothesis) using data from the 2022.

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Symposium 3: 

Yannis Theocharis, Technical University of Munich 

Navigating Harm and Freedom: Youth Content Moderation Preferences and Online Experiences Across Democracies

As governments move toward stricter regulation of social media, ranging from enhanced moderation requirements to proposals restricting minors’ access, questions about how to balance freedom of expression with protection from harm have become increasingly central. Yet these debates often proceed without a clear understanding of how young people themselves experience and evaluate the digital public sphere. This talk presents new cross-national evidence on how individuals aged 18–29 across ten democracies think about content moderation, free speech, and online harm. It addresses three core questions: how young people navigate the trade-offs between freedom and protection; how experiences with harassment and hate shape these preferences; and how such experiences relate to patterns of online political participation. The findings reveal a consistent pattern: exposure to online hostility is associated with stronger support for content moderation, higher levels of self-censorship, and, in some cases, lower engagement in online political expression. At the same time, there is meaningful cross-national variation, and individual-level factors such as institutional trust play an important role in shaping these dynamics. The talk argues that young people are not passive subjects of platform governance but active interpreters of its trade-offs, whose lived experiences of harm shape both their normative preferences and their behavior. These findings carry important implications for current policy debates, highlighting potential tensions between efforts to enhance online safety and the goal of sustaining democratic participation in digital spaces.

 

TBD

 

Jasper Tjaden, University of Potsdam

Auditing Social Media Exposure to Politics

Younger voters have increasingly shifted to the political right. At the same time, they rely primarily on social media as a source of news and political information. Observational studies suggest that far-right, and to a lesser extent far-left, actors are more visible on social media platforms. However, experimental evidence remains inconclusive. Although various explanations have been proposed for this apparent advantage, empirical evidence supporting these mechanisms is still limited. This talk presents the work of the Potsdam Social Media Monitor in assessing political bias on social media through sock-puppet audits. In addition to presenting new empirical findings, the talk discusses the methodological strengths and limitations of this approach and addresses conceptual challenges in understanding the political information diets of young people online.

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Symposium 4

Sanne Tamboer, Wageningen University

Everyday News Encounters: Towards a New Understanding of How Adolescents Judge What to Trust

Adolescents increasingly encounter news-like information in fluid, algorithmically curated environments, where evaluating relevance and credibility is both essential and challenging. Building on empirical work, this presentation examines how adolescents navigate news-like information in their everyday digital routines and how their credibility judgments emerge in context. I will discuss adolescents’ news consumption, the blurring of boundaries between traditional definitions of news and more hybrid, informal news-like content, and the central role of social cues, context, and personal experience alongside (and often above) formal evaluation strategies. While news literacy and inoculation interventions – such as on detecting misinformation – are on the rise, merely teaching adolescents formal evaluation strategies and skepticism may unintentionally foster excessive caution. Drawing on co-creation research, the talk outlines how we can better support adolescents in developing confident, motivated, and balanced engagement with trustworthy information in an increasingly uncertain digital landscape.

 

Stephan Lewandowsky, University of Bristol

Inoculating Young People Against Information Manipulation in an Age of AI and Democratic Backsliding

We live in an era of democratic backsliding and revolutionary technological transformation. Young people are exposed to misinformation and information manipulation operations online, some of it powered by AI and some of it aimed at undermining democracy. This confronts educators and citizens with the challenge of how young people can be protected in this environment. Several educational options exist, which will be reviewed in this talk, although a real solution also requires deep structural change and political will.

 

Aileen Oeberst, University of Potsdam

Promoting Receptiveness: An AI-Powered, Adaptive Chatbot Training Program to Strengthen Democratic Resilience Among Young People

Democracies are facing increasing pressure from polarization, disinformation, and a declining willingness to engage in dialogue. A key factor is receptiveness—the ability to consider opposing perspectives openly and fairly. This ability is impaired by psychological processes such as cognitive rigidity, social withdrawal, and hasty conclusions, which share parallels with clinically recognized mechanisms. The project develops and evaluates an AI-supported, adaptive chatbot training program to promote receptiveness among adolescents and young adults. Based on evidence-based psychotherapeutic micro-interventions and the Stages of Change model, content is individually tailored and delivered in a motivating way through gamification elements. During the presentation, the results of a cluster-randomized study will be reported, demonstrating the effectiveness of the training.