Digital Wellbeing Workshops
Youth, Media, & Wellbeing Lab
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About our Workshops
Each year, the Youth, Media & Wellbeing Research Lab at The Wellesley Centers for Women, at Wellesley College in the USA, hosts workshops for middle school students on STEM, digital well-being, and identity. The workshops provide opportunities for youth to have conversations with guest speakers in STEM fields, explore their identities through creative activities, and collaboratively design and test-drive their own social media sites.
Open to anyone in the world!
Our Mission
✔ Enhance digital well-being
✔ Explore identities through social technologies
✔ Participate in designing social media prototypes
Our results
Participants reported that the workshops made them more aware of ways to use social media in more productive, healthy, and inclusive ways. They also experienced significant increases in self-esteem and agency.
Testimonials
The kids are saying...
Featured Projects
How do youth create solutions for their own digital well-being during these workshops?
Here are some examples!
6th Grade
Become the Best
Become the Best
"We propose a new app, BecomeTheBest, to support young girl's body wellbeing during social media use, leveraging AI to support positive and healthy interests online."
7th Grade
Centering Emotional Wellbeing on Pinterest
Centering Emotional Wellbeing on Pinterest
"Our algorithm redesign lets users' emotions shape the content they see."
8th Grade
Positive Purple Personalization: An Instagram Algorithm Redesign
Positive Purple Personalization: An Instagram Algorithm Redesign
"Our group developed an algorithm redesign for Instagram. Our new product prioritizes user well-being and body positivity. We also incorporated AI into our algorithm to create a more personalized experience for users."
9th Grade
Posagram
Posagram
"Our group introduced a new algorithm for Instagram, Posagram, which promotes and spreads positivity on Instagram.
content moderation feature and warns about sensitive content
embeds a mindfulness timer to for breaks with calming images
customization to select preferred content and influencers"
Facilitator Training: By Youth, For Youth
Facilitator Training: By Youth, For Youth
We deeply understand the importance of inter-generational collaboration between Gen Alpha, Gen Z, and adults.
Our facilitators are college age, near-peer mentors because we believe each generation has their own unique experiences with social media and we believe that youth can help each other out.
Social media experiences change all the time with the rise of new platforms, modes of communication, design, entertainment, so we need to have these inter-generational conversations!
2023 Digital Wellbeing Workshop on AI and Body Image
Research-inspired Workshop, Workshop-inspired Research
Research-inspired Workshop, Workshop-inspired Research
The idea for the workshop grew out of an ongoing research study of the Youth, Media, and Wellbeing Research Lab at WCW led by Dr. Charmaraman and funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute Of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health. The aim of that project is to study associations between middle school students’ social media use and health implications, as well as the roles of peer influence and parental monitoring.
“We need to better understand the specific behavioral and psychosocial risks early adolescents face when using social media at such a young age,” said Dr. Charmaraman. “This research will inform how educators, policymakers, pediatricians, and families address early adolescent social media use and its impact -- both positive and negative -- on youth development.”
For example, in our yearly survey, we found that youth choose "self-esteem" and "how to make the world a better place" as the top answers to "If you could help design a new app or online game that could help teens with their social media use, which one(s) would you be most interested in?"
Guest Speakers
Guest Speakers
Emily Weinstein
Emily Weinstein
Founder of Center for Digital Thriving @ Harvard Graduate School of Education and the author of “Behind Their Screens: What Teens Are Facing (and What Adults Are Missing)
LaShawnda Lindsay, Ph.D
WCW Research Scientist and founder of Black Girls Creat. A voice for the muted, an advocate for the overlooked, and a champion for the ignored, Lindsay has vigorously, and with deep devotion, accepted the call to enhance the well-being and lives of Black girls globally.
Gitanjali Rao
Honored as TIME Top Young Innovators of the World for her inventions and her work to inspire 28000 students across the world with her innovation sessions
A panel of the lab’s current and former Wellesley College interns about their own STEM identity journeys.
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