Internet & Social Media

Some call the app “digital karaoke.” On it, teens can create 3-15-second videos of themselves singing, lip-syncing, dancing, or doing anything at all – antics and silly pranks included — to background music. The videos, by default, loop on repeat, making it often addictive to keep watching. Popular TikTok videos mostly show young adolescents, often provocatively dressed, dancing or singing to popular songs or lyrics from movies. Songs are often

You may have heard of Insta. It’s short for Instagram, a popular social media photo-sharing app that’s a favorite of teens and adolescents around the world. But Finsta? What is it? Finsta is a combination of two words: Fake and Instagram. It’s a secret account that can only be accessed if you know someone has one, and you know what their username is. Hence, it’s more private and exclusive. For

If you check online news feeds regularly, you’ve probably noticed a trend over the past three months: there’s been an abundance of headlines in national media outlets linking social media use with depression in adolescents. When we see these types of headlines, we take them with a grain of salt. Online news media survives by getting clicks. The best way to get clicks is to write a provocative headline. Sometimes

In November 2015, Common Sense Media published a large-scale study that examines the way young people in the United States use media and technology. The study, conducted over six weeks in the early spring of 2015, included 2,658 children age eight to eighteen. Tweens were defined as children age eight to twelve. Teens were defined as children age thirteen to eighteen. The four primary goals of the Common Sense Media