‘Scroll Smart’: Taking Control of Your Digital Wellbeing.
Young people today like everyone else are spending more time on their phones than ever before. Research has shown that excessive phone and social media usage can negatively affect mental health.
‘Scroll Smart’ is a 4-week school-based intervention tailored for older adolescents (ages 16–18). The intervention aims to help adolescents recognise unintentional and harmful screentime habits, reducing the negative impact of mobile phones and social media on their mental health.
The intervention has been co-developed and refined by young people through multiple focus groups. During these focus groups, scientists and young people reviewed existing research looking at adolescent mental health, mobile phone and social media usage, and interventions previously developed to tackle unhealthy screentime behaviours. The research findings showed that interventions requiring complete abstinence or heavy reduction for a set period did not result in improved long-term effects on mental health or screentime usage. Therefore, scientists and young people developed a more novel approach aimed at targeting specific unintentional and unhealthy screentime behaviours. This approach is expected to have greater and longer lasting impacts on adolescent mental health and their mobile phone and social media usage.
The intervention will comprise of two workshops and two seminars. The workshops will take place at the start and finish of the programme, serving as introductory and concluding sessions, and will be held in-person.