Cell Phone Restrictions, Effect of Smartphones on Adolescent Well-being, Healthy Phone Habits
Smartphone Management: Academic Results and Teen Well-being (SMART) Study
Evidence indicates that smartphone use in school can be a source of distraction and disrupt face-to-face interactions of students with classmates and school staff (Pew Research Center, April 2024, “What’s It Like To Be a Teacher in America Today?”). In recent years, schools around the country have piloted different policies—ranging from “phone bans” to allowing phones only for the use of school related activities. Preliminary research into these policies have shown slightly positive effects on student’s academic performance, increased memory and attention, and lower feelings of nervousness during class time.
With an increase in uptake and implementation of school smartphone restrictions this academic year, there is an exciting opportunity to establish research partnerships with districts and schools to systematically evaluate the impact of these policies across the district and state. For this project, the interACTlab is collaborating with schools in Washington state to investigate the impact of school-wide smartphone bans.
The Good, The Bad, and The Complex: Teen Perspectives of School Phone Policies
Digital media use, well-being and adolescent mental health
One line of our work investigates the importance of social media as a key developmental context for youth, affording both risks and benefits to mental health. Our work has demonstrated that how adolescents use social media (instead of how much) influences whether it has a positive or negative impact on mental health. In addition, our work has also demonstrated the lack of research on these topics in the Majority world, and calls for more diversity in this field of study.
We collaborate with schools in Latin America to advance knowledge on adolescent development and technology use, and also apply developmental science to design school-based interventions to promote digital citizenship and healthy digital habits. This research-practitioner partnership allows us to better expand our understanding of, and respond to the needs of, young people in these key formational years in an increasingly digitalized world.
Transitions project – Perú and México
We collaborate with schools in Perú and México to design school-based interventions to promote digital citizenship and health digital habits. Click the logo below to visit the Transitions project website to learn more!
Amist@des project – Uruguay and Bolivia
We collaborate with Dr. Gabriela Fernandez Theodoluz (Universidad de la República) and Dr. Alexia Carrizales (Purdue University) to characterize online friendships for adolescents in Uruguay and Bolivia. This project is funded by SRA COVID-19 International Fellows Program (supported by Society for Research in Adolescence and the Templeton Foundation).
Social processes in adolescence
In this line of work, our lab has investigated adolescent sensitivity to social contexts, demonstrating a reorientation away from parental influence towards peers and friends. Our research has shown that social influences on decision-making change across development, pointing towards adolescence as a period of particular susceptibility to peer norms. Still, we have shown that parental sources of resilience continue to be fundamental to adolescent mental health in a particularly stressful context such as the COVID19 pandemic.
Brain development in adolescence
In this line of neuroimaging work we have investigated how an increasing ability in adolescence to coordinate basic cognitive control abilities can be particularly challenged or enhanced by contextual factors in the environment. Our work demonstrates how hot contextual manipulations (social, rewarding, or salient scenarios) reveal instances of developmental continuity in cognitive control recruitment and instances of still-maturing processes during adolescence. Furthermore, we have investigated how disruption of reward processes might be a risk factor for internalizing psychopathology.