Impact of Social Media on Teen Girls

Hello! Our names are Isabel and Destinee and we are currently high school students from Neenah, Wisconsin. Following our win in a STEM competition in the fall, we have been working with volunteer mentors from Harvard Medical School, nonprofit PhysioQ, and nonprofit CustomED to create a research study addressing the determinants of social media on the overall well-being of teenage girls. We noticed alarming data in our trial run during the competition and wanted to extend our experiment.

Next, we aim to gather a group of 50 teenage girls nationwide, equip them all with Vivosmart 4 smart watches, and ultimately, track participants’ physical and mental health over the course of a brief detox from social media. We believe that this study will serve as a wake-up call for teenagers and adults across the nation and share a student voice in the research field. Additionally, our study will introduce a new technique by using objective physiological data collected from wearable technology to measure teen's levels with social media which the research field is lacking.

But, in order for all of this to happen, we need your help! In order for us to conduct and publish a full-length research paper, we need to get IRB approval, which comes with a price tag. Additionally, in order for us to equip our participants with watches, we will need available funds. Our overall goal is to help prove that research can be done by everyone for everyone and you can help us along this journey!

 

Mentors:

Dr Andrew Ahn Asst Professor of Medicine and Radiology Harvard Medical School *

Dr Emily Weinstein Senior Researcher Project Zero Harvard School of Education *

Jordan Masys PhysioQ CoFounder

*This project is not sponsored by or officially affiliated with Harvard University; our mentors are volunteering their time.

Impact of your donations:

$10-$50:

• Impact: Help support
• Gift: Option to receive regular updates via a monthly newsletter, Shoutout via social media-- get your name as a supporter on our webpage.

$50-$100:

• Impact: Purchase a wearable for one participant
• Gift: Zoom meeting with us--Meet the team, behind the scenes info, share your ideas.

$500+:

• Impact: Help purchase IRB approval
• Gift: Mentioned on funding section of published research paper AND optional free consultation to help create your own study (PhysioQ)!

Learn more about our journey here:https://www.physioq.org/stem/effects-social-media-use-teen-girls

Us on the news!: 8/9/21 https://spectrumnews1.com/wi/green-bay/news/2021/08/03/teens-lead-social-media-research

9/15/21: https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/news/video/documents-allege-facebook-aware-instagram-toxic-teen-girls-80030451

Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-instagram-is-toxic-for-teen-girls-company-documents-show-11631620739?st=hgifhk4zuim2y5q&reflink=article_email_share

The Doctors (CBS): https://www.thedoctorstv.com/videos/can-you-have-a-healthy-relationship-with-social-media

Our initial research study:

https://youtu.be/6sWRolIbaB8

To contact Destinee and Isabel hit the “contact” button on this GoFundMe