Beyond Digital Disconnection and Screentime: Advancing the Study of Adolescent Digital Wellbeing Through Teen-Centric Methods

Abstract

Working to fill existing gaps in the study of digital wellbeing and advance teen-centric methods mostly absent from prior research, this manuscript-style dissertation builds upon theoretical and conceptual foundations of adolescent development and digital wellbeing to showcase three methodological approaches that offer insight and advance this field of research. Overall, these manuscripts shed light on adolescent digital wellbeing, while demonstrating qualitative exportation via counterfactual scenarios (Chapter 1, N=35), longitudinal co-design of a digital wellbeing mobile application (Chapter 2, N=39), and demographic-sensitive validation of the Digital Flourishing Scale for Adolescents (DFS-A) (Chapter 3, N=960). In all, the strengths-based nature of these teen-centric methods should inspire future researchers to adopt similar framings of digital technology use and methodological approaches, while recognizing the far-reaching effects that near-constant digital technology use may have not only during adolescence, but also beyond for future cohorts of adolescents. Similarly, these insights mandate that partitioners take adolescent perspectives seriously and that policy makers work to regulate the design and study of adolescent digital wellbeing in a manner that is teen-centric and responsive to adolescent developmental concerns. Notably, this dissertation additionally showcases the importance of community-engaged scholarship via a 2.5-year partnership with a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization focused on improving digital wellbeing--#HalfTheStory—demonstrating the need for similar, reciprocal community-engaged research collaborations for rapidly evolving technological, political, and research-to-practice landscapes.