In the UK, Australia and many other countries around the world, debates around teenagers’ internet and social media use are focused on risks, problems and harms.
This has been reflected in a growing emphasis on regulation, including bans on social media for under-16s.
While these concerns are both necessary and well-intentioned, this focus can miss the resilience of young people and the active ways that they use digital environments for growth, connection and self-expression. If risk is the sole focus, we may overlook how young people cultivate meaningful relationships, explore identities and develop skills online. In short, not merely surviving digital environments, but flourishing within them.
One useful way to think about flourishing comes from self-determination theory. This psychological theory suggests that people thrive when basic psychological needs are met: having a sense of agency over our lives, feeling capable and effective and experiencing meaningful connection and belonging with others. In psychological terms, these are known as autonomy, competence and relatedness. These needs are particularly important during adolescence, a time of growing independence.
Hearing young people’s voices
In our latest research, we focused on young people’s own perspectives on how they flourish in digital environments: social media, online gaming and the internet more broadly.
We conducted a review and analysis of 90 research studies that have been conducted across 26 countries since 2014. We focused exclusively on research that captures young people’s voices. The studies featured young people aged between 12 and 19.
This approach enabled us to move beyond assumptions made by adults and instead focus on the ways young people articulate the value and possibilities of their digital lives. We shifted from asking how we can help young people be safer online, to also asking how we can ensure digital environments meaningfully support their growth.
We found ten themes organised around the core dimensions of autonomy, competence and relatedness. Our findings did not treat these categories as separate and unrelated. Rather, they demonstrated how experiences of agency, skill development and social connection are deeply intertwined in shaping adolescent flourishing in digital environments.
Finding their village
Across the studies we reviewed, young people consistently described online spaces as providing opportunities for self-expression and self-discovery. They developed digital literacy, digital resilience and creative confidence. A 15-year-old said:
It’s creative confidence. Feeling empowered … Being able to say, I have good ideas, I can make them … I will get there.
Equally significant were experiences of connection and belonging. Digital platforms enabled young people to maintain friendships, build communities and access support networks that may not be available offline. For many, these environments were not peripheral to their lives, but central to how they learn, socialise and make sense of themselves and others.
This was particularly important for adolescents from underrepresented, underserved or marginalised groups. Online spaces were often critical sites of affirmation and connection. Participants described using digital platforms to explore aspects of identity, find like-minded peers and engage in communities where they felt seen and supported. An 18-year-old said:
The internet gave me an outlet, let me know I wasn’t alone … It was a sense of community I wasn’t able to have in person, and it gave me the strength to last.
In these contexts, digital technologies were not simply tools of communication. They were places of inclusion, offering forms of recognition and belonging that were sometimes lacking in offline settings.
Beyond risk
Safety and flourishing do not need to be competing priorities. Rather, there is opportunity for digital environments to be spaces that are both protective and enabling for young people.
This requires a recognition of the capacities, creativity, resilience and agency these digital spaces bring to the lives of young people. We need digital policies and teaching approaches that do not simply restrict risk, but actively cultivate conditions for young people to thrive.
Creating accessible, inclusive and supportive digital spaces that nurture autonomy, competence and relatedness is one way this can be achieved. This also requires tech companies to take action to create digital spaces that are truly supportive for young people.
In the classroom, teachers can help by recognising the existing knowledge that young people already have. Our research found that some young people already knew how algorithms worked. They were using this knowledge to influence what appears on their feeds by unfollowing accounts, deleting apps and prioritising content that felt positive or affirming.
There is opportunity to build on this knowledge, particularly given this is an evolving and changing space. This could include supporting young people to reflect on their values and then make digital choices that reflect those values.
Only by broadening our focus in these ways can we begin to fully understand, and effectively support, what it means to flourish in a digital world.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
