The unseen teen: Social platforms and accountability for addressing adolescent well‐being

Abstract

Adolescent mental health issues are of growing concern, with many pointing to social media platforms as exacerbating the problem. Based on interviews with 25 social media and social gaming platform employees, this study interrogates product design processes within companies to understand if and how adolescent well‐being is considered when building online platforms. Our findings suggest that companies do not generally consider adolescent well‐being in their product design, and when they do, may choose not to enact needed changes. Instead, our analysis suggests that companies design for an imagined average user, ignoring subgroups with needs that, if addressed, would bring benefits for everyone. They may also employ strategic ignorance by not collecting data on adolescents’ use of their platforms or by creating structures that absolve staff from responsibility for youth mental health. Public health practitioners can reduce burdens on adolescents and families for managing their use of online platforms by holding platform companies accountable for design choices that lead to diminished adolescent well‐being. To do this, public health practitioners could collect granular, updated data on adolescents’ use of social media, create detailed pictures of how different types of adolescents use different products, develop structural measures of well‐being for adolescents online, and recommend product changes.