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• This research's insights allow us to better understand how young people's offline and online lifestyles and social relationships are related. 
• This research helps young people understand their social media use and its effects.
• This research helps parents, teachers, politicians, policymakers, and clinicians tailor social media policies and interventions to youth's individual needs.

Project SOCIAL uses a variety of research methods:

Focus Groups

In focus groups, we engage with young people to tailor the content, design and goals of the research to the interests of adolescents. 

Daily diary study

Adolescents answered questions daily over several weeks via a phone app. The questions were about social media use, social relationships and interactions, and social connectedness with friends and peers.

Interviews

In the interviews, we asked some adolescents to reflect on their social media use during the diary study.

Class visit

During the class visits, students complete questionnaires about their social media use, well-being and social connectedness with peers. They also answer questions about the social status (e.g., who in your class is most popular, who are your friends) and behaviour (e.g., who bullies others, who is always online) of their classmates. By surveying all youth in the first through fourth years of high school annually, teachers can see how students are doing at a specific time and how they are developing over a longer period of time.

Download social media usage history

We teach young people how to retrieve their social media usage history. We do this once after completing daily questionnaires. At the end of this session, we ask that you donate some of this data to science. We can see who young people interact with on social media, when and in what ways, but we cannot see the messages they send or receive to others.

Why participate?

• Adolescents who have participated before found it very fun and interesting.
• Adolescents gain more insight into their own social media use.
• Adolescents get a financial reward and a chance to win fun prizes.
• Adolescents can contribute to science in an accessible way.
• Teachers receive a classroom social safety report based on the class visits. This report follows the guidelines of the Dutch Inspection of Education and the Social Safety Act. Teachers also receive a report based on which they can identify students at risk for social and emotional problems.