Leveraging Technology to Improve Health in Adolescence: A Developmental Science Perspective

Abstract

As technologies continue to evolve at exponential rates, online platforms are becoming an increasingly salient social context for adolescents. Adolescents are often early adopters, savvy users, and innovators of technology use. This not only creates new vulnerabilities but also presents new opportunities for positive impactdparticularly, the use of technology to promote healthy learning and adaptation during developmental windows of opportunity. For example, early adolescence appears to represent a developmental inflection point in health trajectories and in technology use in ways that may be strategically targeted for prevention and intervention. The field of adolescent health can capitalize on technology use during developmental windows of opportunity to promote well-being and behavior change in the following ways: (1) through a deeper understanding of the specific ways that developmental changes create new opportunities for motivation and engagement with technologies; (2) by leveraging these insights for more effective use of technology in intervention and prevention efforts; and (3) by combining developmental science-informed targeting with broaderreach technologic approaches to health behavior change at the population level (e.g., leveraging and changing social norms). Collaboration across disciplinesdincluding developmental science, medicine, psychology, public health, and computer sciencedcan create compelling innovations to use digital technology to promote health in adolescents.

Contributions of Subjective Well-Being and Good Living to the Contemporary Development of the Notion of Sustainable Human Development

“…We believe that this study has managed to go beyond the contributions of subjective wellbeing and Good Living In the contemporary development of the notion of sustainable human development in corporate human capital [105][106][107][108], in which the of development was associated with the economic perspective during the Cold War, where industrialized countries showed the world their models of economic recovery and competed to show effective results [109][110][111][112]. Over time, theoretical discussions about development focused on accepting the assumptions of welfare economics understood as utilitarian, as a vision for maximizing the production of goods and services [113][114][115][116][117].…”

Context, Development, and Digital Media: Implications for Very Young Adolescents in LMICs

“…Social media also allows for online-only friendships which can offer VYAs critical support, particularly for adolescents who are marginalized offline (Ybarra et al, 2015;Massing-Schaffer et al, 2020). Digital technologies can also offer new opportunities for mental health interventions with young people, particularly the most marginalized, in LMICs (Giovanelli et al, 2020;Rost et al, 2020). Social media has played a preeminent role as a bridge for physical distancing in the pandemic lockdowns around the world, constituting a protective but also a risk factor for adolescent mental health and well-being (Ellis et al, 2020;Magis-Weinberg et al, 2021;Magson et al, 2021).…”

“…A developmental science perspective (Giovanelli et al, 2020) can provide insights into how neurobehavioral changes in early adolescence can interact with social and emotional learning challenges-and with the contexts in which youth are developing. These interactions can create specific risks for digital media use as well as specific opportunities for this developmental stage (see Table 2A).…”

A test of the pathway model of problematic smartphone use

“…depression and anxiety), road accidents and interference with sleep (Billieux, 2012;De-Sola Guti errez, Rodr ıguez de Fonseca, & Rubio, 2016;Elhai, Dvorak, Levine, & Hall, 2017). From a developmental perspective, the ongoing digital technology revolution naturally increases and expands the ordinary adolescent proclivities to explore, seek and learn from socially and affectively salient experiences (Giovanelli, Ozer, & Dahl, 2020). Previous research suggests that children, adolescents and young adults (often described as 'digital natives') might be a particularly vulnerable population, as they frequently display heavy mobile phone usage patterns (Cheever, Rosen, Carrier, & Chavez, 2014;Giovanelli, Ozer, & Dahl, 2020;Lepp, Barkley, & Karpinski, 2014;Lepp, Li, Barkley, & Salehi-Esfahani, 2015;Smetaniuk, 2014;Walsh et al, 2020).…”