Q&A Portal Library

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My local community would like to start a class/learning session for preteens and young teenagers on social media, internet safety, and mental health. Do you all have any particular resources or suggested formatting for teaching basic classes? Our youth leaders have asked to lead these classes as well, so any recommendations would be much appreciated.

04/21/2025

Thank you for this question and for your interest in holding classes for adolescents about social media use. This sounds like a wonderful resource to provide in your community! There are a wealth of free, evidence-based resources and curriculums available. We’ve described several below...

Is there guidance on the amount of screen time a child should have at school? I've seen articles that talk about limiting non-educational screen time, but I'm wondering what guidelines schools might use, especially as technology often makes learning more accessible to certain groups of students, and with the increased focus on AI in education.

03/13/2025

While many parents feel comfortable monitoring the amount of non-educational screen time their child gets at home, they may not know how much their child is using technology – for learning or for fun – in school...

Can parental smartphone and social media use impact youth mental health?

03/13/2025

Yes, our previous research project found that parental use of smartphones and social media was associated with the mental health of tweens and teens. Multiple studies looking at tweens and teens’ perceptions of their parents’ use of electronic devices show links between parents’ smartphone usage and adolescents’ depressive or other mental health symptoms...

Please help me understand the spectrum of appropriate use of social media for an 18-year-old who finds it helpful but also wonders if it may harm his mental health. He is not sure if it is harming his mental health but wants to know how he can check this and what signs he should look for beyond the classical symptoms of anxiety and depression.

03/13/2025

Determining if you have an unhealthy relationship with social media (or any technology) can be tricky! Our previous portal responses go into greater detail about what problematic technology use looks like and ways to prevent problematic technology use.

I'm preparing a presentation on school shooter drills and came across this recent New Yorker article about a new video game that simulates a school shooter situation - (New Yorker, Jan. 19, 2025 "How a school shooting became a video game".) The developers collaborated with the parents of one of the victims from the Margaret Stoneman Douglas high school shooting. I'm concerned about the impact of the video game and was interested in your (the AAP Center's) thoughts on it.

03/13/2025

There is currently no research on The Final Exam video game specifically, but we did identify studies on other “serious games” related to crises and emergency response which we will outline below including consideration for the psychological and emotional impact of playing such a game.

What can I do if I think my child has been involved in AI-generated, image-based sexual abuse?

03/13/2025

This issue is very anxiety-inducing and scary! If you’re a parent or caregiver of a child involved in AI-generated, image-based sexual abuse, it is crucial to put yourself in the kid’s shoes and let them know that you’re there for them and that it’s not their fault...

Is there any research on the psychological impacts of being a victim of synthetic sexual images (aka deepfake porn)?

03/13/2025

Although generative AI (artificial intelligence that can generate text, images, or sound) has many potentially positive uses, it can be used in negative ways too. To best understand the research on this topic, it is important to have a shared understanding of what we mean by deepfakes, synthetic pornography, and other related terms...

I’ve been hearing a lot about deepfakes and how apps are letting people create naked images of other people. What is this? Is it pornography and/or AI (artificial intelligence)?

03/12/2025

Although generative AI (artificial intelligence that can generate text, images, or sound) has many potentially positive uses, it can be used in negative ways too, especially in the form of deepfakes. Deepfakes are photos or videos that have been manipulated to show an individual doing something that they did not do...

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