Thursday Nov 13th at 3–5pm (session 1), Friday Nov 14th at 9.00–10.30am (session 2) & 10:30-12 (session 3) (hybrid session)
Essi Holopainen & Meri Kulmala, University of Helsinki
Youth mental health has been widely centered as a public concern in Finland. In the public debate, smartphones and social media are often offered as the root cause for mental health problems (e.g. Etchells 2024). Partly due to long queues for services, many young people have turned to seek help from various online environments, such as social media platforms (Multas & Kulmala 2024; Naslund 2016; Holopainen et al. (upcoming)), and online groups and communities (Gliniecka 2024; Chang 2009). Mental health issues of young people, therefore, become more frequently negotiated, framed and shared with peers in online contexts.
We propose a working group focused on exploring the intersection of youth, mental health, peer relationships, and social media. This group aims to bring together researchers and practitioners to discuss and explore the multiple ways in which young people interact, support each other, and negotiate their mental well-being on social media platforms. We warmly welcome approaches that move beyond and challenge the adult-centered discourses around youth mental health as well as the division of separate digital and face-to-face worlds. Therefore, we would like to invite participants to discuss new conceptualizations, empirical findings, theoretical approaches and the key themes of cooperation projects related to mental well-being of young people in social media.
We would like to facilitate discussion around the following topics (not limited to these): Online peer support, socio-material practices in social media, online relationships of young people, help-seeking in social media, new negotiations of mental health.
Sessions 1 and 2 are in English, session 3 is both in English and Finnish.
Nov 13th at 3–5pm
Usage and influence of social media on youth. A sociological study.
ZUHAIB ALI, SALU, Khairpur Mirs Sindh, Pakistan
Social networking has evolved from a socialization tool to a technological communication tool, impacting public policy and everyday life. Operators’ willingness to use social networking as a messaging and socializing tool is crucial. The growing reliance on technology for communication is affecting how operators set up and operate their businesses. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Friendster are revolutionizing the way operators establish and conduct their businesses, emphasizing the importance of evaluating the influence of social networking on daily routines (Bargh and McKenna, 2004). Social media is evolving constantly in a number of formats or applications, including discussion forums on the Internet, wikis, weblogs, picture and video sharing, social updates (like Twitter), social sports, and social engaging (like Facebook). Social media is utilised more frequently than traditional media because it makes the user enthusiastic. This supports McQuail’s assertion that one aspect of social media’s distinctiveness is related to how much ””playfulness””. The degree to which a current or potential user believes the social networking site will make him or her feel happy and content (Sledgianowski & Kulviwat, 2009).
Social media, as it is now practiced online, has the advantage of being clear, focused, and quick. Social media is not new, despite the general increase in appreciation for it. Facilities like newsgroups, chat rooms, and instant messaging were in the midst of the early attractions for World Wide Web users by the widespread use of personal computers in the 1990s. What is different, though, is the focus that has been placed on expanding social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and notably Twitter as a mechanism to collaborate and mobilise followers of these societies without first creating simulated communities. Prior to now, these networking sites’ communication had been evaluated Communication on these social networking sites used to be considered unimportant, serving as a platform for either marketing to certain demographics or making statements outlining typical individual activities (Thurlow, Lengel, and Tomic, 2004). When Twitter was started at the end of 2006, its creators stated that the purpose of ””tweets”” was to educate your followers about what you were doing. However, social media in the second decade of the twenty-first century is utilised for serious political and social messaging and delivering calls to action that have spurred collaboration, remonstration, and insurrection (Jackson and Lilleker, 2011). Now youth use technology like the internet instead any other source in order to seek information or getting entertainment. Latest studies have revealed that communication expertise is growing exponentially with every age group and is flattering a foundation in our culture (Mishna, McLuckie and Saini, 2009).
Youth is best defined as a period of transition from the dependency of childhood to the freedom of maturity. As a result, adolescence is less stable as a class than other permanent age groups. However, age is the best way to identify this group, particularly in terms of education and service, as youth is commonly referred to as a person between the ages of leaving compulsory education and beginning their first job (Aassrec, 2005).”
Social media, body image and the youth – Towards using selfies as a media educational practice
Kaisu Hynnä-Granberg, TIAS, University of Turku
In the cultural atmosphere of the 2020s, social media, with its edited, filtered, and AI-generated images, is often considered the single most significant cause for eating disorders and body image issues, especially among girls and young women. Because of the prevalence of body image concerns among the youth, teachers and educators in Finland struggle to include media education on body ideals in their teaching. Young people today need visual analysis skills and critical aptitude to navigate their digital surroundings. Yet, I claim that current media education initiatives and discussion on social media is too focused on limiting the time spent on digital devices to actually teach elementary digital literacy skills to young people.
This paper is based on interview material collected with Finnish students at upper secondary schools and in higher education. The altogether 15 interviewees, aged 16-43, discuss their views on media education at Finnish schools and their ideas for preventing body image concerns among the youth.
I analyze how the students perceive the connection between social media and body image as well as how media education could help to build digital resilience towards images of ideal bodies. I argue that current media education, emphasizing the harmfulness and artificiality of social media images, is insufficient to support young people’s digital resilience. Rather than educating a youth that thrives in their digital practices and encounters, current media education practices are more prone to raise confusion and create mistrust between the youth and educators.
The paper proposes incorporating selfie-taking exercises into media education on social media and body image. I argue that instead of treating selfies as inherently harmful, media education could benefit from approaching selfies as an ambivalent practice that offers promising opportunities for media criticism, as well as for improving young people’s body appreciation and body connection.
Empowering Congolese Youth through Mobile Technology: Resilience, Time Use, and Intercultural Dialogue
Paul LOMBAYO
In a country marked by economic hardship and digital inequality, Congolese youth are creatively using mobile technologies to reclaim their time and redefine their cultural engagement. This presentation explores how young people in the Democratic Republic of Congo use messaging apps, digital learning tools, and online communities to access information, participate in civic discourse, and maintain social bonds. Drawing from personal involvement in youth education initiatives and technology-based learning, I analyze the relationship between mobile technology and how youth experience time: both in terms of lost opportunities and new forms of empowerment. This paper also reflects on the ways digital platforms support intercultural communication, especially in a multilingual and multi-ethnic society. It contributes to the broader conversation on resilience and digital belonging in crisis-affected youth populations.
Youth mental health peer support on social media as a sociomaterial assemblage: Entangled agencies of a young person and technology
Anna-Maija Multas, Helsingin yliopisto
Meri Kulmala, HY
Essi Holopainen, HY
This presentation examines the co-agency of young people and digital technologies in the formation of peer support for mental health on social media. Moving beyond deterministic views of social media as a straightforward cause of youth mental health problems, the study highlights platforms as important spaces where young people share experiences, seek information, and offer and gain peer support. Social media is approached as a sociomaterial network of people and things where agency is not limited to human actors but is distributed across the sociomaterial assemblage of different entities. Based on co-produced research data with young people, the analysis identifies how peer support practices are embedded in the social and material aspects of social media and its affordances, generating relational co-agency between youth and technology. This entanglement can both enable and constrain agency: while it may strengthen young people’s capacities to support their own well-being, it can also limit possibilities for action. The typological analysis demonstrates three modes of entangled agency—diminished, generative, and conscious—reflecting the diverse ways young people engage in seeking, finding and providing peer support.
In sum, peer support for mental health on social media emerges only through the interaction of youth and technology, where co-agency is relationally and situationally created. The study argues that this interplay should be examined from a youth perspective and in collaboration with young people, moving beyond adult-centered discourses that focus mainly on risks.
Nov 14th at 9.00–10.30am
Latent Profiles of Excessive Internet Use and Loneliness Among Finnish Adolescents: Help-Seeking Patterns and Mental Health Gradients
Jing Zhou, University of Eastern Finland – Kuopio Campus
Timo Toikko, University of Eastern Finland
Evidence on adolescent internet use and mental health shows small, heterogeneous associations, motivating person-centered analyses to identify subgroup patterns. Using nationally representative data from the 2019 Finnish School Health Promotion Study (grades 8–9; N = 86,221), we identified subgroups defined by joint configurations of excessive internet use (EIU) and loneliness and examined between-class differences in help-seeking patterns and mental-health gradients. Latent profile analysis combined standardized EIU (continuous) with loneliness (ordinal). A four-class solution showed adequate classification (entropy = 0.796; AvePP = .827–.970): Low use–low loneliness (39.5%); Mild use–near-mean loneliness (41.9%); High use–high loneliness (14.9%); and Extreme use–moderate loneliness (3.7%). Three-step procedures (DCAT, BCH, R3STEP) evaluated external variables with the class solution fixed; pairwise tests were controlled using Benjamini–Hochberg FDR. Help-seeking distributions differed across friends, parents, in-school adults, and outside-school professionals (all p < .001). The High use–high loneliness profile showed the highest unmet-need probabilities, whereas the Extreme use–moderate loneliness profile showed a higher probability of receiving “a lot” of professional help once need was present. BCH means indicated clear symptom gradients: depression (BDI-6) increased from 1.36 → 2.62 → 3.80 → 4.75; anxiety (GAD-7) rose from 2.56 → 4.53 → 6.33 ≈ 6.40 (overall p < .001; High vs. Extreme anxiety p = .642). In R3STEP models, girls had higher odds of membership in the Mild and High profiles; more close friends and easier parent communication were associated with lower odds of higher-risk profiles; and not living with both parents was associated with higher odds of the Extreme profile. Findings reveal distinct association patterns linking EIU, loneliness, help-seeking, and symptoms in Finnish adolescents, supporting tailored supports across family, school, and community services.
How is youth social media use related to subjective well-being? Converging and diverging evidence from Finland.
Konsta Happonen, Finnish Youth Research Society
Studying the effects of social media use on well-being is important but hard. Disentangling confounding factors from causation is not trivial even in experimental studies. Thus, robust inferece must rely on multiple lines of evidence. Here we present the results of analyses based on a representative survey administered to 10–29-year-olds living in Finland. We measured 1) the association between life satisfaction and social media use 2) the association between how young people think social media is affecting their lives and social media use. Results show that the oft-reported negative association between social media use and life satisfaction also exists in Finnish youth. However, young people’s subjective experience about the effect of social media on their lives is not always congruent with this negative outlook. We highlight where these two lines of evidence agree and where they disagree to give a nuanced interpretation of the potential effects of social media on young people’s wellbeing.
To understand and to be understood: Young people’s perceptions of peer support for mental health in social media
Essi Holopainen, University of Helsinki
Meri Kulmala, University of Helsinki
Young people increasingly seek support for their mental health challenges in online environments, where daily struggles and experiences of living with mental health issues become shared and negotiated with peers. What remains less studied is how peer support is both received and provided on currently popular social media platforms. This article offers a conceptual model based on empirical analysis to explain how peer support in social media is perceived by young people, and how it is formed. Our participatory co-research strategy, implemented together with young co-researchers, offers youth-specific knowledge on the social media use of young people, which is too often framed from adult-led and risk-centered perspective and seen as “passive”. According to our findings, peer support in social media is formed through reactive and productive practices, which have relatable informational, emotional, and affirmational elements both in private and public spheres. Hence, we argue that young people receive and provide peer support on social media in various situational and interconnected ways, and according to their own needs. Our contribution to the conceptual discussion is both demonstrating the interconnections between online practices and the forms of peer support among young people, and in challenging the notion of “passive” social media use.
Nov 14th at 1030–12.00am
Young LGBTQIA+ people’s experiences of relatedness, community and peer support on social media: A Co-research paper
Liinu Vento, Helsingin yliopisto
Meri Kulmala, Helsingin yliopisto
The need for relatedness is a universal part of human nature observed across different cultures and time periods. Sufficient experiences of relatedness are essential not only for survival, but also for mental wellbeing. Amidst the modern-day access to near constant connection and endless encounters on social media, as well as the ongoing youth mental health crisis in Finland, the public discussion centring young people’s social media usage and its mental health effects has been overwhelmingly negative. Little emphasis has been placed on the positive aspects of social media, one of them being the role social media plays as a portal to community for those with marginalised identities and few experiences of relatedness outside the social media environment.
The aim of this paper is to explore young LGBTQIA+ people’s experiences of relatedness, community, and peer support both on, and outside social media. Through presenting questionnaire data gathered from over a hundred young LGBTQIA+ people, this paper aims at providing a comprehensive picture of the role social media plays in their lives. Above all, the aim is to contribute to a more nuanced, experience-based discussion regarding the very real potential of social media to offer invaluable, mental health supporting experiences of community and relatedness to those who do not have access to sufficient peer relationships outside of the social media environment.
This study is a part of the co-research design of the TUBEDU project (YouTubers as Peer Mental Health Educators in Adolescent’s Social Environments), funded by the Research Council of Finland and carried out by the Universities of Turku, Tampere, and Helsinki in collaboration with several NGOs (Nyyti ry, Yeesi and Aseman lapset).
Mielenterveysteemaiset meemit vertaistukena nuorille
Linda Lindström, Jyväskylän yliopisto/TUBEDU-hanke
Sosiaalinen media on tänä päivänä tärkeä osa nuorten elämää, ja toimii usein keskeisenä kanavana niin sosiaalisten suhteiden luomisessa ja ylläpitämisessä kuin kaikenlaisen tiedon etsimisessä ja tuottamisessa. Se on myös keskeinen kanava vertaistuen löytämiseksi. Fenomenografinen tutkimukseni aiheesta käsittelee 18-29-vuotiaiden nuorten ajatuksia ja kokemuksia meemeistä, millä tavalla he kokivat meemien tarjoavan vertaistukea ja mitä muita hyvinvointia tukevia ominaisuuksia he niissä näkivät. Aihe kytkeytyy vahvasti meneillään olevaan yhteiskunnalliseen keskusteluun nuorten sosiaalisen median käytöstä ja sen vaikutuksista heidän mielenterveyteensä, ja tutkimuksen tavoitteena olikin tuoda nuorten ääni mukaan keskusteluun omin sanoin. Tulokset perustuvat Suomen Akatemian rahoittaman TUBEDU-hankkeen haastatteluaineistolle, joka kerättiin kanssatutkimuksen puitteissa syksyllä 2023 ja keväällä 2024. Meemit nähdään nuorten mielestä keinona välittää ja saada vertaistukea, sekä mahdollisuutena käsitellä vaikeita asioita huumorin avulla. Meemien avulla nuoret kokivat, että oli mahdollista luoda itselle omaa hyvinvointia tukeva some-ympäristö/kupla, edistää omaa mielenterveystietoisuutta sekä välittää ja sanoittaa tunteita. Meemit eivät nuorten mielestä ole ratkaisu mielenterveysongelmiin, mutta niitä pidetään voimauttavana, motivoivana ja kynnystä madaltavana kannustimena edistää omia asioita. Some-kuplan luomisen käytäntöihin perehdyttiin tutkimuksessa tarkemmin pelillistämisen näkökulmasta. Tutkimuksessa meemit havainnollistivat lisäksi uudenlaisen hyötyulottuvuuden, joka on aikaisemmin jäänyt erityisesti tunnetaitojen kehittymisen osalta sosiaalisen median yhteydessä vähemmälle huomiolle. Tästä tiedosta hyötyvät niin nuoret, kuin heidän ympärillään olevat yhteisöt, toimijat ja yhteiskunta. Tutkimustulosten pohjalta valmistuvassa paperissa syvennytään huumorin eheyttävään vaikutukseen mielen hyvinvoinnin tukemisen kannalta sosiaalisen median kontekstissa.
Pienistä verkkofoorumeista suuriksi verkkoalustoiksi – mitä ja kenen tarpeita verkkoyhteisöt ovat ajan saatossa palvelleet ja minne ne tulevat kehittymään tulevaisuudessa?
Heidi Multanen, Suomen Setlementtiliitto
Lotta Ylinen, Tampereen Yliopisto
Joosua Valkeakunnas, Sekasin Gaming
Verkkoyhteisöt ovat kulkeneet polun BBS:stä ja IRC:stä tämän päivän globaaleihin somealustoihin ja Discord-yhteisöihin. Niiden kehitys kertoo yhtä aikaa teknologian nopeasta muutoksesta ja nuorten tarpeista: vertaistuen, identiteetin, harrastusten ja yhteenkuuluvuuden etsimisestä. Jokainen aikakausi on muokannut sitä, keitä käyttäjät ovat olleet ja mitä verkossa on ollut mahdollista tehdä.
Verkkoyhteisö tarkoittaa digitaalista ryhmää tai tilaa, jossa ihmiset voivat vuorovaikuttaa ja jakaa kokemuksia, arvoja, kiinnostuksen kohteita tai tavoitteita toistensa kanssa. Yhteisö voi muodostua esimerkiksi keskustelufoorumilla, pelien sisäisissä yhteisöissä tai chatissa, ja siihen osallistuminen voi olla joko avointa tai rajattua tietylle osallistujajoukolle.
Verkkoyhteisöt eroavat sosiaalisen median alustoista siten, että niiden pääpaino on rajattujen aihekohtaisten yhteisöjen luomisessa ja reaaliaikaisessa keskustelussa. Sosiaalisen median alustat keskittyvät usein laajoille massoille suunnattuun, algoritmien ohjaamaan sisältöön, jossa viestintä perustuu enemmän julkaisuihin ja tykkäyksiin
Tarkastelemme verkkoyhteisöjen historiaa ja kehitystä tähän päivään teknologian, tarpeiden ja käyttäjäryhmien näkökulmista. Millaisia mahdollisuuksia alustat ovat kussakin ajassa tarjonneet, ja millaisia mahdollisuuksia teknologian kehitys on ajan saatossa tuonut? Keitä ovat olleet eri alustojen käyttäjät eri ajoissa? Millaisia haasteita ja ongelmia matkan varrella on ollut ja kehittynyt, mitkä ovat tällä hetkellä suurimpia verkkoyhteisöjen olemassaoloon ja toimintaan liittyviä kysymyksiä, huolia tai haasteita?
Kun ymmärrämme mistä olemme tulleet ja missä olemme nyt, siirretään katse myös tulevaisuuteen. Millainen on verkkoyhteisöjen todennäköinen tulevaisuus, ja miksi niin? Entä mihin toivoisimme, että verkkoyhteisöt kehittyvät? Onko todennäköinen verkkoyhteisöjen tulevaisuus samanlainen kuin toivottava verkkoyhteisöjen tulevaisuus? Pohdimme myös, kuka verkkoyhteisöjä tulevaisuudessa rakentaa, ja mihin tarpeisiin, päämääriin ja arvoihin pohjaten kehitystyötä tehdään.