What are teens facing that adults are missing?
For over a decade, our founders have been listening to thousands of youth to ask what it’s like to grow up with today’s tech, and what teens most wish adults understood. In short, there is a lot that adults are missing about the digital lives of young people. This is why we advocate asking more questions and doing more listening.
We understand more when we ask (rather than assume), listen (while suspending judgment), imagine new directions (together), then synthesize, assess, and iterate.
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OUR APPROACH
Youth-centered, collaborative, solutions-oriented
Our research is youth-centered
We take inspiration from the founding idea of the Disability Rights movement: nothing about us, without us.
As we imagine and design interventions to realize digital thriving, we need youth voices guiding, informing, and directing us. We strive to embrace co-design with youth from different contexts, backgrounds, and identities, with special attention to youth with distinct strengths and vulnerabilities, including histories of marginalization. We are aiming for a “design for the margins first” approach.
Disciplinary expertise and existing evidence are hugely valuable, too. We take guidance from advisory councils that inform and shape what we do (youth advisory especially). The result is translational research: research that can directly benefit people and be used in real-world practice.
Our research is collaborative and solutions-oriented
We practice participatory design, which means research participants become partners and drivers in our research and design process. We include youth, educators, and clinicians at every step. The illustration below shows how our research, connections to literature, and co-design processes are all linked and part of resource creation.
THE BOOK
Behind Their Screens: What Teens Are Facing (and Adults Are Missing)
Read what CDT cofounders Dr. Emily Weinstein and Dr. Carrie James learned from more than 3,500 teens by asking: what do you most wish adults understood about your digital lives?
REPORTS + INSIGHTS
What we’re learning from young people and educators.
FOUNDATIONAL REPORT
Teaching Digital Well-being:
Evidence-based Resources to Help Youth Thrive
To learn more about our research approach, read our report on teaching digital well-being and explore our growing collection of resources.
REPORT + PLAYBOOK
FOR EDUCATORS
How generative AI is reshaping relationships in classrooms, and five free plays to help educators move from AI refs to AI coaches.
Youth advisory memo
with Hopelab
Six Reasons Young People Told Us They Go to AI for Emotional Support
Why and how teens are turning to AI for emotional support, sometimes instead of a person.
Youth advisory memo
Ten Fresh Insights on Generative AI
Our youth advisors on how AI is showing up in their lives, from school and mental health to fashion, friendship, and beyond.
Report with Hopelab + Common Sense Media
Teen and Young Adult Perspectives on Generative AI
What teens want adults to know about how they’re using generative AI.
Report with Common Sense Media
Unpacking Grind Culture in American Teens
The pressures teens face, how burnout affects them, and what adults can do to help.
RESEARCH → ACTUALLY HELPFUL RESOURCES
We translate our research into free, co-designed resources for educators, young people, and other caring adults.
IN THE NEWS
NBC NEWS · VIDEO
How to Talk to Teens About Their Digital Lives
Emily Weinstein, with She Persisted, on the hidden signals adults miss in teens’ digital interactions, and meeting teens with empathy over eye rolling.
HARVARD EDCAST · PODCAST
Banning Cell Phones: Quick Fix or False Hope?
Carrie James and University of Birmingham’s Vicky Goodyear on research about school phone bans and their limits.
TODAY SHOW · VIDEO
Teens Are Experiencing Burnout at Alarming Rates
Emily Weinstein shares findings from the Grind Study with Common Sense Media and encourages adults to widen their lens on social media’s impact.