Maximizing the positive and minimizing the negative: Social media data to study youth mental health with informed consent.

Social media usage impacts upon the mental health and wellbeing of young people, yet there is not enough evidence to determine who is affected, how and to what extent. While it has widened and strengthened communication networks for many, the dangers posed to at-risk youth are serious. Social media data offers unique insights into the minute details of a user's online life. Timely consented access to data could offer many opportunities to transform understanding of its effects on mental wellbeing in different contexts. However, limited data access by researchers is preventing such advances from being made. Our multidisciplinary authorship includes a lived experience adviser, academic and practicing psychiatrists, and academic psychology, as well as computational, statistical, and qualitative researchers. In this Perspective article, we propose a framework to support secure and confidential access to social media platform data for research to make progress toward better public mental health.
Competing Interests: AW was Chair of the Board of the American Association of Suicidology. DO was a Board member for the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health. TF consults to place2Be a third sector organization that provides mental health to schools and is the Vice Chair of the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
(Copyright © 2023 Leightley, Bye, Carter, Trevillion, Branthonne-Foster, Liakata, Wood, Ougrin, Orben, Ford and Dutta.)