2026 Reports

SocialsVoice: Latino Youth Research on Social Media and Mental Health

Dupont-Reyes, Melissa J.; Mello, Victoria; Villatoro, Alice P.; Tang, Lu

The SocialsVoice study e-book summarizes findings from a youth participatory research project that explored the relationship between social media and mental health among adolescents. Conducted from September 2024 to March 2025, the study enrolled 41 Latino youth ages 13–24 and 28 parents from community-based organizations across the United States. Developed in collaboration with community stakeholders, SocialsVoice sought to address a gap in existing research by centering youth perspectives and lived experiences in conversations about social media and mental health.

Youth participants defined positive and negative mental health content, shared social media content from their own feeds, and engaged in a series of facilitated group discussions using the SHOWED method, a community-based participatory research approach. Youth participants collaboratively analyzed social media content, contributed to a user-donated social media archive, and co-created summary videos reflecting their findings.

This e-book presents adolescent participant-generated insights on mental health stigma and anti- stigma content, coping strategies, sociopolitical issues, help-seeking, and the various other ways that social media can both support and challenge mental health. By prioritizing youth voices and community knowledge, SocialsVoice demonstrates the value of participatory approaches for advancing a more nuanced understanding of social media's role in the mental health of young people and informing future research, practice, and policy.

Keywords: Social media, Adolescent mental health, Youth mental health, Participatory research, Community-based participatory research, Youth participatory action research (YPAR), Mental health stigma, Mental health literacy, Health communication, Critical youth empowerment, Community-engaged research