Adolescent well-being amid the COVID-19 pandemic

Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH)

DOI: 10.13056/acamh.18457
In this podcast, we talk to Dr. Thorhildur Halldórsdóttir, Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology at Reykjavik University in Iceland and Director of the Icelandic Behavioural Genetics Centre.
The focus of this podcast is on the JCPP Advances paper, ‘Adolescent well-being amid the COVID-19 pandemic: Are girls struggling more than boys?’ (https://doi.org/10.1002/jcv2.12027).
Thorhildur sets the scene by providing a summary of the paper and highlighting the methodology used for her research, before sharing some of the key findings.
Thorhildur then defines the difference between active and passive social media use, before providing further insight into her finding that active social media use amongst boys and passive social media use amongst girls was associated with increased depressive symptoms.
Furthermore, Thorhildur also discusses the implications of her findings for professionals working with young people and their families, what policy makers should take from her findings, and what parents can do to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on their children’s mental health and wellbeing.