Browse Articles

The effects of social media on STEM identity in adolescent girls

Sreekanth et al. | Mar 11, 2024

The effects of social media on STEM identity in adolescent girls
Image credit: Diane Serik

Social media is widely used and easily accessible for adolescents, it has the potential to increase STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) identity in girls. We aimed to investigate the effects of exposure to counter-stereotypical portrayals of women in STEM on social media on the STEM identity of adolescent girls. The study concluded that social media alone may not be an effective tool to increase STEM identity in girls. Social media can still be used as a complementary tool to support and encourage women in STEM, but it should not be relied upon solely to address the gender disparity in STEM fields.

Read More...

Health services in Iraq - A cross-sectional survey of adolescents in Basra

Al Saeedi et al. | Aug 12, 2022

Health services in Iraq - A cross-sectional survey of adolescents in Basra

This study is a cross-sectional survey of adolescents in Basra, Iraq, from November 2020 to March 2021 about types of adolescent problems, the individuals and institutions adolescents turn to, and the role of public health centers in dealing with their problems. The survey found that psychological problems represent the largest proportion of health problems, and most adolescents turn to their parents to discuss their problems. The work indicates that there is an urgent need to pay attention to public health centers and provide health and psychological support to adolescents.

Read More...

Reimagize – a digital card-based roleplaying game to improve adolescent girls’ body image

Kumar et al. | Oct 04, 2021

Reimagize – a digital card-based roleplaying game to improve adolescent girls’ body image

Reimagize, a role-playing with decision-making, was conjured, implementing social psychological concepts like counter-stereotyping and perspective-taking. As the game works implicitly to influence body image, it even counters image issues beyond personal body dissatisfaction. This study explored whether a digital role-playing card game, incorporating some of the most common prejudices of body image (like size prejudice, prejudices from the media, etc.) as identified by a digital survey/questionnaire completed by Indian girls aged 11-21, could counter these issues and reduce personal body dissatisfaction.

Read More...

Obscurity of eyebrows influences recognition of human emotion and impacts older adolescents

Zhang et al. | Jan 20, 2025

Obscurity of eyebrows influences recognition of human emotion and impacts older adolescents
Image credit: Ernesto Norman

Here, seeking to better understand how facial features provide important visual cues to help convey emotions, the authors evaluated the accuracy and reaction time of participants in regards to experimental photographs where a person's eyebrows were obscured and ones where they were not. Their findings revealed that removing eyebrows resulted in a significant decrease in a participant's ability to recognize anger, with adolescents most likely to misidentify emotions.

Read More...

Measuring effects of caffeine and melatonin on learning trends of Zebrafish juveniles

Wei et al. | Jun 28, 2026

Measuring effects of caffeine and melatonin on learning trends of Zebrafish juveniles

This study investigates how caffeine and melatonin affect learning in adolescent zebrafish, serving as a model for human teens. Using an automated system to track behavior, we found that melatonin slowed learning while caffeine caused erratic, inconsistent responses, suggesting both substances can negatively impact adolescent learning patterns. These findings highlight the need for further research into their physiological effects and potential implications for human adolescents.

Read More...

Associations between fentanyl usage and social media use among U.S. teens

Sul et al. | Jun 10, 2025

Associations between fentanyl usage and social media use among U.S. teens
Image credit: freestocks

Here the authors aimed to understand factors influencing adolescent fentanyl exposure, hypothesizing a positive association between social media usage, socioeconomic factors, and fentanyl abuse among U.S. teens. Their analysis of the Monitoring the Future dataset revealed that a history of suspension and use of marijuana or alcohol were linked to higher fentanyl use, and while not statistically significant, a notable positive correlation between social media use and fentanyl frequency was observed.

Read More...

Exploring Political Discourse Among High School Journalists with Web Scraping and AI Technology

Gong et al. | Jun 10, 2025

Exploring Political Discourse Among High School Journalists with Web Scraping and AI Technology

Here the authors provided greater coverage of adolescent stances by investigating the political perspectives and trends of high school journalists, utilizing web scraping methods and artificial intelligence (ChatGPT-4o) to analyze over 153,000 articles. They found that high school publications exhibit lower levels of political polarization compared to mainstream media and that journalists' views, while tending to lean moderately liberal, showed no significant correlation with local voting patterns.

Read More...

The knowledge and perception of opioid abuse and its long-term effects among high schoolers

Shroff et al. | Nov 27, 2021

The knowledge and perception of opioid abuse and its long-term effects among high schoolers

Due to the susceptibility of adolescent age groups to opioid misuse, here the authors sought to determine if there was a difference in the perception and knowledge between 9th and 12th graders regarding the opioid crisis. An educational intervention trial was done with the 9th graders and surveys were used to identify its effects. Although the authors acknowledge a small sample size, their results suggest that their are gaps within the knowledge of adolescents in regards to opioid misuse and its long-term effects that could be addressed with further education.

Read More...