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Aim of the project

Aim of the project

The aim of the project is to unravel individual differences in the effects of social media use on various aspects of the well-being of Dutch youth. AWeSome’s person-specific paradigm will help to reveal which positive or negative consequences of social media use hold for which individual adolescents. 

Project AWeSome incorporates theoretical approaches from the fields of communication science and developmental psychology and relies on intensive longitudinal data collection methods, including survey, experience sampling, and physiological measurements. Advanced statistical modelling techniques are used to analyze the short- and long-term effects of social media use on the well-being of each individual adolescent...

The positive connotation of Project AWeSome is meant to emphasize the potential helpful impact that the result of the project may have on parents, teachers, policy makers, and, last but not least, adolescents themselves. To learn more about this project, please email   This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Recent Publications & Project Updates

March 02, 2026

Publication Alert: How Does Social Media Make Adolescents Lonely?

How does using social media relate to feeling lonely, and why do some adolescents seem to be more affected than others? A new study by Rebecca Godard, Amber van der Wal, and Ine Beyens sheds light on these questions using intensive, real‑time data from…
February 09, 2026

Team AWeSoMe at ETMAAL 2026!

On the 5th and 6th February 2026, Team AWeSoMe attended the ETMAAL 2026 conference, hosted by the university of Wageningen. Etmaal is the annual meeting where communication researchers from Dutch and Flemish universities come together to share their…
December 09, 2025

Improving Participation In Data Donation Studies

A new article by Yucan Xiong, Amber van der Wal, and Ine Beyens in Social Science Computer Review sheds fresh light on what drives and discourages participation in data donation research. Their systematic review brings together the existing evidence on…

This project is funded
by a NWO Spinoza Prize awarded to Patti Valkenburg

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