AWeSome II aimed to further our understanding of adolescents’ social media experiences. In this project, we investigated, for example, how adolescents experience scrolling, posting, and interacting on social media, what makes them happy or sad while using social media, and whether their specific social media experiences affect their well-being, self-esteem, and friendship closeness.

The data collection of Project AWeSome II took place from December 2022 to August 2024, during which 480 Dutch were intensively followed. The project consists of five subsequent phases:

A qualitative intake interview (Jan 2023)

A baseline survey (Jan 2023)

A 100-day daily diary study (Jan-May 2023)

An optional online exit interview (May-June 2023)

AWeSome III is a large scale data donation project, where a sub-sample of 102 adolescents that participated in AWeSome II donated their TikTok archives, including millions of videos.   The current TikTok data donation study took place from May 14 to November 14, 2024, and was a collaborative effort with adolescents. 

Currently, we are working on analyzing the TikTok data to gain a better understanding of the content adolescents' encounter on the platform. Next, we will link these findings to the data gathered as part of Project AWeSome II, so that we can examine how exposure to particular types of content may affect adolecents' well-being.

For insights based on our baseline questionnaire, see our report:   Through Teens’ Eyes: The Benefits and Drawbacks of Social Media.

• Amber van der Wal, Amber, Loes Janssen, Tim Verbeij, Nadia Bij de Vaate, Ine Beyens, & Patti Valkenburg (2024). Through Teens’ Eyes: The Benefits and Drawbacks of Social Media, Center for Research on Children, Adolescents, and the Media (CcaM), University of Amsterdam.

• Valkenburg, P.M., van der Wal, A., Beyens, I. (2024). The impact of social media on adolescents’ mental health. In Van ’t Hof, S., Pijpers, R., Liefaard, T., UNICEF Essay Collection Children’s rights in the digital world.(pp.40-55). UNICEF, Leiden University and Kennisnet.

• Valkenburg, P.M., van der Wal, A., Beyens, I. (2024). Schermgeluk en schermverdriet: De invloed van social media op de mentale gezondheid van jongeren. In Van ’t Hof, S., Pijpers, R., Liefaard, T., UNICEF Essayreeks Kinderrechten en digitale technologie. UNICEF, Universiteit Leiden en Kennisnet.

• Van der Wal, A., Janssen, L. H. C., Bij de Vaate, A. J. D., Beyens, I., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2023). De plussen en minnen van social media. Jongeren aan het woord, Center for Research on Children, Adolescents, and the Media (CcaM), Universiteit van Amsterdam.

• Van Driel, I.I., Pouwels, J.L., Beyens, I., Keijsers, L., & Valkenburg, P.M. (2019). ‘Posten, scrollen, appen en snappen’: Jongeren (14-15 jaar) en social media in 2019, Center for Research on Children, Adolescents, and the Media (CcaM), Universiteit van Amsterdam.

•  van Driel, I. I., Pouwels, J. L., Beyens, I., Keijsers, L., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2019).‘Posting, scrolling, chatting and snapping’: Youth (14-15 jaar) and social media in 2019, Center for Research on Children, Adolescents, and the Media (CcaM), Universiteit van Amsterdam.

• Uhls, Y.T., van der Wal, A., Ellison, N., Collier, A. , Subrahmanyam, K., Valkenburg, P.M. (2025). Adolescents' online communication practices in a digital world. In: Christakis, D.A., Hale, L. (Eds.) Handbook of Children and Screens. (pp121-127). Springer

• Coyne, S. M., Escobar-Viera, C., Bekalu, M. A., Charmaraman, L., Primack, B., Shafi, R., Valkenburg, P., Williams, K. (in press). Social media and mental health: A departure from the status quo. In: Christakis, D.A., Hale, L. (Eds.) Handbook of Children and Screens.(pp.215-221). Springer.

• Beyens, I., Valkenburg, P. M., Janssen, L.H.C. (2025). Parental Monitoring in the Digital Age. In J. Smetana (Ed.), Handbook of Parental Monitoring and Adolescent Information Management. Cambridge University Press.

The main aim of AWeSome I 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 shows how the effects of social media use differ from adolescent to adolescent. A key article of the AWeSome I project has been published in the Journal of Communication.

Project AWeSome's data collection ran from November 2019 to June 2020. During this period, 388 middle adolescents were investigated using different research methods, including online surveys, ESM surveys, digital trace data collection, and Instagram archive downloads.

In the ESM studies, adolescents completed six ESM surveys per day for three weeks, resulting in 126 measurement moments per adolescent. They utilized the Ethica Data App on their smartphones to complete the surveys. We meticulously measured adolescents’ social media activities, such as messaging and scrolling, as well as various outcomes, including self-esteem, loneliness, well-being, task delay, and closeness to their friends.