Taking Controlz

Educating children and teens about healthy social media use to support their mental health

Full Project Name:Taking ControlzPrimary Community Organization:SSM Health Treffert CenterPrimary Academic Partner:Matthew Jandrisevits, PhD, Psychiatry and Behavioral MedicineAward Amount:$49,992

Award Date

January2024

Project Duration:12 months

Project Summary:

Adolescence is an important time for identity formation, where peer acceptance can feel important. Following the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine, in which many adolescents were deprived of social interactions, suicide attempts have been on the rise, indicative of declining youth mental health. Due to limited professional assistance, youth turn to one another for mental health support, often through the social media platform, TikTok. However, medical health professionals have found that the mental health advice disseminated on the platform is often inaccurate, or misinformation, which can be harmful for various reasons.

This project aims to provide free, quality, evidence-based mental health content on TikTok that will promote health literacy and health equity to vulnerable urban and rural youth populations. Taking Controlz will use current TikTok content strategies to drive traffic toward evidence-based mental health groups and promote safe social media habits, while also creating content that aligns with current trending topics on TikTok. The Taking Controlz channel will be free and hosted by board-certified child psychiatrists promoting safe social and digital media use, as well as thinking critically about content consumption.

Outcomes & Lessons Learned:

Achieved viewership of over one million unique visitors on the Taking Controlz TikTok channel over the course of the project
Engaged in at least monthly meetings over the course of the project period to discuss content, production, and viewership of TikTok videos focusing on patient experiences when receiving evidence-based psychiatric care, accurate information related to autism, and other mental health topics
Developed and enacted a consistent cadence of mental health-related TikTok posts, posting multiple times per week, which yielded a high degree of uptake and viewership that surpassed the team's expectations when creating this grant
Successfully disseminated learnings from this project via presentations at both ACAAP and APA national conferences and has continued dissemination of this education to other providers on TikTok and at the World Health Organization, with the intent to fight health-related misinformation on social media platforms