March 2, 2023
Senior Research Scientist Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D., submitted this statement for the record in connection with the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's February 14, 2023 hearing, "Protecting Our Children Online." In the statement, she notes some important policy directions and research findings that apply to youth, social media, and mental health, and urges the Committee to recognize that social media can have positive as well as negative effects on youth mental health.
January 19, 2023
The interdisciplinary course is focused on social technologies and adolescent development.
Robin Stevens, Associate Professor at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Linda Charmaraman, and Earl Turner, Associate Professor of Psychology at Pepperdine University, served as experts on the Well-being Creator Collective pilot program.Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D., was invited to join an expert steering committee to advise Instagram content creators on creating supportive online content.
November 9, 2022
WCW and the League of Resident Theatres will investigate systemic barriers to leadership positions and influence in the American theater.
August 28, 2022
The five-day program allowed students to co-design an app to promote positive social media use and featured Wellesley College students and expert speakers on STEM.
The long-term aim of the study is to develop evidence on how parents, peers, and social media can mitigate the negative health consequences of discrimination.
May 23, 2022
Adolescents’ relationships with their pets can be very important, since adolescents are at a developmental stage when they’re relying less on their families and more on other relationships in their lives—both human and animal.
Charmaraman (center) and her former Wellesley College student interns Huiying B. Chan ’16 (left) and Budnampet Ramanudom ’18 (right) co-authored a book chapter on how and why women of color use social media to create virtual communities.Through the lens of her work on youth, media, and wellbeing, Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D., explains how diverse data samples can help to better support underserved populations.
Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D., discusses a new social media trend.
October 27, 2021
A new study finds that limiting access lessens some negative effects of social media use among younger users.
September 1, 2021
Middle school students learned about STEM concepts and healthy social media use during a workshop hosted by the Youth, Media & Wellbeing Research Lab.
Several new studies from Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D., and Jennifer M. Grossman, Ph.D., help us understand more about the experiences of LGBTQ+ teens.
February 24, 2021
A recently published journal article explores social media’s role in influencing adolescents' attitudes toward body image.
Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D., has been appointed as Forbes Ignite's new Scientific Advisor.
December 15, 2020
Senior Research Scientist Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D., has been appointed as Forbes Ignite’s new Scientific Advisor.
Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D., discusses her research on the Forbes Ignite podcast, Inner Wealth.
A journal article co-authored by Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D., explores how pets can act as either a substitute or a complement to social interactions online.
November 2, 2020
A new study finds that the quantity of social technology use, type of content viewed, and social context is significantly related to later bedtimes and less sleep for early adolescents.
August 20, 2020
The Wellesley Centers for Women teamed up with the Wellesley College Computer Science Department to host a virtual workshop that helped adolescents explore their identities, introduced them to STEM concepts, and taught them about healthy social media use.
July 31, 2020
Two programs of the Wellesley Centers for Women collaborated to host a webinar that explored the roles of social technology and SEL in remote learning.
Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D., shares tips for parents wondering how to help their children maintain a healthy relationship with social media during isolation.
Senior research scientist Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D., shares her insight on the different ways kids engage with and feel the effects of social media.
January 29, 2020
Senior Research Scientist Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D., served as a guest editor for a special issue of the Journal of Adolescent Research focused on adolescent and emerging adult development in an age of social media.
Senior research scientist Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D., helps teach middle schoolers about social media’s impact on their lives and healthy ways to use it.
July 29, 2019
Dr. Linda Charmaraman turned her research into action when she co-led a workshop teaching middle schoolers to use social media in healthy ways.
Online games like Fortnite influence youth development, according to findings from Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D.
The Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) partnered with The Home for Little Wanderers for the inaugural Women of Color Conference held at Wellesley College in June 2018. This program—geared toward providers who work with at-risk youth and families across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts— highlighted the importance of self-care; offered opportunities for relaxation, renewal, and inspiration; and provided a context in which to view the critical work done on behalf of young women and girls of color. The conference was spearheaded by Joan Wallace- Benjamin, Ph.D., the recently retired president and CEO of The Home, one of the largest service providers in New England dedicated to ensuring the healthy behavioral, emotional, social, and educational development, and physical wellbeing of children and families living in at-risk circumstances.
Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D., WCW senior research scientist and director of the Youth, Media, & Wellbeing Research Lab, co-presented a poster with her WCW Class of ’67 Intern Rebecca Leu (Class of 2019) entitled, “Adolescent Social Media Use and Body Image: Associations with depression, social anxiety, and peers,” at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association (APA) in San Francisco, CA, in August.
Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D., senior research scientist and director of the Youth, Media, & Wellbeing Research Lab at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW), presented with a panel of experts on social media and technology from infancy to young adulthood at the Pediatric Academic Societies meeting in Toronto, Canada. Based on her work with Megan Moreno, M.D., M.P.H., M.S.Ed., at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and funded through Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development, the May talk focused on the psychosocial and physical health associations of early social media use before age 12.
The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) $450,000 over three years to study social media use of early adolescents while providing Wellesley College students with hands-on research opportunities. The longitudinal, multi-method study will investigate associations between middle school students’ social media use and health implications, as well as the roles of peer influence and parental monitoring.
October 17, 2018
NIH awarded WCW $450,000 over three years to study social media use of early adolescents while providing Wellesley College students with hands-on research opportunities.
August 22, 2018
Researchers at WCW investigate and eliminate cultural biases in assessment tool to ensure that results accurately indicate the quality level of youth afterschool educational programs.
Dr. Linda Charmaraman discusses her research on what people said #MAGA meant to them at the American Psychological Association conference.
August 6, 2018
Self care, rejuvenation, creativity, and empowerment were promoted throughout the Women of Color Conference held in partnership by WCW and The Home for Little Wanderers in June 2018 at Wellesley College.
From afterschool programs to conversations about sex, research from WCW recognizes the profound ways adults can ensure healthy adolescent development.
April 23, 2018
Most research about family sexuality communication has focused on teens and their parents, but Dr. Jennifer Grossman is including conversations with extended family members to understand how they can help teens make smarter decisions about dating, sex, and relationships.
Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development awarded Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D, research associate at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW), a $100,000 pilot grant to study parent and peer influences on social media use in early adolescence as well as the implications for psychosocial and behavioral health. Working with co-principal investigator Megan Moreno, M.D., M.P.H., academic division chief in General Pediatrics/Adolescent Medicine, and vice chair of Digital Health at the Children’s Hospital at University of Wisconsin, Madison, Charmaraman will collect data from middle school youth and their parents in the Greater Boston area. The primary objectives of this one-year study are to: (1) investigate the developmental processes of social media use during the pubertal transition to adolescence, highlighting factors that are likely to have explanatory power in understanding the relationships between social media use, social context, and psychosocial and behavioral health; (2) use multiple reporters on adolescent social media use in a mixed-method design utilizing matched parent-to-student survey and student social media site data; and (3) build theory on mechanisms for how, when, and why early initiation into social technologies co-occurs with behavioral health outcomes, moderated by peer and family influences.
For Immediate Release: November 1, 2017
Research & Action Report, Spring/Summer 2015
Virtual Harassment & Bullying in the College Years
Given the immense public attention on cyber bullying amongst teens and that social media is intricately tied to adolescent daily behavior, it’s not surprising that the vast majority of studies on cyber bullying are conducted on youth under 18. A recent review1 found that the highest incidence of cyber bullying in youth occurs during seventh and eighth grades—incidence that increases from elementary school, but decreases into the high school years. One might predict that since cyber bullying wanes in high school, that in college it would continue to wane. It was only until Pew’s recent study on online harassment in 2014—which demonstrated that the cyber harassment rate in young adults aged 18-24 can reach rates as high as 70 percent—that we can now see that young adulthood deserves more attention, academic inquiry, and public scrutiny.
Research & Action Report, Spring/Summer 2015
Given the immense public attention on cyber bullying amongst teens and that social media is intricately tied to adolescent daily behavior, it’s not surprising that the vast majority of studies on cyber bullying are conducted on youth under 18. A recent review1 found that the highest incidence of cyber bullying in youth occurs during seventh and eighth grades—incidence that increases from elementary school, but decreases into the high school years. One might predict that since cyber bullying wanes in high school, that in college it would continue to wane. It was only until Pew’s recent study on online harassment in 2014—which demonstrated that the cyber harassment rate in young adults aged 18-24 can reach rates as high as 70 percent—that we can now see that young adulthood deserves more attention, academic inquiry, and public scrutiny.
Wonkette, October 22, 2014
by Kaili Joy Gray
Sumru Erkut, Ph.D., and Jennifer M. Grossman, Ph.D., are cited in this article on the impact of sex-ed in health classes on middle school sexual behavior.
Boston.com, October 20, 2014
by Shannon McMahon
For Immediate Release: April 5, 2013
For immediate release: February 20, 2012
Two years ago, scholars at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) launched a study of racial and ethnic identification among adolescents of mixed ancestry. The reasons for pursuing the research were several. Most literature about ethnic/racial self-identification patterns derived from adult respondents. For example, the series of studies that led to the change in wording of racial self-identification in the 2000 Census was carried out with adults.
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