Hopelab & Well Being Trust 5
Teen and Young Adult Use of Digital Health Resources
The internet and digital tools such as social media and mobile apps have
revolutionized consumers' access to health information and resources.
Millions of American adults go online to research their latest diagnosis,
check their symptoms, find a health provider, or explore the side effects
of various prescription drugs. The market in health apps has exploded,
keeping phones and smart watches busy monitoring heart rates, sleep
patterns, and calorie counts. And social media has enabled connections
between people facing similar health challenges, no matter who or where
they are, in a way that may be taking peer-to-peer health communication
to a new level.
But most of the research about digital health has focused on adults, and
most of the national dialogue around young people and technology has
been about health risks rather than health promotion.
1
The current genera-
tion of teens and young adults are online and on their devices more than
any other age group, and they face a myriad of health challenges ranging
from anxiety to birth control to obesity. In the past, the Pew Research
Center conducted ongoing tracking surveys about adult Americans' use
of online health tools; the data they provided were of great use to health
providers, patient advocates, policymakers, and tech companies. We now
offer this initial portrait of young people's digital health practices and
hope these data will prove equally useful. Among the topics covered are:
1
For example, the Pew Research Center's
tracking surveys about health and technol-
ogy were conducted among adults age 18
and older, including Mobile Health 2010
by Susannah Fox (http://pewinternet.org/
Reports/2010/Mobile-Health-2010.aspx)
and Health Online 2013 by Susannah
Fox and Maeve Duggan (http://www.
pewinternet.org/2013/01/15/health-on-
line-2013/). One exception is a 2015
survey conducted by Northwestern Univer-
sity's Center on Media and Human Health
titled Teens, Health, and Technology: A
National Survey (cmhd.northwestern.edu/
wp-content/uploads/2015/05/1886_1_
SOC_ConfReport_TeensHealth-
Tech_051115.pdf). For an example of
public press about the health risks of
technology see Jean M. Twenge's "Have
Smartphones Destroyed a Generation," in
the September 2017 issue of The Atlantic
(https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/
archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-de-
stroyed-a-generation/534198/).
Introduction
• What proportion of teens and young adults (TYAs) report having
gone online to look for information on physical and mental health
issues, and on what topics? Do they perceive the information to
be useful?
• What proportion report having used online tools to connect with
"health peers" - people sharing health conditions similar to their
own? How useful were those connections?
• What percentage of young people report watching, listening to,
or reading other people's health stories via the internet? How
many have shared their own?
