A Music and Visual Arts Digital Intervention in Teenagers to Promote Healthy Engagement With Social Media.

Summary

The primary goal of this interventional study is to explore whether 3 months of arts-based digital interventions can change the way in which teenagers (13-16 years of age) use social media and are affected by them. The main questions it aims to answer are:

* Can we give teenagers new, stimulating, and more goal-oriented ways of using social media through arts-based digital trainings and active discussions around social media?
* Can these arts-based digital interventions also help teenagers to overcome the negative consequences of social media overuse (such as depression, anxiety, and reduced attention and cognitive performance)? Secondarily, this study also aims to explore the brain and behavioral traits associated with these arts-based interventions to better understand how they work.

Researchers will compare a music composition intervention with two other interventions: an active control intervention based on visual-arts instead of music (i.e., photography), and a passive approach to control for the mere pass of time.

Participants will:

* Complete a baseline and a post-intervention evaluation where researchers will obtain measures of cognitive performance (attention and executive functions, mainly), mood, mental health, brain structure and function, and social media usage and attitudes towards these platforms.
* Complete weekly measures regarding their use of social media platforms and their mood.
* Complete 3-month arts-based composition / edition intervention (based on music or visual-arts/photography), or the equivalent time with no intervention (passive control group).

The motivation of this study was driven by the observation that, in recent years, there has been an increasing use of social media and digital devices in teenagers, while the scientific community still does not fully understand the effects of the overuse of these digital means and platforms. Moreover, some of the negative effects described to be associated with the passive overuse of social media tap on the same brain structures that are benefited by musical and artistic trainings. Hence, we thought it could be worth trying to use arts-based training to help teenagers compensate for or overcome the negative effects of social media at the neural, cognitive, mood and mental health levels.

This study introduces novelty through three main aspects. Firstly, it employs a digital art creation approach that requires no classical art training, making it more accessible and less intimidating. Secondly, it incorporates commonly used digital devices (e.g., phones/tablets) and motivating environments into the learning process, integrating the development of new digital skills and the practice of critical thinking around the use of SM into normal classroom activities. Finally, the study employs a multi-methodological approach to explore the brain mechanisms underlying mental-health and cognitive changes resulting from arts-based interventions.

Finally, we believe that conclusions from SMART will:

* set the basis for developing preventive and therapeutic interventions for depression and anxiety in teenagers,
* promote educational programs that provide optimal tools for adolescents to navigate social media in a healthy manner, and
* inspire educational policy.

Conditions

• Healthy Subjects
• Mental Health Issue

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Music composition / edition

Participants in this group will complete two 1-hour music composition training intervention sessions per week over the course of 3 months (24 sessions total). These sessions will take place in the participating schools\' premises, during normal hours corresponding to their advisory period class; or in participating centers during extracurricular activities' periods. The curriculum for these music composition lessons has been developed specifically for this project, in collaboration and based on the educational music composition programs from the American Composers Orchestra (ACO). Lessons review basic structural musical concepts, practicing active listening and music appreciation skills, teaching about the use of music-composition specific software (i.e., Soundtrap), and helping the students in expressing themselves / their identity through music, learning about musical story-telling through the creation of their own musical pieces from scratch.

BEHAVIORAL

Photography composition / edition

Participants in this group will complete two 1-hour photography/visual-arts composition/edition intervention sessions per week over the course of 3 months (24 sessions total). These sessions will take place in the participating schools\' premises, during normal hours corresponding to their advisory period class; or in participating centers during extracurricular activities' periods. The curriculum for these photography composition lessons has been developed specifically for this project, in collaboration and based on educational photography/film programs from Downtown Community TV Center (DCTV). Lessons review basic structural photography/visual-arts concepts, practicing visual-arts appreciation skills, teaching about the use of photography edition specific software (i.e., Photoshop), and helping the students in expressing themselves/their identity through photography, learning about visual story-telling through the creation of their own photographical projects from scratch.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• American Composers Orchestra

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• New York University

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

NON_RANDOMIZED

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

13 Years

Max Age

16 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2024-03-01

Primary Completion

2025-09-01

Completion

2025-09-01

Countries

• United States

Study Locations