The Influence of Influencers
Project overview
We teamed up with researchers from the University of Birmingham, the University of Nottingham and Aston University on a project exploring how the stories shared by social media influencers impact the mental health of young people.
The project involved:
- working with young people to collect and analyse current social media content on TikTok
- focus groups, interviews and workshops to explore the impact this content has on young people
- working with young people to develop resources to support young people to evaluate and respond to social media content
- supporting young people to gather honest stories for an online gallery about how they and their peers navigate social media content and their mental health.
Project details
Social media influencers are among the most frequently followed accounts by young people in the UK.
Mental health is often a topic discussed by mental health influencers via videos on platforms such as Tiktok, Instagram and YouTube.
These videos often talk about mental health experiences in powerful ways with varying amounts of facts, information, and personal stories.
We know very little about the quality of information influencers provide and the impact these stories have on young people’s knowledge, emotions, attitudes and behaviours (we call this mental health literacy).
This research is important to help us understand social media influencers and their role in mental health for young people.
A Young People’s Advisory Group (YPAG) were involved throughout the project to ensure that the research and outputs were relevant, accessible and meaningful for other young people.
The group was made up of 12 young people aged 16-25 with lived experience of mental health issues and experience of using and engaging with social media and social media influencers.
Throughout the project they worked on:
- Advising on areas and topics of mental health for the research team to investigate, for example, eating disorders, self-harm, anxiety.
- Advising on the types of influencers and social media platforms the research team should investigate.
- Designing and consulting on interview and focus group questions for the researchers to ask young people about what they find helpful or difficult from the stories told by mental health influencers.
- Acting as ‘Youth Jury’ buddies to support young people to share their recommendations for influencers, the government and education providers on responding to the impact of social media content
- Taking the role of Story Collectors, gathering honest stories about how they and their peers navigate social media content.
- Co-developing and co-designing the Scroll Smart game to help young people evaluate whether social media content is helpful, harmful, or somewhere in-between.
- Advising and getting involved in outputs for the study, such as co-authoring research papers and presenting at the final project showcase.
Check out the project website for more information.
Resources
From research papers to an educational card game, the project YPAG were involved in a range of outputs.
Scroll Smart – an educational card game
Multimodal Analysis of Stories Told by Mental Health Influencers on TikTok
Mental health advice on TikTok
The Story Collector Project
Related blogs
Related projects
Work with us
We are always excited to hear from others who want to collaborate on mental health research. From delivering peer research to helping you with public involvement strategies and providing training, get in touch to chat.
