Young people’s stories and experiences of mental health, social media and influencer content were at the heart of this research project. It was important to the young people working on this research that these stories were spotlighted.
The McPin team created resources for our Young People’s Advisory Group to take on the role of a story collector to gather honest stories about how they and their peers navigate social media content and their mental health.
Each story collector was provided with a ‘story collector pack’ which you can view here or download from the resource pack. This gave them all the tools and information to reach out to their peers and collect their stories.
The story collectors were encouraged to speak with people in their own personal networks (friends, people they go to school with, colleagues etc.) to collect stories. We believed that the stories collected would be more powerful and honest if they were collected by young people themselves. Young people are more likely to share openly with someone they know and trust. The project’s story collectors could reach young people who may not normally be involved in research. We called this ‘peer on peer power’.
We created prompts for the young people that would help them create and share their stories. Some of these were:
- Here’s how I learned to manage my social media feed…
- Create a road to good mental health, with three things that help you get there
- Write/draw about how social media has impacted your mental health and strategies you
- What role does social media play when it comes to young people’s mental health? What are the helps? What are the harms?
- “Being a young person on social media today means…”
The young people created stories, poems, videos and paintings to share their experiences which you can view in the gallery on the project website here.
Some of the stories mention depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicidal thoughts and eating disorders, as indicated by content notes. Please read with care. If you would like to access support on the topics covered, please find a list of sources of help here.
