A first-of-its kind digital wellness platform, created at York University's Young Lives Research Lab, will launch this spring to help Canadians navigate the challenges and complexities of the internet and social media.
The Hub - an initiative funded by Heritage Canada's Digital Citizenship Fund - was designed by collaboration with youth, scholars and youth-serving organizations.
Kate Tilleczek
"It is a research project, but its scope and mandate is to engage - through an educative hub - Canadian citizens, young and old," says Kate Tilleczek, professor in the Faculty of Education, director of the Young Lives Research Lab and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)-funded Canada Research Chair in Youth, Education and Global Good at York.
"This digital citizenship and well-being hub is an extension of the work we do (in the Young Lives Research Lab) where we engage young people to figure out what it is they need to know and work with them to co-develop new educative spaces."
Tilleczek's team at the Young Lives Research Lab includes: Deborah MacDonald, senior project manager; James Stinson, senior research associate; and post-doctoral fellow Roxanne Cohen. They are working with scholars and youth-serving organizations such as the Students Commission of Canada and UNICEF Canada, as well as with young people, to develop The Hub.
The Hub will be a no-cost, virtual portal that offers resources to support digital citizenship and well-being, such as links to the Digital Futures for Children and the 5Rights Foundation. Tools to encourage good digital citizenship will include the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) and parental settings, practical tips for online safety and more. The Hub is designed for people and groups looking to support well-being in the digital environment and aims to connect Canadians to national and international innovations and tools for living well in the digital age.
Stinson stresses the significance of The Hub being developed independent of big tech.
"Almost all the hubs and information sites out there and the tools they provide are co-developed with big tech," he says. "So, this project is unique in that it isn't partnered with big tech at all. It's completely independent."
MacDonald says it is vital that users of The Hub - youth, parents, educators, policymakers and anyone who wants to know more about the online world - know they can trust the information and tools the project offers. "They'll be able to easily navigate to find information and tools they know to be trustworthy. That's really our commitment, providing resources that people know they can trust and that are not attempting to manipulate them or to guide them into something else."
The project's development has benefitted from the participation of youth, including a 10-member Youth Advisory Committee (YAC), as well as close to 50 in-depth interviews with participants ages 13 to 30.
"We try to be as inclusive as we can and invite people who see themselves as young," MacDonald says. "We are following a cohort of millennials with whom we spoke to in 2015 and are interviewing again. And we are adding a Gen Z cohort who we are speaking to for the first time."
The interviews seek, in part, to have youth define what well-being means to them. "There's no universal definition of what well-being is or how youth well-being should be defined," Stinson says. The UNICEF Canada framework the team has been working with - the Canadian Index of Child and Youth Wellbeing - was developed by young people. But it wasn't designed to consider the impact of digital technology, he says. "So, we're trying to update that framework to really understand the impact of digital technologies on youth well-being."
The framework covers everything from security, belonging, learning, being healthy and free to play, participating in society and connecting to the environment, which all add up to a central domain of life: happiness and satisfaction, Stinson says. The team is also working to develop a Canadian youth digital well-being survey.
Tilleczek, who has been interviewing youth for more than 30 years, said the harm done by technology is very clear now with legal cases against big tech, including local cases such as the Toronto District School Board's ban on cellphones in the classroom.
"Back in 2014, there was no such thing. It was kind of weird to even ask kids what they thought about the digital age at that time. But now there's been a massive response and debate, so we are taking the new tech landscape into consideration, where it seems clear there are harms that require regulation and education," Tilleczek says. "We're working to better understand and describe the emerging digital age, and young people will help us figure that out and let us know what they see and need."
This story was originally featured in YFile, York University's community newsletter.
