Kategori: Nyheter

Our analysis of Indonesia’s social forestry permits shows that women remain underrepresented in forest management bodies despite efforts to boost their presence, leaving them out of decisions about their forests.

Social forestry redistributes forest management rights to local communities to advance sustainability and local livelihoods. In 2021, the country revised its social forestry regulations to allow one family representative to participate in social forestry management bodies, ‘giving equal opportunity to both men and women.’

However, our analysis of 400 most recent social forestry permit documents, combined with extended, multi-method field research at four sites, shows that women are often excluded from management bodies but are more involved in social forestry business groups (Kelompok Usaha Perhutanan Sosial or KUPS). These groups focus on the processing and sale of forest products.

This low level of participation in management excludes women from decisions about who receives benefits such as land for cultivation, seedlings, equipment, extension training, and technical information provided by the government and NGOs. The absence of women’s presence may deepen local inequalities and hamper effective forest management.

Gender gaps in social forestry

We reviewed the 400 most recent decree letters issued in 2024 that granted forestry management rights. These included 100 permits each for the managements of Village Forests (Hutan Desa) and Community Forests (Hutan Kemasyarakatan) and their respective KUPS (Table 1). Village Forests are rights collectively held and managed by village administrations, while Community Forests are issued to specific farmer or community groups.

Our analysis found that across Indonesia women are often underrepresented in management groups. On average, only 19.54% of members in Village Forest’s management bodies were women, with participation ranging from none to 80%. This number was even lower in Community Forests, averaging 13.95% women, with some groups having no female members and others up to 56.52%.

However, the available data often lacked details about gender in KUPS-related decrees. Only 19 of 100 Village Forests’ KUPS decrees and 23 of 100 Community Forests’ KUPS decrees included this information.

When gender data was included, women were more involved in KUPS of Village Forests, with an average of 46.32% participation. In contrast, their participation in Community Forests’ KUPS was just 13.06%.

These numbers show that progress in gender representation in Indonesia’s social forestry is mixed. While women are more active in economic activities linked to KUPS, they are still sidelined in formal management roles and decision-making.

Understanding uneven participation

Our field research also highlighted how women and men are participating in, and deriving benefits from, social forestry in Indonesia, while exploring factors influencing women’s (and men’s) involvement.

We focused on four social forestry sites — two Village Forests (Sintang; West Kalimantan province, and Muara Enim; South Sumatra province) and two Community Forests (Gunungkidul; Special Region of Yogyakarta, and Enrekang; South Sulawesi province). We selected sites that reflect different levels of women’s participation.

Table 2 highlights a disparity: while women actively engage in forest land use — such as collecting and processing non-timber forest products and cultivating social forestry land — in two sites (Enrekang and Muara Enim) they are not involved in management bodies where decisions about land use, forest resources and benefit distribution are made.

For example, Masna (pseudonym), a farmer and forest user from Enrekang, shared that her involvement in her village’s forest management body (Kelompok Tani Hutan) was limited to preparing snacks while men made decisions.

Why does this happen?

Deeply rooted gender norms significantly limit women’s involvement in social forestry in some sites. These norms often designate unpaid household and care-giving duties to women, positioning men as the primary decision-makers. This affects women’s confidence and participation in village meetings, where forest management decisions are made reduce women’s participation.

Our findings align with earlier studies showing how gender roles, influenced by discourse promoted by the New Order regime, continue to shape these practices of recognising men as breadwinners and landowners, reinforcing their dominance in formal discussions and decision-making bodies.

Although there are no educational requirements for joining social forestry, research shows that those with more education tend to have more influence. In our study, women in social forestry households averaged fewer years of education (6.6 years) compared to men (8.1 years). Lower education levels, socio-economic challenges, and low confidence in public forums, where education often boosts credibility, can further exclude women.

Geographic barriers such as remote forest locations, rough terrain, and poor roads also hinder women’s participation, making travel difficult and limiting their ability to be involved.

Assistance helps, as do local women leaders

In the Sintang and Gunungkidul sites, women have taken on greater roles in forest management bodies.

In Sintang, support from the Indonesian NGO PUPUK (Association for the Improvement of Small Business) significantly boosted women’s participation in the village forest management body. PUPUK facilitated discussions, provided training at convenient times for women, and encouraged male leaders to back greater female involvement. The number of female members increased from just one in 2018 to 12 women and nine men in a newly formed management body in 2022.

The Tapang tree, sacred in Sintang, West Kalimantan, supports bee nests, providing honey as a vital livelihood source.
Author provided (no reuse)

The social forestry group in Gunungkidul – initially a male-dominated, government-led reforestation project – evolved into a community-driven initiative with strong female leadership. Support from both government and NGOs enabled women to take more active roles in forestry and agriculture, especially as many men (and some women) left to seek work elsewhere.

A university-educated woman now leads this group and has inspired younger women to join forest management and KUPS activities. These include producing traditional herbal drinks (wedang uwuh) and making snacks from taro, cassava, and arrowroot grown on forest land.

Across the study sites, women involved in KUPS have developed skills in forest management, financial planning, product processing, and marketing, earning modest incomes. These activities have also shifted gender roles. For example, in Sintang, when Mirna (pseudonym) became head of the KUPS, her husband started taking on domestic chores like cooking and childcare to support her work.

What’s next?

Tackling gender disparities in social forestry requires targeted policies to ensure women’s voices, especially from marginalised groups, are heard in decision-making processes that affect their livelihoods and access to resources.

Introducing quotas or affirmative measures for forest management bodies can help close the gender gap and ensure more equitable benefit distribution. Evidence from other Global South regions suggests that at least 30% female representation in forest management bodies is necessary for meaningful participation, enabling women to influence decisions more effectively.

Inclusive governance also depends on fair representation of different ethnic and socio-economic groups, particularly poorer households. When disadvantaged groups are poorly represented, the distribution of benefits suffers, limiting the equitable flow of resources and opportunities.

Partnerships with NGOs and civil society groups skilled in addressing gender differences can empower women and marginalized men with the skills and confidence needed to engage in decision-making bodies.

Creating safe spaces is also vital. This includes holding gender-specific discussions in local languages at times that fit with both women’s and men’s schedules.

The government must also commit to regularly monitoring women’s participation by collecting and publishing accurate gender-disaggregated data, specific to each site and region.

A decree issued by Ministry of Environment and Forestry in August introduces a policy shift that allows individuals — not just groups — to apply for social forestry. This could boost women’s participation, provided targeted support helps them step into leadership roles. Without this backing, the risk remains that social forestry will continue to be dominated by elite men.

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra, the director of The Asia Foundation’s Environmental Governance program in Indonesia, and Ike Sulistiowati, Director of PUPUK Indonesia, contributed to this study. Läs mer…

As this year’s UN climate summit reaches its final stage of negotiations, Pacific scholars are calling on world leaders to improve the dispersal system of climate finance to support people living in small island nations.

Last week, we presented the Conference of the Parties (COP29) with a report from the largest Pacific climate adaptation study. The Pacific Ocean Climate Crisis Assessment (POCCA) amplifies voices of people with lived experience. It collates data and case studies about climate impacts island nations are already facing and local adaptation strategies they are already practising.

The report shows that climate finance has been mainstreamed into global financial structures which follow the same patterns as development aid.

This means the main global financial institutions, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, become the “accredited” institutions involved in dispersing funds, adding loan components and making direct access difficult for Pacific nations.

Loading recipient countries with more debt

As a result, some 72% of the money is in the form of loans by the time it reaches people on the ground. The real beneficiaries are private contractors in developed countries who are brought in to build climate-resilient infrastructure.

What may have started off as a humanitarian gesture has ended up loading recipient countries in the Global South, particularly in the Pacific, with more debt.

Recent research shows extreme weather is already costing vulnerable island nations US$141 billion each year. Estimates suggest this will rise to $1 trillion annually by 2030.

Climate finance is an essential point of negotiation at COP29, with the goal of increasing the contributions by wealthy countries.

Last year’s climate summit in Dubai agreed to establish a new fund to compensate developing countries for losses and damages from natural disasters caused by climate change. This diplomatic effort was spearheaded by a group of small island developing states and it is important this fund fills the gaps in current climate finance.

However, closing the gap between the funds currently available and the money needed is only one aspect. We must also transform the process of dispersal to make sure money directly benefits people who already face climate impacts on a daily basis.

Traditional building techniques protect houses from inundation.
Kike Calvo/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Indigenous knowledge and local adaptation

Our report also highlights a range of climate adaptation strategies, including relocating households and villages, already employed by Pacific peoples across the region.

As descendants of great navigators and oceanic settlers who traversed the world’s largest ocean for millennia, Pacific peoples have long developed sophisticated adaptive capacities. Despite living in some of the planet’s smallest and most environmentally challenging places, they have been responding to change in locally relevant and innovative ways for centuries.

This includes traditional building techniques which produce more flexible houses that are easier to rebuild and coastal protections against sea-level rise and beach erosion.

Adaptation practices used in Pacific Islands are mostly based on community Indigenous knowledge and skills passed down over generations. For example, in French Polynesia, the traditional practice of building elevated houses with floors 1.5m above ground level is now subsidised by the government as part of risk prevention.

Pacific islands have also focused increasingly on ecosystem-based approaches that build on their Indigenous knowledge and benefit both communities and ecosystems. In Fiji, Indigenous knowledge has helped to identify native vegetation suitable for reducing coastal erosion and flooding.

Relocation is an adaptation option of last resort. The report includes two case studies of community relocation in Fiji, which highlight the importance of including all social groups in planning to foster positive outcomes.

Changing the narrative

Pacific peoples are intrinsically connected to the ocean and have developed systems of social and ecological resilience which allows them to bounce back quickly from disruption.

Many Pacific people are indeed affected by climate change. But the
constant narrative of vulnerability is problematic. It undermines the very idea of Indigenous and local Pacific agency and resilience.

The complexity of climate impacts requires us to look at what is happening on the ground, especially when applying science-based models and their inherent uncertainties to inform local adaptation decisions.

The report recommends enabling pathways that combine Indigenous knowledge, contemporary science methods and government decision tools to safeguard a balance between ground-up and top-down approaches to adaptation and resilience.

Pacific Island communities have always lived on islands affected by drought, tsunami and tropical cyclones. They had to survive on islands with limited resources.

Over millennia, Pacific peoples developed local knowledge, including cultural
principles and social structures, to thrive in these circumstances. Given existential threats and challenges, especially those facing atoll island communities, we need to draw on climate-related Indigenous knowledge and practices.

In contrast to narratives of vulnerability, legacies of resilience are key to successful climate adaptation. Läs mer…

Children are born to play!

And yet, despite our best efforts, many parents and professionals find that some children are not motivated to get moving and prefer watching television instead. Among the potential causes of this, several studies had revealed that clumsy children, i.e. those with poor motor skills, have a tendency to withdraw from physical, sports and leisure activities.

We are, respectively, a doctoral student in education and a professor of physical activity science and motor development at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). Our present research at the Laboratoire de recherche en motricité de l’enfant (Child motor skills research laboratory) aims to understand this little-known phenomenon, particularly when it affects children with a specific learning disability (dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysorthographia), in order to avoid the negative cycle of disengagement.

What are motor skills?

Throwing a ball, tinkering or kicking a ball might seem like simple activities. However, to perform them, a person’s brain must continually use sensory information from their body and detect information from their environment to be able to plan, produce and correct movements.

What’s more, a person has to co-ordinate their posture and their fine, gross and ocular motor skills, all the while maintaining their body’s balance to ensure they don’t fall over. Moving is very complex, especially when you have to be precise, follow a set pace, or find strategies to outwit an opponent, for example.

Playing outside, on a variety of terrain, can help children develop motor skills.
(Shutterstock)

These are what we call motor skills. They are particularly important for playing games. Balancing, handling and controlling objects, as well as locomotor movements (e.g. jumping, running) are “fundamental” motor skills. It is essential to develop these in childhood and to practise them regularly in contexts that are both fun and varied, since they become the foundation on which other motor skills are built.

Development of motor skills

Certain factors influence the development of motor skills, such as maturation (age), experience (practice), social context (e.g. overprotection, neglect) and the integrity of the child’s systems from birth (e.g. nervous and musculoskeletal).

Of course, if a child never rides a bike, they won’t have the chance to develop this skill. Lack of stimulation can also cause developmental delays. However, if difficulties persist even after regular practice, we must consider the possibility that the problems are due to neurological deficits.

When a child’s motor skills are inferior to those of other children their age, they are considered to have motor difficulties or a motor disorder if their performance on the standardized motor test is below the 16th percentile.

Which children are at risk of motor difficulties?

Populations at risk of motor difficulties include children who are premature, come from vulnerable backgrounds or have neurological conditions such as neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g. developmental co-ordination disorder/dyspraxia).

The latter cause a dysfunction in brain maturation, i.e. an alteration in brain development, which affects children’s abilities, including some that enable them to move efficiently.

Opt for activities that encourage co-operation rather than competition to help children with motor difficulties.
(Shutterstock)

A recent literature review carried out by Mariève Blanchet (co-author of this article) and neuroscientist Christine Assaiante also shows that motor skills are significantly impaired in children with a learning disability who have no other associated disorders. In fact, compared with their typically developing peers of the same age, these children have difficulty performing different types of actions and have to use a variety of compensatory strategies in order to move.

Multiple consequences of motor difficulties

Motor difficulties can be detrimental to children’s learning and overall development.

Because of their clumsiness, these children tend to withdraw from the activities available to them (leisure activities, local parks, sports, games, etc.) since they lack confidence in their abilities. Added to this lack of confidence, these children may also enjoy taking part in activities less, and tire more quickly than their peers.

As a result, they are less physically active, leading to a sedentary lifestyle.

Suggestions for helping these children

It is essential to adapt activities so that young people feel competent moving, and to vary the activities offered to them so that they can make choices, experience success and then commit to physical activity and sport. This is especially important for young people with motor difficulties, such as those with a learning disability.

Here are a few suggestions:

Outdoors: Playing and being active outdoors has a number of benefits. It facilitates social inclusion and increases the intensity of activities, opportunities and the wealth of sensory-motor and cognitive stimulation.
Co-operation: Opt for activities that encourage co-operation rather than competition. Co-operation promotes inclusion, participation and socialization and increases peer acceptance.
Slow progression of activities: Encourage practising the same task in a variety of contexts. For example, a child could run on a flat, linear and regular surface (asphalt), then progress to a sloping surface that has some curves, is irregular (roots on the ground), textured (grass, gravel), unstable (sand, rocks, branches) or narrow (rope, plank, lines on the ground, beam, strip of pavement). They could also run in water and snow. It is important to start with simple tasks (dribbling on the spot) rather than double tasks (dribbling while running or dribbling and listening to instructions).
Free play: Offer periods of activity initiated and directed by the children, with no procedures or structure imposed by an adult, reusing materials that do not necessarily refer to sports (such as cones, rope, boxes, etc.). Free play fosters creativity, independence, motor skills, self-confidence and social inclusion.

For further suggestions and to learn more about motor difficulties, watch the video from the Laboratoire de recherche en motricité de l’enfant. Läs mer…

As the world gathers in Azerbaijan for this year’s annual UN climate conference (COP29), the urgency to act on climate change has never been greater.

The stakes in Baku are high with 2024 on track to be the hottest year recorded, the first to potentially break the 1.5 C Paris Agreement threshold, and Canada experiencing warming rates twice the global average.

Most governments, including here in Canada, are looking to options to mitigate the effects of climate change through regulations or funding new technologies. To this end, nature-based solutions (NbS) offer the most promising path forward.

There are three key strategies for governments to maximize the growth (and impact) of NbS. From removing harmful subsidies to integrating natural assets into financial systems and promoting biodiversity credits, policymakers have a number of tools at their disposal. World leaders in Baku should take notice.

What is a nature-based solution?

Nature-based solutions (NbS) use nature, rather than human-made infrastructure, to mitigate climate change. They can include wildlife corridors, cover cropping, natural water retention measures, wetland restoration and buffer strips.

Such measures sequester carbon and foster biodiversity. They also enhance human health and well-being. What’s more, NbS can help protect human made infrastructure from the effects of climate change, such as floods, storm surges and erosion.

And all these benefits can come at a fraction of the cost of traditional infrastructure.

Read more:
Humans can work with nature to solve big environmental problems – but there’s no quick fix

A recent meta-study of 155 peer-reviewed articles showed that NbS were more effective than engineering solutions in attenuating hazards in 65 per cent of studies and more cost-effective in 71 per cent.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, the total global finance for NbS in 2022 reached USD $200 billion. Approximately USD $600 billion will be needed to reach climate, biodiversity and land degradation targets by 2030. Of that total investment, only 18 per cent or USD $35 billion is from the private sector.

In addition to investing directly in nature-based solutions, governments can unlock private sector capital for nature-positive outcomes by providing incentives for private sector investment in NbS.

Enabling nature-based solutions

In 2022, the United Nations Environment Programme estimated that nearly USD $7 trillion was invested annually in activities that harm nature. Of that total, USD $5 trillion was from the private sector. Approximately 69 per cent of the public sector investments subsidize the fossil fuel industry and 20 per cent subsidize agriculture.

Diverting even just a fraction of the public funds used to subsidize carbon-intensive industries to the USD $600 billion needed to fund NbS could help governments make real meaningful change.

Such advances in funding NbS are, however, politically difficult for governments, as nature does not appear on national accounting ledgers. In contrast, the extraction of natural resources is included in the calculation of gross domestic product, which is an important indicator of the effectiveness of government. This must change.

A presentation on nature-based solutions by a professor of biodiversity from the University of Oxford, Nathalie Seddon.

Conventional approaches to accounting do not allow nature-based assets to appear on government or corporate balance sheets because, unlike engineered assets, they are not bought or sold. This discrepancy disincentivizes economic actors and governments from investing in forests, wetlands and watersheds because the investments cannot be capitalized, or yield measurable financial returns.

It is critical, then, that governments enable accounting for natural assets.

Frameworks exist for doing just that. Indeed, the Capital Coalition and the Natural Assets Initiative have developed excellent examples. In May 2022, the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board even released a consultation paper on natural resources reporting.

Authorizing the valuation of natural assets in conventional accounting would be a decision that could unlock significant investments in NbS, while still being light on public finances.

Offer biodiversity credits

Although imperfect, carbon markets have been helpful in attracting capital to fund low-carbon technologies. This capital is, however, often directed at human-made technologies, such as innovations in battery technologies needed for electrification — rather than more cost- and carbon-effective NbS.

Carbon credits motivate decarbonization through human-made infrastructure, such as through energy systems. Biodiversity credits, on the other hand, serve to enhance biodiversity, which is more far-reaching and grounded in NbS.

Such credits can work in several ways. First, companies that reduce biodiversity could offer payments to companies improving biodiversity, such as investments in nature-based infrastructure or landowners who manage their land responsibly. Alternatively, investing in certification bodies can create standards for responsibly produced products, such as wood, concrete or steel.

COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev attends a plenary session at the COP29 UN Climate Summit, Nov. 18, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. Progress has been made at COP29 on formalizing global carbon markets. Biodiversity credit markets should receive the same attention.
(AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

On Oct. 28, the International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits (2024) introduced the Framework for High-Integrity Biodiversity Credit Markets to help guide the creation of a biodiversity credits market.

The framework aims to attract significant investments to conserve and restore ecosystems and biodiversity by establishing standards and monitoring systems, which should have the added bonus of tackling greenwashing.

Valuing nature

Valuing nature is not straightforward. There are no clear measures of biodiversity.
Any measure of biodiversity must be sensitive to local ecosystems and local communities. It needs to build on local knowledge, especially from people who live on the land in question, such as Indigenous Peoples.

Yet, people with deep local knowledge are often excluded from such conversations, because corporations and governments generally favour Western science-based knowledge over community-based knowledge. It is critical to engage in inclusive multi-party dialogue for NbS to reach the ambition of sustainable development.

Governments must build on the progress made on carbon markets in Baku and develop an international biodiversity credit system that is based on an inclusive approach before it is too late.

As the world comes together to tackle climate change at the COP29 meeting, civil society, businesses and governments should be looking not for big solutions, but for the cheaper, quicker and often more effective nature-based alternatives.

With just a few key measures, governments can lead the way. Läs mer…

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled that harmonised technical standards – an influential form of governance – must be more accessible. Here’s what this landmark decision means.

Technical standardisation, which encompasses standards published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), has become a critical aspect of global regulation. Its scope has expanded far beyond goods, encompassing services, the environment, corporate social responsibility (ISO 26000) and anti-corruption measures (ISO 37000).

This trend is particularly evident within the European Union. The “new approach” to standardisation, launched in the 1980s by then European Commission president Jacques Delors, placed technical standards at the heart of the EU’s single market. The success of this approach, evidenced by the “CE” marking on products, was initially focused on goods and later extended to services. It plays a central role in the recent EU Artificial Intelligence Act, which requires AI computing services to comply with a series of technical standards, including for personal data security.

3,600 harmonised European standards

Over the past 30 years, the European Commission estimates that more than 3,600 “new approach” technical standards have been developed. The sectors covered by these standards represent over 1.5 trillion euros in annual trade – about 10% of the EU’s gross domestic product. These standards, developed by private bodies like the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC), are voluntary and require manufacturers and service providers to pay a fee to access them. However, compliance is not optional, because aligning with these standards creates a presumption of conformity with EU law. Failure to comply means manufacturers must either withdraw their products or prove compliance through alternative, often costly, means.

Until recently, these fee-based standards were viewed as a form of self-regulation beyond judicial scrutiny. That changed in 2016 when the CJEU ruled in the James Elliott Construction case that these technical standards produce legal effects, making them “part of the law of the Union”.

Following this ruling, two non-profit organisations, Public.Resource.org and Right to Know, whose mission is to make the law freely accessible to all citizens, asked the European Commission for free access to four harmonised standards. The Commission denied the request, a decision upheld by the General Court of the European Union in July 2021.

On March 5, 2024, the CJEU, the supreme body of the European legal order, overturned the decision, finding that an overriding public interest justified the disclosure of the harmonised standards in question. Moving forward, the Commission will need to grant requests for free access to harmonised standards.

This jurisprudential development has turned the technical standardisation model on its head. Indeed, given that these standards are becoming legalised and will henceforth be free of charge, the production and funding methods of standardisation bodies and the intellectual property protections they rely on must be re-evaluated. This evolution could also be an opportunity to improve the legitimacy of these standards.

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Based on figures from CEN, the potential loss of revenue from making these standards freely accessible could amount to around 11% of the 19 million euros of average annual revenue, or around 2 million euros. This calculation was made by averaging the revenues reported as income for each year between 2019 and 2022 in the 2021 CEN annual report and the 2022 CEN annual report.

Governed by engineers

This amount does not appear to be insurmountable for the Commission to manage, but it should be accompanied by a systemic reform. This reform would aim to involve civil society organisations more effectively, ensuring that technical standards impacting fundamental principles are developed with a diverse range of perspectives in mind. The Commission is best positioned to verify the genuine involvement of all stakeholders and ensure that standards bodies take their input into account.

Technical standards produced by “engineers” are not merely technical, neutral or optional, but are powerful modes of governance that have significant political implications. Consequently, these standards must not escape a democratic adoption procedure and respect for the rule of law under the control of the courts. It is therefore incumbent on the EU’s institutional bodies – the Commission, the Parliament and the Council of the European Union – to stop basing public policies, especially non-economic ones, on technical standards.

The EU’s recent AI legislation illustrates this tendency. When public authorities rely on technical standards, it gives the impression that norm-setting is being outsourced, allowing authorities to bypass the political process. This approach may be pragmatic, but it is legally questionable. The CJEU’s recent rulings signal a need for EU public decision-makers to change their approach. Läs mer…

In late 2024, more than 20 years after the birth of Facebook, the impact of social media on our lives cannot be overstated. Initially underestimated by many in business, social media eventually came to be recognised for its power to enable workers to share solutions, ideas and perspectives. While companies took time to see its potential, younger generations have been living part of their lives through social platforms for years. A 2023 Pew Research Center survey reveals that a majority of US youth aged 13 to 17 visit YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat at least “about once a day”, with roughly 15% saying they visit these platforms “almost constantly”.

This widespread use of social media has brought with it an increased focus on its effects on young people, particularly adolescents. Over the past year, we collaborated with our former doctoral student Elena Fumagalli to review research in this area and its potential impact on policymaking. Our findings were surprising and, at times, conflicting. While many studies share evidence of the negative impacts of social media use on adolescent wellbeing, the research we reviewed also showed conflicting findings and a dearth of high-quality research designs. And yet, policy decisions and media coverage are often based on them.

In response to this, we recently published a paper focusing on the most rigorous studies on this topic. Our goal was to identify research that we believe offers valid and dependable conclusions. Through this review, we discovered that social media’s effects on adolescent wellbeing are complex, varying by age, gender and the type of platform use.

The “moving target” of social media research

A critical challenge in this area is what we call the “moving target” problem. Social media platforms are constantly evolving, making it difficult to generalise research findings from one period to another. For example, Facebook today is not what it was 10 or 15 years ago – its functionality, user base and even its name have changed. Similarly, platforms like Instagram have gained popularity, while others such as Friendster, Vine and Google’s Orkut have disappeared.

Given this ever-changing landscape, it’s nearly impossible to draw definitive conclusions from older studies. That’s why we focused our review on research conducted in the past five years, a period marked by significant advances in data collection and analysis. We limited our scope to adolescents and young adults aged 13 to 21 to better understand how social media affects wellbeing during these critical developmental years.

Developmental sensitivity to social media

One of the most significant findings from our paper is that the negative effects of social media vary by age and gender, something which is rarely taken into consideration by authorities and the media. For girls, the most vulnerable period appears to be between 11 and 13 years old, while for boys it is between 14 and 15. These age ranges coincide with the onset of puberty, which we believe plays a significant role in how adolescents experience social media.

The beginning of puberty is already a challenging time for most young people, and social media seems to amplify these challenges. For example, body image issues, which often emerge during adolescence, are exacerbated by the highly curated and idealised content found on platforms like Instagram. While social media didn’t create these issues, it amplifies them like never before, making it harder for adolescents to ignore them.

Interestingly, we also found negative psychological effects for both boys and girls at age 19. This age corresponds to major life transitions such as leaving home, entering college or starting a job, all of which can induce anxiety. Social media appears to intensify these anxieties, possibly by fostering unrealistic expectations about life or creating a sense of inadequacy.

Active versus passive use

Another challenge we encountered in our research is the lack of clear definitions for what constitutes “social media use.” Furthermore, platforms vary significantly in their design, function, and audience, and these differences matter when it comes to their effects on wellbeing. For instance, image-based platforms like Instagram tend to have a more significant negative impact on body image than text-based platforms such as X (formerly Twitter).

Moreover, the way adolescents and young adults use social media also matters. We found that active use, where individuals post and engage with others, is linked to more positive self-esteem. In contrast, passive use, where users merely scroll through content without interacting, is associated with negative effects on wellbeing. These differences are crucial to understanding social media’s impact and need to be better accounted for in future research.

A further factor is the intentional addictiveness of these platforms. Whistleblowers have revealed that many social media companies design their products to be habit-forming, encouraging users to spend more time on their platforms. This makes social media more invasive than previous technologies like television or radio, and its influence is likely to extend into the workplace as today’s adolescents enter the job market.

Beyond adolescence

Our study highlights the need for more long-term, rigorous research to better understand social media’s impact on wellbeing. Recent studies suggest that various moderators – such as the type of platform and patterns of use – can either worsen or mitigate the negative effects of social media. These must be taken into account in evaluating measures to take against these negative consequences.

We also believe it’s important to look beyond adolescence. As the next generation enters the workforce, their social media habits are likely to follow them, potentially affecting their productivity and mental health. This is why we advocate for more longitudinal studies that track social media use over time and examine its long-term effects on wellbeing.

As we have found, despite the complexities and inconsistencies in social media research, politicians and the media often draw simplistic conclusions. For example, the Kids Off Social Media Act, a US bipartisan effort to ban social media for children under 13, reflects a tendency to make blanket statements about the dangers of social media. While it’s true that younger adolescents are more vulnerable to its negative impacts, age is not the only factor that matters. The type of platform, how it’s used, and individual psychological differences also play significant roles. Therefore, we must be careful not to jump to conclusions or implement one-size-fits-all solutions. Instead, we need nuanced, data-driven policies that account for the many variables at play.

Finally, as social media continues to evolve, so too must our understanding of its effects. More detailed, high-quality research can help guide interventions and programmes that protect the wellbeing of adolescents and young adults. With the right approach, we can better understand and mitigate the risks associated with this powerful technology. Läs mer…