Discussing Mental Health Through… Memes?

The SOVA Project is happy to feature this blog post written by one in our team of fantastic SOVA Ambassadors—these are young people who help create meaningful blog posts from adolescents’ perspectives.


CharlieMemes are an undeniable staple of Internet culture. If you browse around many websites and social media platforms, you will almost certainly come across image macros, Tumblr posts, viral tweets, and other content that has been circulating the web.

The majority of modern memes are captioned photos that are intended to be funny, “often as a way to publicly ridicule human behavior.

Memes have become a method of describing different experiences and aspects of our lives in a humorous way—including mental health. In fact, mental health is one of the most common meme subjects that I’ve seen on the Internet.

On the surface, making jokes regarding mental health may sound distasteful. But when someone with a mental illness creates a meme about their condition, it may add a little laughter to their own day or even help others to understand what goes on in their mind.

Continue reading Discussing Mental Health Through… Memes?

Losing Sleep Over FOMO

Have you ever noticed your teen studying and checking their phone compulsively, all while slaving away on on a final paper or cramming for a final exam? Are they checking to see what other people are doing—in case their friends are having a more interesting life than they are?

That’s called FOMO, or fear of missing out.

And it might continue after they climb into bed—so they take their phone.

Continue reading Losing Sleep Over FOMO

Does Your Child Have A “Finsta”?

A lot of teens have a fake Instagram account, or “Finsta,” because they think it allows them more privacy than a real Instagram account.

Finstas are usually more private and closed than accounts with the owners’ reals name on them.

To teens who have a Finsta, it may feel like a place where they can be more authentic. To post on a real Instagram account, a lot of teens feel pressured to post every day, use multiple filters, and produce perfect photos of themselves living a perfect life. And they also feel pressured to get tons of likes, views, and comments.

Continue reading Does Your Child Have A “Finsta”?

#BeThe1To . . . Help Save A Life

You can create your own meme by going to the BeThe1To site.

Suicide Prevention Month happens each September. But that’s not the only time to remember how much we can do to help folks who are at risk of suicide—we can take action at any time.

“#BeThe1To” is the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s social-media message for National Suicide Prevention Month and beyond. It’s intended to spread the word about actions anyone can take to prevent suicide. The organization is working to change the conversation from suicide itself to the prevention of suicide—to actions that can promote healing, help people at risk, and give them hope.

The Lifeline has developed five core messages that are promoted by the hashtag #BeThe1To:

Continue reading #BeThe1To . . . Help Save A Life

Facebook and Life Satisfaction

How many times does your child log onto Facebook in a week? How many times in a day? More than once today?

Most people in the U.S. would answer yes to all these questions. Using social media is a natural part of our lives today. How many times have you seen your child open their phone and wander into Instagram, Snapchat, etc. without even thinking? Social media is something of a habit for many people living in our day and age.

Have you ever considered the impact that using social media so frequently could have on your child’s attitude? Researchers in Denmark wanted to get down to the bottom of this question, so they took over 1,000 Facebook users and asked half of them not to log on for just one week.

The results?

Continue reading Facebook and Life Satisfaction

The Future of Well-Being as Life Moves Online

onlineThe Pew Research Center on Internet and Technology came out with a report recently that offers an opinion about the future of technology and social well-being that’s different from the doom-saying we commonly hear.

Pew, along with Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center, asked tech experts, scholars, and health specialists this question:

Over the next decade, how will changes in digital life impact people’s overall well-being physically and mentally?

Continue reading The Future of Well-Being as Life Moves Online

“Accidental Bullying”: Has This Ever Happened To You Or Your Child?

Have you ever heard of “accidental bullying?” The term was coined by author Sue Scheff. It refers to a situation when someone unintentionally hurts another person’s feelings in a public way—for example, on social media. To learn more about accidental bullying, read Scheff’s article in HuffPost and watch the video below.

“It was just a joke… But it’s not so funny anymore.” 

She thought the note he gave her was silly, and she shared it online with her friends and made fun of him in messages. And now her “joke” has ruined the young man’s reputation.

Have you ever been an accidental bully? or accidentally bullied someone else?  

Continue reading “Accidental Bullying”: Has This Ever Happened To You Or Your Child?

How Media Influences Self-Harm, And What We Can Do About It

The SOVA Project is happy to feature this blog post written by one in our team of fantastic SOVA Ambassadors—these are young people who help create meaningful blog posts from adolescents’ perspectives.


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Kate Spade.

In the past week or two, after the deaths of fashion designer Kate Spade and chef Anthony Bourdain, we have seen a great deal of reporting about suicide. Reading about these events, I’ve started to think about how news coverage—including social media sharing—of events like these can affect those of us with depression and anxiety.

There has been a lot of positive news coverage generated by celebrity positions on social issues. Many celebrities have brought awareness and positive attention to mental illness by sharing about the difficulties they have experienced. These types of stories have the potential to inspire readers who struggle and educate them about how to cope with symptoms of mental illness.

But media stories about mental health can also have a negative impact on people’s understanding of mental illness.

Continue reading How Media Influences Self-Harm, And What We Can Do About It

Gun Violence: Some Facts and Perspective

We’ve developed an infographic about the perspective about gun violence that we gained after interviewing Dr. Jack Rozel M.D., an expert in the subject and medical director of Resolve Crisis Services in Pittsburgh.

One reason people are so scared of mass shootings, especially school shootings, is because of the lack of perspective in media portrayals, which then get shared across so many social media platforms.

How many people die each year in mass shootings?—take a look at our graphic to find out.

And please share on your social media channels to correct the misperceptions!

How To Tell Whether A Website Is Trustworthy

Sometimes it can be hard to figure out what information on social media sites comes from reliable and credible sources. Just because something sounds true does not mean it is. Here are some tips on how to decide whether a site is trustworthy before you share/retweet it on your news feed!

  • Academic journals (for example, Journal of Adolescent Health) that feature respected authors who are well known in their specific fields.
  • Links to websites of established institutions, such as Mayo Clinic, Department of Justice, and universities and their affiliated organizations.
  • Materials published in the last 10 years (when more recent information is available)—anything older than that is probably outdated and less reliable.
  • Byline: Is the article written by a real person? Google the author’s name and sometimes you find out that the author doesn’t really exist.
  • Check the date: Sometimes websites will recycle an old story by pasting a new headline on it, but if you search on the subject, you’ll find that it’s an old story—and unreliable because it’s not recent.
  • Is it real satire? Satire is a type of writing that uses exaggeration and humor to expose people’s vices, and it’s usually clearly labeled as such. But some people don’t get the joke, and they repost satirical articles as credible information.
  • Is the site’s mission clear? You should be able to see a clear idea of who the site’s audience is, an informative and unbiased mission, and signs that the information is regularly updated.
  • Look for websites ending in .edu, .gov or .org (For example, https://www.healthykids.org). Sites that end in .com are more “commercial.”
  • Finally, rely on the fact-checkers. There are some well-known fact-checking sites whose mission is to debunk false information. Two of the most well known are Snopes and FactCheck.

(Source: FactCheck.org.)

How do you decide which online outlets to trust? Do you have any other helpful hints? Please share with us!