Avoiding Aimless Scrolling

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. We hope you can use their post to start a conversation with your adolescent.


With the weather finally turning to colder, shorter days, I find myself more often scrolling on my phone aimlessly for hours. While social media can be a good outlet, I turn into a zombie after being on it for a while. I will sometimes then be in a funk the rest of the day, feeling very out of it and not wanting to do anything else that I wanted to originally get done that day. Continue reading Avoiding Aimless Scrolling

Overcoming Holiday Eating Anxiety

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. We hope you can use their post to start a conversation with your adolescent.


I was recently swiping mindlessly through my friends’ Snapchat stories when I came across one who had storied a flyer from her gym titled, “Maintain, Don’t Gain!” that quoted the statistic that, “the average American will gain 5-10 lbs this holiday season.” The point of their flyer was to encourage users to sign up for more fitness classes this season. Continue reading Overcoming Holiday Eating Anxiety

Helping Your Child Determine Which Social Media Platforms are Best for Them

How many social media platforms can you name off the top of your head? There’s Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, LinkedIn (yes, even LinkedIn), Discord, Twitch…the list goes on.  Continue reading Helping Your Child Determine Which Social Media Platforms are Best for Them

Curating a Personally Positive Social Media Experience

While it’s impossible to tell everyone that you’re following on any of your social media platforms what they should be posting, it can sometimes be tempting to. This is true now more than ever: there are common themes of the kinds of posts that you’ve likely seen on your feeds, and while some are more helpful than others, it can get overwhelming, stress-inducing, and quite frankly, just not the type of content that you want to see right now. Continue reading Curating a Personally Positive Social Media Experience

Helping Your Child Interpret Emotion Over Text

Recently, we talked about lashing out online and the effects it can have to other people that we interact with on social media. We mentioned that since social media is mostly text, it can be hard for the person you’re talking to to fully understand how you’re feeling, and your words can feel even harsher without a face behind it. This week, we wanted to talk about being on the other side. Continue reading Helping Your Child Interpret Emotion Over Text

TikTok as a Mental Health Resource?

TikTok is an extremely popular social networking app on which short videos that go up to 60 seconds are circulated. The content on the app varies widely and probably includes almost anything you can imagine. There are viral dance routines, comedy, people sharing interesting stories, a woman who packs cute lunches for her kids, and we think all of us have seen the man skateboarding to Fleetwood Mac while drinking cranberry juice. Continue reading TikTok as a Mental Health Resource?

The Neuroscience Behind Why We Use Instagram

Using social media can feel like a mindless activity. Most of the time, we’re opening apps and scrolling and before we know it, it’s been an hour of alternating between apps and retaining absolutely nothing about what you just saw and who you interacted with. Using social media is a way for our minds to go on autopilot, spending time on your phone to kill time in line, in class, and when you’re lying down to put off going to bed. Continue reading The Neuroscience Behind Why We Use Instagram

How to Help Someone Through Social Media

With more and more people opening up about their mental health online, you may find yourself thinking about a few things. You may feel proud of them for opening up about their struggles on a large platform, or you might feel comforted and feel less alone that someone you know also has struggles with their mental health. You might think about how social media is helping reduce the stigma about mental illness by giving many the opportunity to write about what they’re going through too! Continue reading How to Help Someone Through Social Media