News
A Smartphone Before Age 12 Could Carry Health Risks, Study Says
December 4, 2025NSCA member Jacqueline Nesi was quoted in the New York Times discussing the recent Pediatrics article that suggests giving smartphones to adolescents before the age of 12 could pose health and well-being risks. “Giving a child a device with access to everything on the internet is going to be risky,” says Nesi, but “it’s incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to get that kind of causal evidence on this topic.” Caregivers “do not need to wait for perfect evidence to make these kinds of decisions,” she explains; they should feel empowered to trust their gut and to hold off on giving their child a smartphone until everyone is ready.
Press Releases
February 25, 2025: Announcing the UCLA Center for the Developing Adolescent’s 2024 Annual Report
January 17, 2023: New Guides Help Organizations Build Effective Youth Engagement Programs
August 16, 2021: New Report Examines Intersection of Anti-Black Racism on Youth Development
November 30, 2020: Center for the Developing Adolescent Announces New Advisory Board Members
October 1, 2020: Center for the Developing Adolescent Announces New Leadership
Stay in the Know
NSCA Member Candice Odgers Joins World’s Most Influential Scholars
November 19, 2025For the third time in her career, Candice L. Odgers, a member of the National Scientific Council on Adolescence, UC Irvine’s Chancellor’s Professor of psychology, and UC Irvine’s director of research and faculty development, has earned a spot on Clarivate’s 2025 “Highly Cited Researchers” list.
The Middle School Transition Is Tough. How Educators Can Help
November 13, 2025A new Education Week article, quoting NSCA members Joanna Williams and Rhonda Boyd during a UCLA Center for the Developing Adolescent media briefing, highlights how educators can play a pivotal role in supporting early adolescents’ social, emotional, and physical needs when given systemic support and instruction informed by developmental science.
CDA Founding Director Ron Dahl on the Getting Smart Podcast Episode, “Why is Adolescence a Powerful Time for Growth, Agency, and Mattering?”
November 5, 2025In a new Getting Smart Podcast episode hosted by Tom Vander Ark, Adaptivity podcast host and CDA founding director Ron Dahl discusses how adolescence is a critical developmental phase featuring unique opportunities for fostering agency, contribution, and authentic mattering.
A 6-Year Research Project Found a Surprisingly Simple Route to Happiness
October 27, 2025In a new Washington Post article, NSCA member Anthony Burrow discusses his study on purpose during adolescence. During a six-year project, Burrow and his researchers selected around 1,200 adolescents to receive $400 no-strings “contributions” to pursue something that benefits their community, family, or even themselves. Eight weeks later, those who received the contributions scored significantly higher than the non-recipients on all measures: latent well-being, sense of purpose, sense of belonging, sense of feeling needed and useful, and affective balance.
CDA Founding Director Ron Dahl on the Gen Change Podcast
October 24, 2025CDA founding director Ron Dahl spoke on the Gen Change: Youth’s Potential for Societal Contribution podcast hosted by Erasmus University Rotterdam. During this episode, host Kayla Green, a postdoctoral researcher at the Erasmus SYNC Lab, and Dahl delve into the unique strengths and capacities that make youth potential agents of change for societal challenges.
Finding Happiness Through Purpose: Cornell Study Shows It’s Not About the Money
October 24, 2025NSCA member Anthony Burrow joins Smerconish on CNN to discuss his research on the link between purpose and mental health. In this interview, Burrow discusses The Contribution project, a study and social experiment that provided young people with $400 to make a difference that mattered to them. The young people selected for this project who made contributions reported greater feelings of purpose and reported increased feelings of happiness, meaning, and belonging.
Adriana Galván Discusses the Adolescent Brain, Stress and Systems that Support Young People on a New Episode of CaseyCast
September 19, 2025Co-Executive Director Adriana Galván speaks with The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s CEO Lisa Lawson on the latest episode of the foundation’s podcast, CaseyCast. In this conversation, Lawson asks Galván about her research on how the adolescent brain can inform the understanding of policymakers, educators, and youth-serving systems regarding this critical stage of development.
A Mind of One’s Own
September 2, 2025Co-Executive Director Adriana Galván is featured in a UCLA Newsroom article and accompanying podcast that provides insights into adolescent development, memory, and the fight to protect our brains.
The Surprising Science of Adolescent Brains
August 20, 2025NSCA co-director Jennifer Pfeifer spoke at TEDxPortland about the fascinating science behind the developing adolescent brain, and about how “adolescence isn’t a problem to be solved; it’s a transformative period of growth and opportunity.”