News
Mobile Technology May Support Kids Learning to Recognize emotions in Photos of Faces
June 2, 2020The increase in screen-time to connect with grandparents, teachers, and friends during the COVID pandemic has fed existing concerns that all this virtual interaction could be impeding social learning. In this article for The Conversation, Dr. Yalda Uhls, founder of the Center for Scholars and Storytellers, talks about her recent study in which kids who grew up with tablets and smartphones were actually better at reading emotions in photographs.
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
Panicking About Your Kids’ Phones? New Research Says Don’t
January 17, 2020NSCA member Dr. Candice Odgers talked with reporter Nathaniel Popper about what the evidence really shows about digital media and youth.
The Truth About Screen Time
December 19, 2019Screen time for adolescents isn’t just a question of good or bad. The truth, as this article featuring Center Advisory Board member Nick Allen and Founding Director Ron Dahl explains, is that we need more nuanced information about who, how much, when, and what they’re not doing instead.
Why Adolescents Need Regular Sleep—and Plenty of It
October 2, 2019Sleep is a major health issue for adolescents, affecting adolescent mood, immunity, and even weight. Science News for Students talked to our Advisory Board member Andrew Fuligni, UCLA, about how getting enough sleep throughout the week is essential to mental health and academic success.
Coming of Age in the Animal Kingdom: Linda Wilbrecht Reviews “Wildhood”
September 26, 2019Center Advisory Board member and UC Berkeley neuroscientist Linda Wilbrecht reviews the new book Wildhood. The book, Prof. Wilbrecht explains, details coming-of-age stories from across the natural world, revealing commonalities between animals that "celebrate the beauty and complexity of our own species’ journey into the big wide world."
12,000 Adolescents Participate in ABCD, the Biggest U.S. Longitudinal Study of the Maturing Brain
August 30, 2019Nearly 12,000 adolescents from around the country are participating in the 10-year Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study—the biggest longitudinal study of the developing brain undertaken in the U.S. Mother Jones magazine provided an inside look at this massive effort to transform the understanding of how our brains develop. “We’re going to be working with this dataset for decades,” said Center advisor Dr. Jennifer Pfeifer, University of Oregon.
New Study: How Smartphones Could Help Predict Suicide Risk Among Adolescents
August 30, 2019What if there were a way that digital technology could help adolescents in the face of mental health crises? Center advisor Dr. Nick Allen, University of Oregon, one of the co-investigators in the MAPS (Mobile Assessment for the Prevention of Suicide) study, talked to Science magazine about how digital tech could help predict and prevent suicide.
Adolescents Need Opportunities to Contribute
July 22, 2019Contributing to their families, social groups, and communities has huge benefits for adolescents and for those they are very capable of helping. Center Communications Director Meghan Lynch Forder writes for Greater Good Magazine about why contributing is essential to healthy adolescent development.
Adolescents Are More Likely to Take Risks, and That’s a Good Thing
April 17, 2019It's true: adolescents are more likely to take risks and more sensitive to social feedback than adults. At the DIBS Center for Cognitive Neuroscience on April 5, Center board member Dr. Adriana Galván reviewed the neuroscience and explained how these qualities are, in fact, perfectly adaptive to the developmental tasks of adolescence. Medical Xpress reports.
How Smartphone Data Could Help Predict and Prevent Suicide in Adolescents
March 1, 2019Could a cell phone save a life? Around the O talked to Dr. Nick Allen, Center board member and director of the Center for Digital Mental Health at the University of Oregon, about his efforts to develop a mobile app that could predict and thus prevent suicide by tracking the activities and moods of adolescents.