Taking a nuanced look at adolescent technology use and negative affect: the protective role of preparedness.

Adolescents are online more than any other age group, with the majority of their time on social media. Increases in technology use among adolescents have heightened conversations regarding its effects on their negative affect. There have been mixed findings regarding the relationship between technology use and adolescent negative affect; some studies present a negative association or no association, and some show a positive association. To clarify this relationship, we propose moving away from asking only how much adolescents use technology to asking how and what they use it for. We employed the Multidimensional Healthy Technology Use and Social Media Habits Scale (MTECH) and adapted forms of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) in a sample of 7,234 middle and high school students to assess the extent to which students feel prepared to use technology safely and successfully and whether this impacts the association between the amount of various types of technology they use and their negative affect. We conducted eight moderated regression analyses that, in some models, revealed preparedness had a protective role in the association between technology use and negative affect. In these models, at all levels of technology use, adolescents with higher levels of preparedness experienced lower levels of negative affect than their peers; however, in some instances, this effect was diminished for those using technology with high frequency. These findings support the notion that the association between technology and negative affect is not best modeled as a direct relationship, and instead that we must consider important moderators of this complex association.

The Development of Cognitive Reappraisal From Early Childhood Through Adolescence: A Systematic Review and Methodological Recommendations.

Cognitive reappraisal is an important emotion regulation strategy that shows considerable developmental change in its use and effectiveness. This paper presents a systematic review of the evidence base regarding the development of cognitive reappraisal from early childhood through adolescence and provides methodological recommendations for future research. We searched Scopus, PsycINFO, and ERIC for empirical papers measuring cognitive reappraisal in normative samples of children and youth between the ages of 3 and 18 years published in peer-reviewed journals through August 9th, 2018. We identified 118 studies that met our inclusion criteria. We first present a quantitative review of the methodologies used to investigate cognitive reappraisal in children and adolescents, with attention to variations in methodologies by the sample age range. We then present a qualitative review of findings with attention to: (1) the age at which children begin to effectively use cognitive reappraisal to regulate their emotions, and (2) developmental changes in cognitive reappraisal from early childhood through adolescence. We consider how methodological differences may contribute to inconsistencies in findings, highlight gaps in the literature that remain to be addressed, and make recommendations for future directions.

Creativity and Connection: The Impact of inspirED with Secondary School Students.

The World Economic Forum predicts that the skills most highly valued by employers in 2025 will be problem-solving, self-management, working with people, and technology use and development. Educators are seeking ways in which to incorporate these skills into their daily instruction. Here, we offer one possible approach to bolster skills in each of these domains: the inspirED program. inspirED was designed for U.S. middle and high schools to support teams of students in completing projects or campaigns that they believe will make their school a better place for all. This study enrolled teams of students from 22 middle and high schools, and provided them with online training, coaching in the inspirED process, and resources to complete their project. Upon finishing their projects, students on the inspirED teams reported higher sense of purpose and self-awareness around the importance of emotions. The larger student bodies at schools in which inspirED projects took place also reported improvements in school climate including students' perceptions of teaching quality, sense of school pride, student relationships, and emotional safety. Implications and future directions for school-based social-emotional learning and student leadership opportunities are discussed.

Teaching emotion regulation in schools: Translating research into practice with the RULER approach to social and emotional learning.

Emotion regulation skills are critical to young children's school readiness and later academic achievement, as well as educators' efficacy, stress, and job satisfaction. In this article, we demonstrate how the science of emotion regulation can be translated into practical steps for educating teachers and students in schools. We begin with the crucial role of supporting educators in developing their own emotion regulation skills. We also discuss concrete and accessible tools that can be used to support both educators' own skill development and that of their students. We demonstrate how educators can integrate the teaching of emotion regulation through direct instruction, its integration into existing curricula, and daily practices and routines. The examples we provide are part of RULER, an evidence-based, whole school approach to social and emotional learning (SEL) that was developed at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. RULER is grounded in the theory of emotional intelligence, which emphasizes the critical role of emotion regulation in healthy development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).