Peer Power: Youth-Led Digital Wellness in Middle School Communities
An innovative instructional approach to engaging University of Michigan students with local middle school students to collaborate on digital wellness and positive mental health.
Digital wellness involves cultivating a healthy, balanced, and intentional relationship with technology to support mental, physical, and social health while learning. Grounded in learning sciences, it emphasizes proactive digital habits, critical media literacy, and ethical AI usage, shifting from restricting technology to educating users on creating positive, sustainable digital environments that enhance quality of life.
In partnership with Ann Arbor Public Schools, the U-M Marsal Family School of Education, the U-M School of Social Work, and the U-M School of Information, this project seeks to improve digital well-being among middle school and college students. U-M students mentor 6th graders from Ann Arbor Public Schools over several months during the winter semester, helping them design and implement digital wellness activities and programs for their classmates. At the end of the semester, the 6th graders share their projects and outcomes at a district-wide Expo.
Based on evidence that certain digital habits can increase the risk of cyberbullying, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, and other mental health difficulties, providing youth with an opportunity to develop digital wellness skills is essential. This project offers both U-M students and Ann Arbor Public Schools middle school students an opportunity to explore their own digital health, to become advocates in their schools and offer strategies to their peers and caregivers, and to serve as a model for digital wellness education more broadly.
External project participants include Kristin Fontichiaro (Clinical Professor, School of Information, University of Michigan), Beth Sherman (Clinical Professor, School of Social Work, University of Michigan), Christopher Thomas (Teacher at Scarlett Middle School, Ann Arbor Public Schools), Jennifer Colby (Instructional Technology Consultant, Ann Arbor Public Schools) and other Ann Arbor Public Schools Teachers, Librarians and Students
Image credit: Niki Williams
Featured Media on Project
- U-M program pairs college students with middle schoolers for digital wellness
- Digital Wellness Program Helps Middle Schoolers with Mental and Physical Health
- Digital Wellness Program empowers adolescents to be advocates for mindful tech usage | University of Michigan Marsal Family School of Education
- University of Michigan students join sixth graders, and middle school peers at AAPS Digital Wellness Expo
- Too much screen time? U-M pioneers digital wellness program for youths
Featured Publications
- Growing Up Digital: Digital Literacy Lessons from Sixth Graders
- Fontichiaro, K., Kolb, L., Sherman, B., and Thomas, C. (2025). Growing Up Digital. UMSI Blog post. Retrieved: https://sites.google.com/umich.edu/umsi-adaa/highlights/growing-up-digital?authuser=0
- Screens and Youth: Generating Conversations Between Tweens and Caregivers
- Kolb, L. & Fontichiaro, K. (2023). Screens and Youth: Generating Conversations Between Tweens and Caregivers. Joan Ganz Cooney Center. Retrieved: https://joanganzcooneycenter.org/2023/01/09/screens-and-youth-generating-conversations-between-tweens-and-their-caregivers/
- Kolb, L. & Fontichiaro, K. (2023). Screens and Youth: Generating Conversations Between Tweens and Caregivers. Joan Ganz Cooney Center. Retrieved: https://joanganzcooneycenter.org/2023/01/09/screens-and-youth-generating-conversations-between-tweens-and-their-caregivers/
