In 2025, the Teens, Family & Technology Lab at the Rutgers School of Communication and Information partnered with the Rutgers-Eagleton/SSRS Garden State Panel to survey 923 parents and 202 teens across New Jersey.

Commissioned by the New Jersey Department of Education, the project examined the impact of social media on adolescent life and informed a “Roadmap for N.J.’s School Cell Phone Ban.”

Boys and girls alike emphasized the importance of limiting time on platforms, exerting control over their use and engaging in self-checks such as: “Does this actually make you feel good?”

Yet teens’ efforts to regulate their social media use are often undermined by platform design itself — features that actively exploit adolescent cognitive development.

Adolescents are especially susceptible to digital “rewards,” including personalized recommendations and endless scrolling. At the same time, they are still developing the ability to plan, prioritize and resist impulses.