YouTube has announced a new mental health section aimed at teens, creating special video boards that provide teens with age-appropriate information on topics such as depression, anxiety, ADHD and eating disorders.
These video boards appear when users with teen accounts perform searches related to mental health. IN youtube blog postA search for “depression” will bring up video resources Jed Foundationa non-profit organization dedicated to emotional health and suicide prevention in the UK National Health Service.
YouTube is the social network most used by teenagers nine out of ten young people interviewed They say they regularly surf the site with user-generated videos. That means more teens engage with YouTube than Snapchat, Instagram and even TikTok.
“Besides Google, YouTube is the most important means of contact with our support line,” says Johanna S. Kandel, who National Alliance on Eating Disorders Managing Director. “When teenagers are looking for answers, they often turn to YouTube, and YouTube helps them connect with us directly.”
According to YouTube’s blog, the videos included are “evidence-based, youth-oriented and engaging.”
Sources from the National Alliance for Eating Disorders, the Jed Foundation and Child Mind Institute There are videos about teenage mental health on YouTube.
The shelves of teen mental health videos are just one part of a wider policy change for the YouTube platform. Other recent changes include a Community Guidelines rule. restrict content which promotes eating disorders and Specific recommendations for young people and security barriers that block explicit content.
The initial rollout of the program will begin in the coming weeks as teen mental health resources appear in people’s feeds in the US, UK, Canada, Mexico, France and Australia.