In the News

An in-depth profile of the Digital Wellness Lab and the digital media environment that makes the Lab’s work so vital.

TikTok recently placed a 60-minute “daily screen time limit” on the app for users under 18. While that limit can be overridden with passcodes, the hope is that the pause will serve as a “speed bump” to force teens to think about what they’re doing and decide if they want to continue. The Digital Wellness Lab’s Dr. Michael Rich was interviewed for this article.

The Digital Wellness Lab’s Dr. Michael Rich contributes practical advice on how to help children develop healthy media habits.

Professor Keneisha Sinclair-McBride, a child psychologist at Boston Children’s Hospital who consults with the Digital Wellness Lab, gets in depth with Dr. Sanjay Gupta about the mental health effects of youth use of social media. She also offers some reassurance based on her clinical experience with young people today. (Starting at 9:00 of the audio)

Digital Wellness Lab expertise and guidance is cited as helping to shape TikTok’s new features to aid young users in creating healthy limits. This story has been widely covered, including by the BBC, NPR, Yahoo, and USA Today, among many other outlets.

The Digital Wellness Lab’s Dr. Michael Rich uses research to answer questions about the benefits and risks of youth turning to social media for mental health support.

In this digital age, many parents struggle with how to manage their child’s time online using social media, gaming or watching videos. In this episode, host Dr. Jennifer Arnold talks with special guest Dr. Michel Rich, Director of the Digital Wellness Lab and the Clinic for the Interactive Media and Internet Disorders at Boston Children’s Hospital. Together they offer practical advice and answers to common questions.

The “echo chamber” effect: Dr. Michael Rich of the Boston Children’s Hospital Digital Wellness Lab explains how social media platforms’ algorithms can lead to a “dark spiral” for teens.

It is indisputable that many of us spend much of our lives in front of our screens – especially our phones. Dr. Rich offers an updated paradigm for how we think about and address our digital lives.