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Emily Weinstein is a principal investigator at Project Zero and Co-Director of the new Center for Digital Thriving. For over a decade, her work has focused on chasing answers to questions like: How do today’s technologies shape teens’ lives and development? What’s hard for them and why? How can adults better support kids who are growing up with unprecedented connectivity?
Emily's published work includes the book Behind Their Screens: What Teens Are Facing (And Adults Are Missing), which details insights from original research with more than 3,500 U.S.-based youth and has received widespread coverage, including from The Today Show, NPR, TIME, WIRED, and The Washington Post. She also publishes academic work in peer-reviewed journals across multiple fields, including communication, psychology, and youth development.
Emily holds a doctorate in Human Development & Education and a master's degree in Prevention Science & Practice, both from Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is also passionate about youth voice, empowering digital agency, and helping communities rethink digital citizenship. She is a longtime collaborator of Common Sense Education and works closely on research behind their award-winning digital citizenship curriculum.
Emily began working at Project Zero in 2011, first on the Developing Minds and Digital Media Project and then on The Good Participation Project. Other past projects include the Digital Dilemmas Project and Reimagining Digital Well-being.
Our guiding question for IMAGINE is, How might we support schools in developing AI policies that foster character development and address gaps in adults' understanding of the ways teens use AI? We aim to answer this question with empathy and intellectual humility, and to motivate educators, administrators, and technologists to do the same. We will involve youth in every step of our process to research and design resources that go beyond issues of academic integrity to address a fuller spectrum of character virtues. Phase 1: Learning Through Listening Working with youth, we will systematically co-interpret data collected from 1500+ youth regarding their AI use and propose an empirically-based, field-guiding framework on teen AI use. In parallel, we will conduct a national survey with educators to inform a landscape analysis of school policies and educator pain points. Phase 2: Co-Designing with Youth, Educators, and Technologists We will host a series of participatory design workshops with youth, educators, technologists, and creative agitators. Workshops will focus on specific AI dilemmas and directly lead to project outputs (e.g., policies, activities, and suggestions for improvement in educational technologies). Phase 3: Empowering Decision Makers We will synthesize lessons learned to develop and pilot professional development programs for decision makers in the educational space educators and technologists that use resources created in Phase 2. We will evaluate the pilots and develop a plan for scaling the programs. IMAGINE responds to a critical need for school AI guidelines grounded in character development and youth voice. It will empower youth, foster moral imagination, and support digital agency as AI transforms education and the socioeconomic landscape
The purpose of The Center for Human Experience (HX) and Digital Thriving is, fundamentally, to pivot the way the public thinks about technology and its role in our lives -- particularly via translational research that supports thriving for youth who are growing up in a world with unprecedented connectivity. All of our activities will be keyed to bolstering a well-grounded understanding of what Human Experience (HX) is and/or to supporting HX in action, particularly in the lives of youth via key partner groups and audiences (youth themselves, educators/schools, parents/caregivers, psychologists and mental health providers). Our work will endeavor to catalyze and substantiate a movement that is concrete, interdisciplinary, evidence-based, and equity-centered. We seek to expand the "tent" of researchers doing HX-relevant work and of educators, clinicians, and other practitioners implementing HX-aligned practices in the broader world. Broadly, we endeavor to inspire the world to embrace HX as a vision for the future. Our activities will include Deep Research, an HX Fellows Program, development of HX Resource Collections, Youth Advisory and Youth-Led Special Projects, and Public Outreach.
The Center for Digital Thriving’s new Youth Voice Playbook offers advice to researchers looking to highlight youth perspectives in their own work
Tips for talking with teens about social media and thinking traps
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy detailed the struggle many adolescents have with social media and what can be done to help
Based at Project Zero, the center will offer new evidence-backed resources to support teens in a technology-filled world