Mieke Oldeman is a PhD candidate on the interdisciplinary project ‘Empowering vulnerable youth to use social media as an information source on their mental health issues’. In this project, we focus on how adolescents and emerging adults with depression- and anxiety-related complaints use online short videos (OSVs, e.g. TikTok) to seek help for their complaints. Using a variety of research designs, we will examine to what extent, under what circumstances and for whom mental health information in OSVs may be beneficial or detrimental. The findings will be used to develop and test a brief intervention to improve mental well-being in youth.

Mieke’s project is part of the Research Priority Area Youth Digitality. For more information on this Research Priority Area, visit the website: Youth Digitality - University of Amsterdam (uva.nl)