Health advisory on social media use in adolescence

The APA’s health advisory emphasizes that social media’s effects on adolescents are complex and depend on individual characteristics, online experiences, and developmental maturity, offering both risks and benefits. It calls for age-appropriate monitoring, literacy education, and design adjustments, along with stronger protections against harmful content and more research to better understand social media’s long-term impact on youth.

Media Literacy Resources for Classrooms

A best-of-the-best collection of resources for teaching and learning about media literacy.

Media Literacy: A Toolkit for Educators

New York State’s Homeland Security & Emergency Services released a Media Literacy Toolkit in January 2025 to help educators teach students how to critically evaluate media and navigate misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation. The toolkit includes lesson plans, activities, and professional development resources for all grade levels, aiming to foster informed digital citizenship and protect youth from online harms.

Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed

Dashka Slater

From the New York Times-bestselling author of The 57 Bus comes Accountable, a propulsive and thought-provoking true story about the revelation of a racist social media account that changes everything for a group of high school students and begs the question: What does it mean to be held accountable for harm that takes place behind a screen?

How tech companies are addressing screen addiction

Allen Kim

From app developers to tech behemoths such as Google and Facebook, companies have spent years working to make consumer technology as addictive as possible. After all, time spent with their products could equal big bucks for the company.

Common Sense Media

Common Sense Media is an American nonprofit organization that reviews and provides ratings for media and technology with the goal of providing information on their suitability for children.

Digital Literacy & Citizenship Prompts for Students

These prompts are provided as flexible tools for use in a variety of engaging SEL activities and IFSEL lessons. They are designed to spark meaningful conversation, reflection, and connection among students. Teachers can incorporate them into interactive strategies such as Venn Diagram conversations, Story Swap shares, Inside Outside Circle dialogues, and many other structures that promote student voice, active listening, and perspective-taking. Whether used to build community, deepen self-awareness, or explore social-emotional themes, these prompts are adaptable to fit your classroom’s needs. You can customize and add your own.

Effect of Digital Storytelling on Prospective Teachers' Social Emotional Learning: An Experimental Study

Nuzhat Saadia Qureshi & Dr. Muhammad Zafar Iqbal

In this study, the researchers explored the impact of Digital Storytelling on prospective teachers' Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), encompassing their self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, relationship management, and responsible decision-making. The results strongly support the research hypotheses, indicating that digital storytelling positively influences the social-emotional development of educators.

How a Connecticut middle school won the battle against cellphones

Joanna Slater

In response to pervasive cellphone use disrupting education, Illing Middle School in Connecticut banned cellphones, implementing pouches to lock them away during school hours. Despite initial resistance, the policy has curbed distractions, improved focus in class, and fostered more face-to-face interaction among students, demonstrating a growing trend in schools nationwide to address the negative impact of smartphones on learning and social dynamics.

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

Jenny Odell

In a world where addictive technology is designed to buy and sell our attention, and our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity, it can seem impossible to escape. But in this inspiring field guide to dropping out of the attention economy, artist and critic Jenny Odell shows us how we can still win back our lives.

I, Human

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

"If you want to understand how we can best thrive in a world that is rapidly changing because of AI, and feel hopeful and confident about the role you can play, you'll find this book to be both brilliant and essential. Full of insights and practical tips, I, Human will prepare you for the future by focusing your attention on the very traits that make human nature unique." — Francesca Gino, Harvard Business School "A must-read for anyone who has wondered how we can maintain our humanity amid the super powerful prediction machines we've created." — Angela Duckworth

Mama Mavel

Velma Gentzsch

Family friendly gaming is possible. Mama Mavel helps parents and kids connect through video games. Imagine... screen time that's fun and bonding.

Parenting in the Screen Age: A Guide for Calm Conversations

Delaney Ruston

This guide shows you how to start--and sustain--productive family talks about technology. You'll learn how to: Bring up screen time without making your child or teen defensive. Talk through difficult issues like online social cruelty, sexting, and mental health.

SEL Movie Recommendations

Movies are a great way to decompress and can also be a great SEL education tool. Below are some recommendations.

SEL Music Playlist: Social & Emotional Learning Songs

A perfect blend of school appropriate songs for classroom parties, school activities, and focus time. IFSEL has created a blend of genres for elementary school to dance to and high schoolers won't cringe at!

Social Media Prompts for Students

These prompts are provided as flexible tools for use in a variety of engaging SEL activities and IFSEL lessons. They are designed to spark meaningful conversation, reflection, and connection among students. Teachers can incorporate them into interactive strategies such as Venn Diagram conversations, Story Swap shares, Inside Outside Circle dialogues, and many other structures that promote student voice, active listening, and perspective-taking. Whether used to build community, deepen self-awareness, or explore social-emotional themes, these prompts are adaptable to fit your classroom’s needs. You can customize and add your own.

Social Media Wellness: Helping Tweens and Teens Thrive in an Unbalanced Digital World

Ana Homayoun

Today’s students face a challenging paradox: the digital tools they need to complete their work are often the source of their biggest distractions. Written by noted author and educator Ana Homayoun, Social Media Wellness is the first book to successfully decode the new language of social media for parents and educators and provide pragmatic solutions.

Speak Up At School

This guide is for educators and all adults in schools, and it offers advice for ways to respond to remarks made by students and other adults. It also gives guidance for helping students learn to speak up as well. And modeling the kind of behavior we want from students is one of the most effective ways of teaching.

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

Jonathan Haidt

Everyone is talking about this book by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness and investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how “play-based childhood” has evolved to “phone-based childhood” and offers four simple rules for parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments to restore a more humane childhood. No matter what your “position” is about the role of devices and technology in schools, homes, and childhood, this book is sure to spark a lively discussion.

The Artificial Intelligence Playbook: Time-Saving Tools for Teachers that Make Learning More Engaging

Meghan Hargrave, Douglas Fisher, & Nancy Frey

AI is being increasingly seen as a way for teachers to save time, particularly on lesson planning and creation. But, of course, they must know how to use the technology first. This playbook’s authors aim to empower teachers to use AI to its full potential with, among other tools, a step-by-step guide for composing writing prompts that engage students and avoiding plagiarism. Ultimately, the authors consider AI a way to solidify teacher-student relationships that can only be created by humans.

Wait Until 8th

The Wait Until 8th pledge empowers parents to rally together to delay giving children a smartphone until at least 8th grade.

Where Do We Get Our News and Why Does it Matter?

These student-facing slides contain activities that invite students to explore media bias using recent news coverage of controversial events and help students think about what healthy news habits they want to adopt.

Why Inside Out 2 is the Perfect SEL Movie

Annabelle Persaud

Read more about how Pixar's latest release, "Inside Out 2" (2024), connects with social and emotional learning (SEL), and why it’s important to everyone and their lives.