Ethical Challenges for Designing Youth Media Health Interventions

In the past decade, researchers have found electronic and other new media to have significant effects on American culture. For youth, higher overall media use was associated with poorer behavior, health status, and health-related quality of life. Health-related interventions targeting youth and their media exposure, use, and literacy have been effective for preventing and reducing alcohol, drug, and tobacco use, violence and aggression, and issues related to body image, nutrition and fitness. However, little attention is devoted to examining ethical considerations and implications of media-related health intervention, in particular, for youth.

In this study, “media ethics” and new media are defined and contextualized in terms of the evolution of new media technologies. First, the role and importance of ethics in the conceptualization and design of new media-related interventions for youth is examined. A review of literature was conducted, highlighting ethical challenges of designing interventions that are either delivered to youth using digital technology or that target youth new media use. Themes regarding six major dimensions of media ethics were explored: 1) truth and transparency, 2) fairness and justice, 3) harm, 4) autonomy and freedom, 5) privacy, and 6) community. Finally, I describe ethical challenges presented in designing youth new media health interventions, strategies to navigating them, and discuss implications for youth health intervention design and implementation.