Preventing Harm From Digital Technology Use in Youth Mental Health

Proposals must generate evidence on how digital technology affects mental health and brain development using multi-source data — sleep, heart rate, stress, screen time, social media use, biological and clinical data — collected and analysed separately by sex and gender identity. Interventions can target addictive design patterns on social media and gaming platforms, early detection of warning signs, redirecting users to healthier engagement, or reducing exposure to harmful content, and must be co-designed with end users such as families, carers and educators for younger age groups. Applicants should draw on existing European research infrastructure for brain research, such as EBRAINS and Euro-BioImaging, and should design any new cohort or clinical study for transnational recruitment across diverse settings so results generalise, with a clear plan for scaling the intervention to other settings.