The digitalization of society brings immense potential for growth across a multitude of domains. At the same time, criticism has arisen concerning the questionable role digital media play in negative societal shifts. These threats and opportunities of digital media are particularly central to young people. Scientists, parents, and policymakers have engaged in heated debates about the role of digitalization in youth development. The research (2020–2025) conducted by Team Mimic contributes to shaping these discussions across Europe.
The project begins from the observation that young people regularly experience stress because they feel unable to meet societal expectations. The same group of young people also uses media daily, and sometimes spend more time with media than with their parents, friends, or at school. In the project, we posited that the media popular among youth convey messages that they must be beautiful, professionally successful, popular, and find a good, preferably attractive, romantic partner. Moreover, these ideals suggest that success is solely their own responsibility: if one works hard and passionately pursues an ideal, success will follow. We describe these media messages as malleable because they present difficult-to-reach ideals as attainable, though in reality, achieving these ideals is often a combination of factors and not merely the result of hard work. On the other hand, these ideals also offer the potential for empowerment, as young people can set positive goals through ambition and inspiration. This positive potential of media effects has been largely underexplored in research but could play a crucial role in fostering resilience.
In the first series of studies (content analyses), we examined how frequently and in what ways idealistic messages appear in popular music, films, social media posts by influencers, and young people’s own social media posts (TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat). Different media formats highlight ideals in various contexts but consistently convey narratives of ideals and personal responsibility. For example, rap songs often narrate stories of artists overcoming hardships, rewarded with material wealth and symbolic markers of happiness (e.g. women’s bodies). Television content abounds with stories of self-made individuals who are not only successful but also attractive, social, and altruistic. Young people’s social media content delivers daily doses of (pseudo-authentic) good news about accomplishments. Influencer posts further implicitly communicate political values (so-called lifestyle politics) aligned with individualistic emphases.
Next, we investigated how these media ideals influence young people and which youth develop stress or autonomy when they pursue one or more ideals. In a broad population of young people, we focused on potentially vulnerable groups defined by digital inequalities (e.g. socio-economic status). The research was conducted in three European countries—Belgium, France, and Slovenia—chosen for their varying cultural emphasis on individualistic values.
Across these countries, a relationship was found between consuming mediated ideals and striving for perfectionism (and consequently, experiencing pressure to be perfect) among young people. Notably, this relationship did not intensify throughout adolescence, meaning no long-term effects were observed. Interestingly, effects were still found when looking at short-term periods. We found that when young people feel pressure from digital media content related to friends or school, their self-esteem drops on the day they consume such messages. In other words, the influence of media ideals is limited to short term effects. Interestingly, these short term-effects also had positive potential as, for instance, positive appearance ideals (so-called bopo content) appeared to empower youth on the days they consumed such ideals. Another significant insight from this research was the debunking of digital media pressuring adolescents over the long term. While no long term effects occurred, we found that digital media use significantly impacts adolescents’ pressure over short-term periods, with increases in these effects in digitally vulnerable populations (Vandenbosch et al., 2025). Moreover, the MIMIc team strived to also understand the broader new ecosystem in which these performance pressure mediated ideals prevail referring to adolescents’ digital well-being and how it intersects with their offline well-being (Rosič et al., 2025).
Together, these findings have significant implications for how we can empower young people to thrive in a digital world. The results were covered in different peer-reviewed publications and various of science communication initiatives (e.g. blogs, MIMIc website, stakeholder events, press releases including two documentaries).
