Tag Archives: well-being

Last week, during the United Nations General Assembly (#UNGA80), the Joan Ganz Cooney Center was honored to participate in important conversations about how technology is shaping young people’s lives—and what it will take to ensure more positive and inclusive digital futures. On Tuesday, September 23, 2025, the Center’s Executive Director Michael Preston hosted “The ABCs of Digital Well-Being: Centering Children in the Future of Technology” at the Concordia Annual Summit, convening industry leaders for an off-the-record roundtable discussion on advancing…

What did our 2025 Well-Being by Design Fellows learn about designing tech with kids’ well-being in mind? A lot, it turns out! During the intensive five-month program, the 12 mid-career designers were exposed to the perspectives of research and industry guest speakers, the sometimes very honest opinions of the teens on our youth design team, advice from 2024 WBxD Fellows, and most of all, the deep expertise of their fellow fellows. The Cooney Center was thrilled to celebrate the conclusion…

The goal of this panel is to present a research and industry design deployment collaboration, in designing digital play for children’s well-being. The panel will share processes, learnings, and ideas moving forward, as they are experienced in the Responsible Innovation in Technology (RITEC) project, led by UNICEF and The LEGO group. Details: Shuli Gilutz (UNICEF) will present UNICEF’s work on driving impact in the gaming industry to support children’s well-being through the design of digital play. This includes cross-sectoral partnerships, translating research into…

Join the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at the Games for Change 2025 Festival on Friday, June 27 for a workshop on creating games that promote children’s well-being. Hear how Fred Rogers Productions, Killer Snails, University of Oregon, Tiny Docs and Quest Craft are incorporating well-being by design into their games. Participants will then have a chance to ‘play’ with the ideas! Fri, Jun 27, 2025 11:00am – 12:30 pm Speakers include: Noelle Posadas Shang, Design Director, Killer Snails Michael Preston…

In this episode of Into the Digital Future, hosts Jordan Shapiro and Laura Higgins sit down with long-time mixed methods researcher Amanda Lenhart to discuss her journey into internet research and her extensive work focused on youth, their mental health, and digital interactions. They delve into myths and misconceptions about digital media, screen time, and the nuanced impact of technology on young people. The conversation also explores the emerging role of generative AI in education, the challenges schools face in…

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center and the West Side YMCA invite you to join us for a book party to celebrate an incredible resource for parents of all children of the digital age: The Mediatrician’s Guide: A Joyful Approach to Raising Healthy, Smart, Kind Kids in a Screen-Saturated World. We are thrilled to host an event featuring three experts in children’s media and health. Dr. Hina Talib, MD, a pediatrician and adolescent media specialist at the Atria Health Institute, will share her observations…

  The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and Roblox are thrilled to announce the third season of Into the Digital Future, our podcast that explores the complexities of parenting in the digital age. This season, hosts Jordan Shapiro (Cooney Center Senior Fellow and author of Father Figure: How to be a Feminist Dad and The New Childhood: Raising Kids to Thrive in a Connected World) and Laura Higgins (Senior Director of Community Safety & Digital Civility at Roblox) dig into the…

Dear Friends, Happy October! The best month, in my opinion—although are we tired of pumpkin spice yet? First things first: we were thrilled to see so many applications to our Well-Being by Design Fellowship. Thanks to all who have applied. We’ll be announcing our next cohort in December! Now, some recent highlights: We’re six months into the debate over Jonathan Haidt’s book The Anxious Generation. Agree or disagree with the book’s choice of data, conclusions, and recommendations, its publication kicked…

Ever since I joined the Joan Ganz Cooney Center’s Well-being by Design Fellowship, I have found myself subconsciously auditing my entire virtual world for its well-being design considerations. Does the team budget spreadsheet system promote feelings of competence for my colleagues? How does my wedding website support guests’ sense of identity? Did this airline-app-that-shall-not-be-named consider users’ feelings of autonomy in times of a global airline outage at all? I was delighted to attend the Play Make Learn annual conference at UW…

The Call for Applications is now open through October 11, 2024.  If you follow our work, you may have seen the incredible results produced by our inaugural cohort of Well-Being by Design Fellows.  Building from the success of the first year of this program, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center is thrilled to announce a second year of the Well-being by Design Fellowship, supported by Pinterest.  We invite applications from mid-career designers of kids’ technology and media who want to prioritize…