Dr. Rachel Hanebutt (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Holt Family Rising Professor at the Thrive Center for Children, Families, and Communities. Trained as a developmental and community psychologist, she leads participatory, mixed-methods research on how teens use—and are shaped by—technology, with projects spanning school-based digital wellness interventions, digital mental health innovations, and family-centered design approaches. Her broader research agenda focuses on building evidence for adolescent flourishing in the digital age and co-designing technologies and interventions that promote mental health, sleep hygiene, and digital resilience from a strengths-based, digital equity-focused lens. Dr. Hanebutt completed her Ph.D. in Community Research and Action at Vanderbilt University, where she examined teen-centric methods of studying adolescent digital wellbeing in partnership with #HalfTheStory, a leading digital wellness nonprofit. Rachel also trained in civic media and technology development at Emerson College (M.S.), and earned her Ed.M. at Harvard University.
Strong. Smart. & ScreenFree: Co-Designing Digital Wellness Interventions with Middle School Girls
The digital world is not neutral. For adolescent girls—especially those at the intersection of marginalized racial, gender, and socioeconomic identities—online spaces are often shaped by gendered expectations, emotional risks, and relentless social pressures. My project applies a feminist praxis to digital wellbeing by examining how a co-designed intervention, Strong. Smart. & ScreenFree., can foster digital self-control, emotional regulation, and positive identity development among middle school girls. National surveys and internal data from #HalfTheStory–my community-engaged research partner–reveal that girls from lower-income households report significantly lower digital wellbeing and experience heightened social media-related stress. A part of a larger evaluation of #HalfTheStory’s digital wellness curriculum piloted across 16 Girls Inc. affiliate sites, this research project asks: What does it mean for girls to own their digital choices? How do self-regulation, boundary-setting, and social comparison evolve when a curriculum is built with girls, not for them? Rather than framing digital wellbeing as an individual issue, this project positions it as a matter of gender+ justice requiring community-based pedagogy and structural interventions that affirm girls’ agency, identities, and needs in the digital equity equation. The larger evaluation project employs a mixed-methods design, emphasizing qualitative insight as a vehicle for feminist inquiry. Data will include pre/post surveys (e.g., Digital Flourishing Scale for Adolescents, GAD-2, PHQ-2, ERQ-SF) and interviews. The fellowship portion of this project will focus on thematic analysis of gendered dynamics in the survey and interview data—especially how girls define, resist, and reshape digital norms rooted in their everyday lives. By positioning girls as knowledge producers and co-creators, this project bridges academic inquiry and community-engaged practice—bringing feminist scholarship directly into spaces where it can shape programming, policy, and the futures of adolescent girls navigating digital life.