Why Digital Tools Have Not Yet Revolutionized Adolescent Health Research and What We Can Do

Abstract

The promise of digital tools and devices for spurring new discoveries in adolescence research is enticing. Notably, this special section draws attention to many of the advantages that mobile and wearable devices offer for ambulatory assessment research, which have now been realized. Despite such progress, digital tools have not yet delivered on their predicted revolution of adolescent health research. I offer four reasons for why digital devices have fallen short of this predicted promise. For each barrier, I suggest parallel strategies for ensuring adolescent research benefits from Ambulatory Assessment advances. To avoid being left behind, adolescence scholarship must develop in time with innovations in digital devices and platforms, which are moving forward to support basic science and interventions in mental health.

Figure 1.

Percentage of U.S. adolescents with access to a mobile phone from 2004 to 2018 Note: Source, Pew Survey conducted in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2018, when 95% of US adolescents aged 13 to 17 reported access to a mobile phone. See Anderson & Jiang (2018) for methodology details.

Figure 2.

Gartner Hype Cycle Source: Gartner Hype Cycle, Gartner Inc., 2017. As defined by Gartner, the “Gartner Hype Cycles provide a graphic representation of the maturity and adoption of technologies and applications, and how they are potentially relevant to solving real business problems and exploiting new opportunities” (Gartner Methodologies).