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Short Abstract

A youth-centered co-design framework integrating Gratitude Journaling, Digital Literacy, and Citizen Science to engage teenagers in mental health, fostering emotional awareness, resilience, and community support through co-created digital tools.

Abstract

This paper introduces a youth-centered co-design framework that integrates Gratitude Journaling and Citizen Science to investigate new approaches to adolescent mental well-being. The framework was implemented through a five-day workshop involving 85 Italian high school students, designed to merge emotional reflection with collaborative design and data exploration.

During the workshop, participants engaged in daily gratitude journaling to reflect on positive experiences and emotions, followed by digital literacy seminars, and group co-design sessions aimed at developing mobile app prototypes focused on well-being. This dual process - combining introspection with collective creativity - encouraged students to translate their personal reflections into design ideas with social and civic value. This approach offers a structured yet flexible method for engaging teenagers in critical reflection about their mental well-being and health. It empowers them to interpret personal data, recognize shared well-being patterns, and co-create supportive digital tools that promote empathy, resilience, and active participation within their communities.

The resulting app prototypes demonstrated a variety of design solutions that connect emotional awareness with interactive digital features, including mood tracking systems, gratitude prompts, peer support spaces, and data visualizations that represent community well-being trends. These outcomes highlight how young people can meaningfully link emotional literacy with data-driven thinking, envisioning technologies that promote both self-awareness and social connectedness.

This approach opens new avenues for research, policy, and personal empowerment. For researchers, it offers a scalable, youth-driven method for collecting ecologically valid affective data over time, grounded in authentic, real-life contexts. For policymakers, the aggregated insights emerging from these participatory platforms can support evidence-based decision-making, guiding targeted interventions and resource allocation in schools and youth programs. For individual users, the apps’ sharing and visualization features promote emotional awareness and community connection, helping to normalize fluctuating moods and cultivate a sense of belonging through ambient, data-driven empathy.