This talk is part of the TrustCon 2024 Policy & Product Lightning Talk session. Lightning talk sessions are 50 minutes long, featuring a series of short 5-7 minute talks back-to-back in the same room, followed by Q&A at the end.

Generation Z teens and young adults have lived their entire lives online. The first generation to grow up with the internet, social media, and smartphones, all things “digital” are part of Gen Zers everyday living. Snap Inc., the company behind Snapchat, has been studying Gen Z online since 2022 – and across all platforms and devices (not just Snapchat) in six countries: Australia, France, Germany, India, UK and the U.S. From this research, Snap compiled a Digital Well-Being Index, a measure of Gen Z’s’ online psychological well-being. In this talk, we’ll share our key findings, including Gen Z’s online risk exposure, the relationships they’re forging online, and their reactions to 20 different “sentiment statements” that comprise the DWBI.

Our goal is for attendees to leave with valuable insights that they can leverage in their trust and safety work to help keep young people safer online.