I am a senior research associate at the University of Bristol with expertise in social media use and young people's mental health and wellbeing. My Fellowship is about embedding algorithmic literacy into the e-safety curriculum in UK schools.

Understanding social media algorithms is an important tool in having control over the material we see online. This is particularly important for young people struggling with their mental health, who are more likely to engage with negative social media content. The issue is that the more someone interacts with negative content, the more likely they are to have increasingly extreme or upsetting material promoted to them through algorithms.

I hope to make algorithmic literacy part of the e-safety narrative at a national level, upskilling teachers and young people to better prepare them for living well online. Longer term, I would like to work with young people to co-produce a teaching resource for developing algorithmic literacy with a specific focus on avoiding harmful social media content and promoting positive social media use. My aim is to empower young people through a digital skillset that enables them to thrive online.