"It was an amazing day with amazing speakers.
Very heartfelt and emotional presentations alongside research into young people's use of the internet and social media.
I met and spoke to like-minded people, wanting to make a positive difference in peoples' lives, both online and in person. Thank you to all involved and those presenting."

Claire Turnbull, Digital Safety Team Leader

The Conference

Together, Inclusive Change at Work CIC and Digital Safety CIC worked in tandem to launch The Castle Conference: Digital Wellbeing for Young People last week, on April 25, 2024. It brought together a diverse group of individuals with the common goal of ensuring the safety of young people online.

There was a strong sense of community from the moment the first delegate arrived, and the conversations that took place over the day brought to light everyone's deep passion for the subject. Overall, it was lovely to see how many people cared so deeply about such an important topic.

Many commented on how well the delegates and exhibitors mingled together; unlike most conferences, there wasn't a sense of division between those in front and behind booths. This was a time to expand networks and forge future business endeavours, and yet no one was being marketed to.

(as an aside, the salt and pepper squid provided in the buffet was AMAZING!!)

The Talks

The speakers at The Castle Conference delivered some truly eye-opening talks, with Lucy Smith, Professor Peter Kawalek, Luisa Fassi, and David Brown tackling subjects such as being safe online while neurodivergent, social media's impact on mental health, and suicide prevention.

All four had captivated the audience, and even now, their words resonate with me. One thing that stuck with me was the clear correlation between overall social media use and the introduction of Instagram, and how this can be linked to a rise in depression among young people.

Whereas Luisa's research didn't have a big enough sample size and she acknowledged that depression absolutely existed before social media's debut on the world, there's enough information to at least connect the two. If you want to peruse the research yourself, here's a link.

And David brought to light that '#feelinglow' on Instagram once led him to self-harm images in only three posts. Which is completely unacceptable. He counteracted that, however, with resources and tips to help with emotional wellbeing.

So, what can be done about that? Can anything be done?

I've heard some mention of hacking your social media to only show the good stuff, which sounds amazing in theory since it would allow young people to remain online while improving their own experience.

But there's the issue that we shouldn't be doing that. It should be up to those behind the sites to keep things safe for its users. Right?

Castle Conference Catch-Up

So again, we come to the question: 'what can be done?' Well, we're ready to continue the conversation, and we hope you are too.

Over the next few weeks we'll keep in touch, and we hope to see you at The Castle Conference Catch-Up online on 14th May. This is a chance for questions to be answered and solutions to be brought to light. Please do sign up for the webinar so we can keep you in the loop; the link can be found here.

There's only one way this blog can end, and that's thanking every single person that got involved. Whether you stood up on stage and addressed a crowd, exhibited, helped do everything behind the scenes, or even turned up on the day, you contributed to this incredible conference, so thank you - you are amazing! We look forward to doing more with you in the future.