Adolescents from Low Socio-economic Backgrounds or with High Social Media Usage are Prone to Negative Wellbeing: Can ‘Resonant Education’ Help?

There is global decline in adolescent wellbeing, with significant evidence highlighting the prevalence of this issue among those of low socio-economic status and those with high levels of social media use (henceforth ‘LSES-HSMU’). One explanatory mechanism for this negative wellbeing is the lack of resonance (Rosa, 2019) in the lives of these adolescent cohorts.

In this paper, the theoretical underpinnings of adolescent wellbeing will be critically expounded through the lens of resonant experience. Careful dissection of this concept highlights the compounding barriers to positive wellbeing that are faced by LSES-HSMU adolescents. In particular, the environmental poverty and social media pervasion of LSES-HSMU adolescents restricts opportunities for anticipatory novelty – and the self-efficacy in finding these opportunities – such that negative cycles of worldly attunement are more likely.

Consequently, it becomes, from a weak perspective, a possibility and, from a strong perspective, a duty of education to address this existential inequality. Diverse means of achieving this are outlined, grounded in the notion of expanding the horizon of affordances that are accessible to these adolescents and encouraging bodily engagement with one’s phenomenological world, thereby fostering new ground for resonant experiences.