What if joy is the most radical thing we can share online?

Over the past year, national conversations about social media have reached a breaking point.

📣 The U.S. Surgeon General issued a public warning about its impact on youth mental health.

📣 Parents are sounding the alarm.

📣 Schools are scrambling to protect students from algorithmic harm.

We’ve spent years researching how platforms amplify the worst of the internet—rage, disinformation, body shaming, addictive design. I’ve studied how online violence shows up and spreads. It’s real. It’s serious. And it deserves our attention.

But here’s what I almost missed:
In the middle of all that digital darkness, young people were creating light.

They used memes, music, humor, affirmations, and love to de-escalate conflict, support friends, and bring communities together. I saw it in my research. I felt it in my own feed.

During the pandemic, joy went viral.

TikTok dances, shared recipes, virtual birthday parties, Zoom reunions with family and friends—these weren’t just trends. They were lifelines. A 2021 study even found spikes in social media use to intentionally foster connection and happiness during isolation.

That shifted how I see the future of tech.

At our lab, we’ve been working with youth to create Joynet—a new platform designed to help people share joy, not just scroll past it. Launching soon: https://www.joynet.app

Want to start flipping your feed today?

✨ Be intentional about who you follow and why.
✨ Share joyful content—something entertaining, meaningful, or uplifting.
✨ Set boundaries around what you don’t want to see.

Yes, algorithms are powerful.

Yes, tech needs structural change.

But we still have power.

Joy isn’t naive. Joy is strategic.

Joy is resistance.

Let’s make it go viral.