Breathe: Social Media for Youth with Anxiety

The Breathe Program is an online delivery module of cognitive behavioural therapy for youth with anxiety. The University of Alberta was conducting a research study to see if this method of delivery would be effective for youth. We recruited thousands of youth from across Canada to participate in the program, mainly through social media.

I used Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and YouTube to reach youth. We used paid advertising to reach new audiences that were not already in our network. I chose to do a variety of kinds of social media content to reach different audiences of youth; I created posts that incorporated humour, memes, sports, school, social situations, and other places where youth identify as anxiety inducing.

A sample of these posts is included.