A new study of gamers in their late teens and early 20s has revealed that their health can suffer depending on how much time they spend gaming. Study participants who spent more than 10 hours per week gaming were more likely to be obese, have poor diets, and get poor quality sleep. Low to moderate levels of gaming (less than 10 hours a week) generally did have a negative impact on teens’ health. Since the habits you establish in your teen and early adult years can stick with you into adulthood, experts suggest focusing on healthy behaviors: taking breaks while gaming, avoiding gaming late at night, eating healthy snacks and balanced meals, and making sure to leave time for physical activity and other hobbies. The research likely applies to a wide range of teens—according to Pew Research, 85 percent of teens play video games, and 41 percent play every day.

Seventh-grade student Aisha Chavda is getting national attention for starting an anti-bullying initiative. After seeing how others her age faced harassment online, she created an acronym called “BRIGHT” to help teens being cyberbullied:

• • Block: Block the bully online
• • Report: Report the bully to the app or site
• • Ignore: Don’t respond; distract yourself with other activities
• • Get an adult: Go to a trusted adult for advice
• • Hotline: If you have thoughts of self-harm or suicide, connect with a hotline like stopbullying.gov
• • Tech break: Get outside or away from devices for a while

For her efforts, Chavda won the Illinois State Civics Bee, a competition that encourages students to identify problems in their communities and find solutions.

A jury has ruled that Meta (owner of Instagram) and Google (owner of YouTube) must pay $6 million for designing and operating products that they knew could harm the mental health of children and teens. The suit was brought by a woman named Kaley, now age 20, who said she started using Instagram at age 9 and YouTube at age 6. She said she soon became addicted, and her constant use of social media eventually led to body dysmorphia, depression, and suicidal thoughts. The jury in the trial agreed that the tech companies were negligent, or careless, and that they should have warned users about the risks instead of prioritizing their own profits. Experts say the case could open the door to further judgments against social media companies and potentially force them to change how they handle underage users.

A new study has examined how health topics are covered on social media like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Researchers found TikTok was a common source of misinformation. Of the posts examined, 52 percent of those about ADHD and 41 percent of those about autism were found to be inaccurate. Services with stronger content moderation policies had less misinformation. Teens may turn to social media to understand symptoms of various disorders or find others going through similar experiences, but researchers warn young people should always be on the lookout for low-quality information. It is best to get medical and mental health advice from a doctor or professional source.

Sports medicine experts are sounding the alarm over increased instances of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries in teenage girl athletes. Girls are three to six times more likely than boys to suffer these major knee injuries, and over a fifteen-year period in a dozen high-school sports ACL injuries among girls rose by 32 percent—more than twice the rate for teen boys. Improved diagnosis of ACL injuries partly explains the spike in cases, and girls’ increased participation in sports is one factor in the disparity. But an overemphasis on athletic competition and a push to specialize in one sport early may be the biggest problems.

Fortunately, knee-focused training programs and increased awareness of the risks to girls can help limit the damage. The confidence to set boundaries helps, too. Participating in sports is fun and beneficial in many ways, but experts warn that year-round play makes the chance of hurting yourself much more likely. The lure of the pitch or field can be hard to resist, but taking a break every once in a while may be the difference between continuing to play or being sidelined for months with a recuperating knee.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a single-dose COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by Johnson & Johnson in March 2021, but requested that it be voluntarily withdrawn just a month later because of its link to a rare, serious blood-clotting disorder. Now, researchers in Australia have discovered the cause of the condition.

Dr. Jing Jing Wang and Professor Tom Gordon, both of Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia, found that the disorder—called vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VTT)—affects people who are genetically prone to a reaction to adenovirus. Adenovirus was the virus used to carry and stimulate antibodies to the coronavirus in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. (Some people in Europe who received the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine experienced the same reaction.) Dr. Wang notes that the discovery provides valuable information for vaccine developers. “By modifying or removing this specific adenovirus protein, future vaccines can avoid this extremely rare reaction while continuing to provide strong protection against disease.”

In January of this year, the Mattel toy company introduced an autistic Barbie to its lineup of popular fashion dolls. The company partnered with the nonprofit disability rights organization Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN), which works to empower the autistic community, to develop the doll. The process took over eighteen months to complete.

The autistic Barbie comes with a fidget spinner, noise-canceling headphones, and a computer tablet showing symbol-based augmentative and alternative communication apps. She joins Mattel’s other Barbie figures designed to champion diversity, including versions with Down syndrome, blindness, vitiligo, prosthetic limbs, and more.

Balancing school and athletics can be stressful, especially when you have work due at the same time that you’re preparing for an important competetion. Multiply that feeling a dozen times over and you might understand how twenty-two-year-old Canadian figure skater Maddie Schizas felt when she realized she owed her McMaster University sociology professor a writing assignment—the day before she performed in the Winter Olympics’ women’s short program.

Fortunately, Maddie understands that openness and good communication are essential skills for time management. She sent her professor an email from Milan, Italy, explaining that she’d misread the assignment due date and requesting an extension. The teacher gave her extra time to finish the paper, and was impressed that Maddie didn’t try to use her position as leverage. “I respect the fact that she wasn’t using that as a reason to get special treatment or accommodations,” he said. He even posted a photo of himself watching her performance on Instagram. Maddie finished sixth in the program, helping Canada to finish fifth overall.

While fewer than 2 percent of all lung cancer cases are found in young people, the disease is still a concern for those under fifty years old, especially smokers and people regularly exposed to secondhand smoke. Fortunately, two new clinical trials show promise for anyone diagnosed with or at risk of the disease.

A drug called Alveltamig, which began trials in October 2025 at Kentucky’s Markey Cancer Center, binds cancer cells to T cells (white blood cells that fight pathogens and disease), potentially adding years of life to patients with small cell lung cancer. And LungVax, a preventative vaccine designed to teach people’s immune systems to recognize the earliest changes to cells that can develop into tumors, will start a trial this summer at the University of Oxford and University College London in the UK.

The American Cancer Society reports that lung cancer accounted for about one in five of all cancer deaths in the U.S. last year. It’s the most frequently diagnosed form of cancer, but also the most preventable one.

A newly published study by Common Sense Media reveals the extent of gambling’s appeal to and risks for boys, especially online. The research, conducted in July 2025, surveyed 1,017 boys between the ages of eleven and seventeen across the United States, and found that 36 percent of them had gambled in 2024.

While 14 percent of the participants said they’d actively searched for betting opportunities on the Internet, over half of the gambling content they encountered was passive—it appeared in the broadcasts or live-streams of sporting events they watched, showed up in ads in the YouTube video accounts they follow, “just started showing up” in their social media feeds, or was shared with them by friends. Perhaps most surprisingly, nearly two-thirds of boys who gambled placed bets and used other gambling-like systems in the video games they played, making this the most widespread form of online gambling reported in the study.

A thirteen-year-old in Hacienda Heights, California, has created a computer device that pairs with a mobile app to detect when someone has fallen. Kevin Tang was prompted to develop Fallguard when his own grandmother and a friend’s grandparent separately suffered debilitating falls that went undetected for long periods. Using Google’s MediaPipe artificial intelligence (AI) library, Kevin devised a way to connect a camera to the computer and mobile app, which can be installed on multiple phones without the need for cellular service or messaging fees.

Fallguard won Kevin first place at the 2025 3M Young Scientist Challenge last October, which came with an award of $25,000. He’s already reinvested part of his cash prize toward improving and growing the project. And while the money is nice, the effort that went into building Fallguard is what Kevin is most proud of. “I just kept working until I had a final product,” he said.

A survey from online loan service LendingTree released in December revealed an alarming trend: Among the more than 2,000 people who responded, 27 percent said that they’d deliberately not scanned items at retail self-checkout stations. This is up from 15 percent just two years ago. The main reason for the theft they reported was that essential items have become unaffordable (47 percent) and that prices have increased too much due to recent tariffs (46 percent). Over half of those who admitted to self-checkout theft said they’d probably do it again.

These motivations support recent data from the Consumer Food Insights Report (CFI), which found that the household food insecurity rate rose from 13.3 percent in October to 16 percent in November, the largest increase in all of 2025. (Food insecurity is when people don’t have enough to eat and aren’t sure where their next meal is coming from.) But while it’s tempting to think of shoplifting as a victimless crime, especially in tough economic times, retailers estimate that they’ll lose over $47 billion to shoplifting in 2025 alone.

Looking forward to being on your own when you start college? Independence is one of the biggest draws of life after high school, as a recent survey conducted by media website SheKnows reveals: 95 percent of its Teen Council members said they were most looking forward to “freedom” when envisioning life on campus.

But with independence comes skills and responsibilities you’ll be encountering for the first time, and unlike at home and in school your schedule won’t be set by your parents, teachers, and coaches. This can be a shock, not least because you’ll go from 40 hours a week in the classroom to fewer than 20. Experts say the shock is normal, though, and establishing a routine will make the adjustment easier. It may take some time, but as University of Cincinnati first-year student Emily Gehrke points out, “Consistency is key—when challenges arise, your established routines will provide a stable foundation to fall back on.”

GLP-1 drugs like Zepbound and Wegovy work wonders for people who want to lose wieght, as well as for helping to reduce national obesity rates overall. But recent research has shown that quitting the drugs might not be a smooth process.

Results from a clinical trial published last month in JAMA Internal Medicine revealed that the majority of participants who were assigned to stop taking Zepbound regained most of the weight they’d lost while using the drug. The cardiovascular and metabolic improvements they experienced, such as lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, diminished as well. As a result, two medical specialists from the University of Pittsburgh recommend that the branding of GLP-1 drugs be changed from “weight loss” to “weight management,” and that the people they are prescribed to should be advised that they may need to take them indefinitely to see continued results.

If you have a dog you probably already know the beneficial effects their playfulness, companionship, and devotion can have on your mood and emotions. Science backs this up, too. According to recent research, teens who live with dogs have notably lower occurrences of social withdrawal, disordered thinking, and aggressive behavior than those who don’t keep dogs.

Now, scientists have discovered another potential reason the family pooch makes you feel happier and more grounded: The microbes you share with them. Researchers in Japan have discovered that dog-owning teenagers had more types of certain bacteria in their saliva than was found in the saliva of non-dog owners. When transplanted into mice, the bacteria changed some of the rodents’ social behavior, including increasing instances of what’s known as “preconcern” or “empathetic concern,” a type of sympathetic response in animals and humans. How this microbe exchange works and specifically influences mood are still being investigated, and no amount of gut microbiome changes will convince people who don’t care for dogs to feel otherwise. But as one of the scientists observed, “Even without owning a dog, maintaining a diverse microbiome can potentially improve mental health scores.”