CSS’s Impact in 2025
In 2025, we reached an inflection point. Seven years of advancing research-informed storytelling culminated in our most impactful year yet, as we scaled our reach and deepened our influence.
When I founded CSS in 2019, I had an ambitious vision: to ensure the stories shaping young people's lives are informed by developmental research, enriched by authentic youth voices, and created with intention. Today, that vision is reality across the entertainment industry.
This year brought an unprecedented milestone. Our 2025 Teens & Screens research generated a record-breaking 4.6 billion estimated audience impressions, featured in outlets from Forbes to the LA Times to Rolling Stone.
But the numbers only tell part of the story. What moves me most is knowing that the way media is created has been altered in the places and with the creators we touched. The media that was produced as a result was more consistent with what we know is developmentally supportive, utilizing our research base to authentically capture the full complexity of adolescence. What I also know is the adolescent leaders we worked with closely impacted everyone they met and influenced how industry leaders think and act about the creation of media for kids and young people like them.
This transformation is visible in moments both public and private. PBS CEO Paula Kerger cited our research in congressional testimony, bringing our work on quality children's programming into national policy conversations. Twenty-six teenagers in our Youth Media Representation program presented directly to over 100 industry executives, demonstrating that youth voices aren't just valuable, they're essential. And at our Summit, we presented our inaugural Social Impact Award to Greg Berlanti, whose words captured why this work matters: "Adolescence is a time when storytelling can literally change a life. Those shows shape who we become. We mark our lives by these characters. In a way, they're some of our first friends and family."
With over 80 academic collaborators worldwide and partnerships spanning Disney to YouTube to Activision and Roblox, we've built an organization with influence across research, industry, and youth engagement. Young people are growing up with screens, and the stories they consume shape their understanding of themselves and the world.
As I reflect on what we achieved in 2025, I am certain it all made a difference. Our journey at CSS is not a straight line, and the bridges we build between disparate worlds and people are complicated and numerous, but we did it in 2025 and we're ready to do even more in 2026.
As you read about our impact, numerically and anecdotally, I hope you will be inspired— inspired to shift narratives, to support adolescents, and to build a more joyful, empathetic, authentic, and inclusive world.
