08 Mar Designing the Digital World With Girls in Mind
Last night, I peeked into my teenage daughter’s room. She was lying on her bed, phone in hand, earbuds in, completely absorbed in her digital world. Every few seconds, she’d laugh softly, shake her head, or roll her eyes.
A small, everyday moment. But it made me pause.
I realized that this moment encapsulates how millions of girls her age are experiencing the world today — part in-person, part online, part algorithmically curated. As a mother, I see her navigating friendships, social norms, and identity in ways I never did at her age.
For many years in my career, I had the privilege of collaborating with Girl Scouts of the USA, helping to advance research and programs designed to build girls’ leadership, confidence, and sense of possibility.
That work taught me something powerful:
Girls are remarkably capable when the environments around them are designed to support their growth.
Today, however, many of those environments are digital.
Girls today are navigating adolescence in ways previous generations never did. Their friendships, identities, and self-image are increasingly shaped in platforms designed to maximize engagement, visibility, and comparison.
- Algorithms recommend content.
- Filters reshape faces.
- Metrics quantify popularity.
None of these systems were intentionally built to harm girls. But many were also not designed with girls’ developmental realities in mind.
So I can’t help but ask:
Are the digital worlds we are building helping the next generation of girls thrive or quietly shaping who they believe they need to become?
Research consistently shows that girls experience online spaces differently than boys:
- Higher levels of appearance-based pressure
- Increased social comparison
- Greater exposure to harassment
Yet when we talk about gender equality in technology, we usually focus on who builds it — and that matters.
But we should also ask:
Who is technology being designed for?
Design choices are never neutral. They shape behavior, norms, and expectations.
When platforms consider age, developmental stage, and wellbeing, they create healthier experiences.
When they also consider gendered experiences, they can better anticipate pressures girls face online.
Designing the digital world with girls in mind doesn’t mean creating separate spaces. It means asking better questions:
- How do social metrics influence identity formation?
- How do recommendation systems amplify beauty standards?
- How can safety systems better respond to harassment targeting girls?
- What does healthy digital participation look like for adolescents?
These questions sit at the intersection of research, policy, and product design — and they are increasingly urgent.
If we want technology to truly empower the next generation of women, we cannot wait until adulthood to support them.
We need to think about girls — their development, wellbeing, and leadership — from the very beginning of the design process.
Because the digital environments girls grow up in today will help shape the leaders, creators, and innovators of tomorrow.
So here’s the question I think we should be asking this International Women’s Day:
If we were designing the digital world with girls’ wellbeing and leadership in mind from the start… what would we build differently?
Nellie Gregorian is the founder and president of Fluent Research.