Schools in Utah to get Kindness eWalls

OGDEN, Utah — Weber State University will sponsoring the You Uplift social media platform for all K-12 public schools in Utah for 2024. The platform displays positive messages on Kindness eWalls from students, parents and teachers.

With many of Utah’s leaders against social media amongst kids, introducing a new platform to Utah schools may seem like a no-go. But YouUplift said this may be the solution to other social media platforms’ problems.

“Like most things, it’s how it’s used. With this platform, we just thought, ‘well what if there was a way to just take the positive side only,”  said Doug Reavis, co-founder and CEO of YouUplift.

How do the Kindness eWalls work?

Each school has to opt into the program. Then, people get access to a link where they can post.

The platform encourages to post things that are uplifting about the school and the people around them.

“It doesn’t become visible immediately. It gets screened. That way nothing negative will ever show,” said Reavis.

School staff members or administrators can decide what is appropriate to post.

The posts are available online. But many schools choose to display them on screens around the school.

Reavis said this concept shifts the mentality of traditional social media. 

“They’re [the users] not getting likes or shares or retweets or reposts. They don’t get any credit at all. So when they post a message, it’s simply to help someone else,” said Reavis.

States like Washington and Oklahoma have already implemented Kindness eWalls in their classrooms.

Related:

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