Event overview
The Psychology Department Seminar will be given by Dr Amy Orben, University of Cambridge, on Rethinking how we study digital technologies and their impact on teen mental health
Adolescent mental health has declined substantially in the last decade, with large social and economic consequences that make this area a priority for policy and the public. Concurrently, widespread digital innovation has radically altered child and adolescent behaviour. This has spurred pervasive concern that digitalisation and social media use might be playing a part in decreasing adolescent mental health and well-being. Previous research has tried to address these concerns by quantifying the relationship between time spent using digital devices such as social media and adolescent mental health and well-being in large-scale samples. These links have been found to be negative and bidirectional but very small in size when averaged across a whole population. Very little actionable recommendations have arisen from this work. Dr Orben will reflect on the challenges and problems facing research in this space to date, and provide an up-to-date overview of how her team’s work is trying to address these to produce evidence that can be used to improve adolescent mental health.
Dr Amy Orben is a Programme Leader Track Scientist at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of St. John's College. She leads a research group investigating the links between digital technology use, mental health and cognition in adolescence.
Dates & times
Date | Time | Add to calendar |
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30 Nov 2023 | 4:00pm - 5:00pm |
Accessibility
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