A growing body of research indicates that social media use may be contributing to young people’s poor mental health around the world. However, given the ubiquity of social media apps and their extensive integration into daily life, it is not viable to ask a young person to completely abstain from social media. Rather, a more pragmatic approach is to examine psychological risk factors associated with social media use that might predispose some individuals to be at greater risk for experiencing poor mental health in the first place.
This pre-conference will focus on the experience and regulation of emotions in online contexts (including social media apps) and attendant effects on mental health and wellbeing among youth and young adults. Specifically, the first talk will discuss neural correlates of emotion regulation, as measured by EEG, and links to adolescents’ preference for online (versus in-person) social interactions and social anxiety symptoms. The second talk will highlight the importance of young people’s exposure to fast-paced content on social media and downstream impacts on mental health and wellbeing. The third talk demonstrates how machine learning methods can be applied to people’s music preferences on Spotify to establish digital “traces” of risk factors for depression and aid in early detection and prevention efforts for depression and other conditions. Collectively, the findings featured in this pre-conference represent a promising and timely new avenue for the study of emotion regulation and the field of affective science more broadly.
In addition to the above-mentioned talks, the pre-conference will also feature a series of data blitz presentations by trainees and early career researchers (see below for submission instructions). The event will conclude with a panel-style Q&A and to promote further discussion, professional networking, and potential research collaborations.
Organisation
- Richard Lopez (Worcester Polytechnic Institute)
- Sarah Myruski (The Pennsylvania State University)
Confirmed Speakers
- Prof. Richard Lopez (Worcester Polytechnic Institute)
- Prof. Sarah Myruski (The Pennsylvania State University)
Information and Agenda
Submission for data blitz presentations should include a presentation title, all contributing authors and their affiliations, and a 250-word abstract. Please submit your abstract as a PDF or MS Word file via email to: rlopez1@wpi.edu and sfm6016@psu.edu.
- Submission deadline: 15 May
- Notification of acceptance: 31 May
Stay tuned for a detailed itinerary (will be linked to here).