A summer of updates
We are back, after a busy few months of new projects starting, existing projects wrapping up and conference trips, we bring you this summers updates from the Digital Mental Health Group.
New Website & PhD Applications
To kick things off, we have officially launched our new website! Here you can find an up-to-date list of publications from the Digital Mental Health Group, along with press and media appearances, and a collection of lab news. You can also find out more about us and our research goals, our lab vision and lab culture, and the policy and outreach work we are involved with. Vacancies and opportunities to join the lab will be posted on the website, including how to apply for 2024 PhD positions.
For those who may be interested in applying for PhD positions, there are a variety of avenues to explore, and we especially welcome original ideas. Examples of research areas and key references can be found on our website, but some source of inspiration could be…
Development: How do developmental processes in adolescence, and potentially childhood, intersect with social media use and mental health?
Cognition: What are the cognitive mechanisms linking social media use to mental health (either in clinical or community samples of adolescents)?
Computational Approaches: How can we apply analytical or computational methods from across the cognitive sciences to our research questions of interest?
Assessing and Addressing Social Media Use in a Clinical Context: How does social media use a) predict adolescents receiving a mental health diagnosis, b) impact those living with a mental health diagnosis, or c) determine recovery?
Joint Lab Meeting with Imperial
In June, the Digital Mental Health Group hosted a joint lab meeting with Professor Rafael Calvo’s group from the Dyson School of Engineering. This was a wonderful opportunity to get the groups together and broaden our minds by thinking creatively about new ideas and potential for interdisciplinary projects.
We kicked off the meeting with short presentations from members of the groups, giving an overview of our research interests and the projects we are involved with. Across the groups we had interests spanning computational approaches, youth engagement, artificial intelligence, clinical populations and intervention technologies. This sparked really interesting discussions, and we received amazing feedback for our upcoming projects. Watch this space for upcoming collaborations…
New preprint on deprivation and social media use
A new preprint has come out from Dr Sebastian Kurten on deprivation’s role in adolescent social media use and its links to life satisfaction. This paper examines 10-wave longitudinal data from 23,155 adolescents collected between 2009 and 2019 to assess whether adolescents who spend more time on social media than their own average report lower levels of well-being, and whether differences in deprivation are associated with heightened sensitivity to effects of their social media use, both positive or negative.
We are excited to share more about this paper once it is published, and hope to feature in our upcoming newsletters!
This newsletter was written by Amelia Leyland-Craggs (Research Assistant)