NEURO-CONNECT Tuesday Seminar - December 3rd, 2024 12:15- 13:15 pm

Dear all,
 
You are cordially invited to the fourth NEURO-Connect seminar, which will take place on December 3rd at 12:15 at Campus Biotech.
 
The NEURO-Connect seminars replace the previous Brain & Cognition seminars and aim at presenting different areas of the neuroscience community in Campus Biotech, ranging from cognition and emotion to neurobiology and neuroengineering, with the support of all institutions active on the site, including the UNIGE (NEUFO, CISA, FPSE), NCCR Evolving Language, EPFL (Neuro-X), HUG, CIBM and Wyss Center, and with the support of the Fondation Campus Biotech Geneva. The NEURO-CONNECT seminars will take place twice a month, and the program of the coming trimester is attached here.
 
The next session will be hosted by the Psychology Department of the UNIGE. The speaker will be Prof. Dr. Amy Orben (University of Cambridge), with the talk “Screen Savers: Protecting Adolescent Mental Health in a Digital World”. Please see abstract and other details below.
 
Private meetings with Prof. Dr. Orben can be organized, and early career researchers (ECR, e.g., doctoral and postdoctoral) are encouraged to join the invited speaker for a networking lunch offered by the FCBG (15 spots, first-come, first-served). To indicate your wish to meet one-to-one with Prof. Dr. Orben, or to register for the ECR lunch after the talk, please fill-in the following survey before Wednesday, November 27th: Registration: NEURO-connect lecture (Orben). This delay is needed to be able to properly organize the schedule and to order the correct number of meals in time. We thank you for your cooperation.
 
Doctoral students can receive credits for their attendance, please don’t forget to have your attendance sheet signed.
 
For any questions on this event, you can contact the session organizers at anh.nguyen-danse@unige.ch.
 
Looking forward to seeing you at NEURO-Connect,
 
The organizing team
 
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NEURO-CONNECT seminars
Tuesday, December 3rd, 2024
12:15
Campus Biotech, H8.01.D
 
Prof. Dr. Amy Orben (University of Cambridge)
 
Screen Savers: Protecting Adolescent Mental Health in a Digital World
 
In our rapidly evolving digital world, there is increasing concern about the impact of digital technologies and social media on the mental health of young people. Policymakers and the public are nervous. Psychologists are facing mounting pressures to deliver evidence that can inform policies and practices to safeguard both young people and society at large. However, research progress is slow while technological change is accelerating.

My talk will reflect on this, both as a question of psychological science and metascience. Digital companies have designed highly popular environments that differ in important ways from traditional offline spaces. By revisiting the foundations of psychology (e.g. development and cognition) and considering digital changes' impact on theories and findings, we gain deeper insights into questions such as the following. (1) How do digital environments exacerbate developmental vulnerabilities that predispose young people to mental health conditions? (2) How do digital designs interact with cognitive and learning processes, formalised through computational approaches such as reinforcement learning or Bayesian modelling?

However, we also need to face deeper questions about what it means to do science about new technologies and the challenge of keeping pace with technological advancements. Therefore, I discuss the concept of ‘fast science’, where, during crises, scientists might lower their standards of evidence to come to conclusions quicker. Might psychologists want to take this approach in the face of technological change and looming concerns? The talk concludes with a discussion of such strategies for 21st-century psychology research in the era of digitalization.
 
Zoom:
https://unige.zoom.us/j/62694444617?pwd=T2wzQWNMMk9DTEVXZFhwRW94RXEwQT09
Meeting ID: 626 9444 4617
Passcode: 617330
 
More: https://agenda.unige.ch/events/view/40642