Digital Adolescence: Growing Up In a World of Chatbots & Social Media

About

Speakers: Dr Lance Dann and Dora Gellen

In a world where young people rely increasingly on the digital for sociability, information and entertainment, what are the advantages and disadvantages to adolescent mental health?

Media researcher Lance Dann and PhD health science student Dora Gellen give an insight into their research and the ways that workis helping understand and promote healthy digital connectivity for young people.

Dora discusses youth mental health in the digital era, explaining the benefits and downsides of technology use for young people and highlighting some of the emerging research in this field. With a particular focus on social media, shellprovide an overview of what current research tells us about how digital life shapes adolescent mental health.

Lance is the brains behind The Rez and A2Z, projects that combined podcasts, comic books, games and chatbots to help children explore mental health and wellbeing. For Brains at the Bevy he'll be focusing on A2Z, a wellbeing project combining podcasts with a chatbot that has been used by tens of thousands of children around the world. He'll discuss what his work can teach us about the relationships kids form with AI chatbots, why that's a real concern, and what can be done to protect them.

Speaker biographies:

Dr Lance Dann is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton and an award-winning audio producer. His recent work focuses on children's relationships with AI technolog and he is currently developing educational projects that teach children digital literacy skills, particularly around AI sentience and the potential harms of anthropomorphising chatbots. This work builds on concerns about how AI systems can exploit children's trust and attachment, aiming to give young people the critical tools they need to engage safely with these technologies.

Dora Gellen is a third-year PhD Researcher in Health Sciences at the University of Brighton, holding a BA in Psychological and Behavioural Sciences from the University of Cambridge. Her research centres on adolescent mental health in the digital era, examined through psychological perspectives. Dora also teaches Psychology to undergraduate students at the University of Brighton and has been recently appointed as a Psychology A-level examiner for AQA.