Adolescent Mental Health and Development in the Digital World
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Nottingham
Department Name: School of Medicine
Abstract
VISION: Our vision is to harness the potential of digital technology to transform adolescent mental health and wellbeing and provide a safe, and supportive, digital environment to tackle the growing humanitarian crisis of unmet need arising from mental health disorders in young people (covering the definition of adolescence from age 10 up to the age of 25).
THE PROBLEM: There is a youth mental health crisis; in the UK, 1.25 million (25%) of 17-19-year-olds experience significant levels of depression or anxiety; yet less than a third of these young people receive any treatment. Academic-led digital interventions exist but few, if any, have been implemented in real-world settings. Meanwhile, there are thousands of mental health and wellbeing apps, but the vast majority have no evidence-base and some may be harmful. This crisis coincides with a new 'digital environment', where being online and using social media has become integral to young people's lives. However, social media platforms are not designed to meet the mental health needs of young people. Pressing societal, public policy and research questions concern how the 'digital environment' affects young people's mental health; whether it increases the risk for mental health problems and how vulnerable young people with mental health difficulties engage with the digital environment.
THE SOLUTION: Our research vision addresses two key challenges:
i) RESEARCH THEME 1: DIGITAL INTERVENTIONS: How to harness digital technologies and platforms to identify those at risk and target personalised digital interventions that bridge the adolescent mental health treatment gap. This includes developing the infrastructure to collect, share, discover and analyse sensitive personal data that matches the speed of digital innovation
ii) RESEARCH THEME 2: DIGITAL RISK & RESILIENCE: How engagement with the digital environment influences, and is influenced by, adolescent mental health problems, brain and cognitive development and what factors promote resilience. We aim to generate evidence-based advice to safeguard youth from harmful digital environments and design tools to promote resilience.
ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY: We will bring together, through workshops, knowledge exchange events and pilot studies, an interdisciplinary community of researchers (psychiatry, psychology, neuroimaging, computer science, arts & design, humanities, education) to work with young people, parents/caregivers, clinicians, digital technology developers and policy-makers to offer vital co-ordination and research leadership in this nascent field. The collaboration builds on an outstanding track record of digital mental health research at the University of Nottingham (UoN) (NIHR MindTech Medtech Co-operative, NIHR Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre Mental Health & Technology Theme and Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute). We will engage with industry and charity partners (BBC, Xenzone, Samaritans), leading UK academic centres (Oxford, UCL, KCL, LSE) and UKRI Mental Health Networks (eNurture, Emerging Minds).
YOUTH ENGAGEMENT: Young People's Advisory Group (YPAG): working in collaboration with McPin Foundation we will ensure that immersive patient and public involvement (PPI) and co-production with young people and their parents/caregivers cuts across all of our activities. Our Partners Board will facilitate knowledge exchange with healthcare, social care, education, policy-makers and industry to deliver evidence-based policy and practice solutions that can be readily implemented.
OUTPUTS & IMPACT: Our proposed Engagement Award will be at the vanguard of these developments through building and sustaining new interdisciplinary research collaborations, knowledge exchange, developing early career researchers (ECRs), engaging new partners and laying out a road map for future research.
THE PROBLEM: There is a youth mental health crisis; in the UK, 1.25 million (25%) of 17-19-year-olds experience significant levels of depression or anxiety; yet less than a third of these young people receive any treatment. Academic-led digital interventions exist but few, if any, have been implemented in real-world settings. Meanwhile, there are thousands of mental health and wellbeing apps, but the vast majority have no evidence-base and some may be harmful. This crisis coincides with a new 'digital environment', where being online and using social media has become integral to young people's lives. However, social media platforms are not designed to meet the mental health needs of young people. Pressing societal, public policy and research questions concern how the 'digital environment' affects young people's mental health; whether it increases the risk for mental health problems and how vulnerable young people with mental health difficulties engage with the digital environment.
THE SOLUTION: Our research vision addresses two key challenges:
i) RESEARCH THEME 1: DIGITAL INTERVENTIONS: How to harness digital technologies and platforms to identify those at risk and target personalised digital interventions that bridge the adolescent mental health treatment gap. This includes developing the infrastructure to collect, share, discover and analyse sensitive personal data that matches the speed of digital innovation
ii) RESEARCH THEME 2: DIGITAL RISK & RESILIENCE: How engagement with the digital environment influences, and is influenced by, adolescent mental health problems, brain and cognitive development and what factors promote resilience. We aim to generate evidence-based advice to safeguard youth from harmful digital environments and design tools to promote resilience.
ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY: We will bring together, through workshops, knowledge exchange events and pilot studies, an interdisciplinary community of researchers (psychiatry, psychology, neuroimaging, computer science, arts & design, humanities, education) to work with young people, parents/caregivers, clinicians, digital technology developers and policy-makers to offer vital co-ordination and research leadership in this nascent field. The collaboration builds on an outstanding track record of digital mental health research at the University of Nottingham (UoN) (NIHR MindTech Medtech Co-operative, NIHR Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre Mental Health & Technology Theme and Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute). We will engage with industry and charity partners (BBC, Xenzone, Samaritans), leading UK academic centres (Oxford, UCL, KCL, LSE) and UKRI Mental Health Networks (eNurture, Emerging Minds).
YOUTH ENGAGEMENT: Young People's Advisory Group (YPAG): working in collaboration with McPin Foundation we will ensure that immersive patient and public involvement (PPI) and co-production with young people and their parents/caregivers cuts across all of our activities. Our Partners Board will facilitate knowledge exchange with healthcare, social care, education, policy-makers and industry to deliver evidence-based policy and practice solutions that can be readily implemented.
OUTPUTS & IMPACT: Our proposed Engagement Award will be at the vanguard of these developments through building and sustaining new interdisciplinary research collaborations, knowledge exchange, developing early career researchers (ECRs), engaging new partners and laying out a road map for future research.
Technical Summary
OBJECTIVES
By engaging new partners and academic disciplines, the Engagement Award will lay out a research road map for future activity, ensuring a high probability of delivering significant impact, within the MRC/AHRC/ESRC Adolescence, Mental Health and the Developing Mind programme.
METHODOLOGY
A wide range of methods will be used in pilot projects and engagement activities in order to capture the complexity and dynamics of this fast-moving field: some exemplar methods for pilot studies are described here:
1. PP1.1: Feasibility and acceptability of the SPARX CBT programme for UK adolescents. This will lay the foundations for a future large randomised controlled trial comparing supported versus unsupported version of SPARX in UK adolescents.
2. PP1.2: HABITs digital platform: we will i) establish a shared source code repository accessible to NZ and UK developer teams. ii) use the shared code repository to deploy a running instance of the HABITs digital platform in the UK with support of the NZ team in configuring the service. iii) apply the UK instance of the platform to enable demonstration trials of an existing digital mental health app (SPARX app) already configured to interoperate with the HABITs platform, and proof-of-concept operation with novel tools as provided by UK researchers.
3. PP2.1: Developmental epidemiological methods will be used to interrogate existing data from the MILLENNIUM COHORT STUDY to investigate adolescent risk and resilience in digital environments.
4. PP2.2: To facilitate examination of brain resilience we will create an open-source framework capable of extracting a collection of quantitative and interpretable multivariate imaging-derived features per individual (imaging-derived phenotypes).
5. PP2.3: A qualitative interview study will examine the benefit and risks of digital skills in adolescents experiencing internet-related mental health difficulties - the benefits and risks of digital skills.
By engaging new partners and academic disciplines, the Engagement Award will lay out a research road map for future activity, ensuring a high probability of delivering significant impact, within the MRC/AHRC/ESRC Adolescence, Mental Health and the Developing Mind programme.
METHODOLOGY
A wide range of methods will be used in pilot projects and engagement activities in order to capture the complexity and dynamics of this fast-moving field: some exemplar methods for pilot studies are described here:
1. PP1.1: Feasibility and acceptability of the SPARX CBT programme for UK adolescents. This will lay the foundations for a future large randomised controlled trial comparing supported versus unsupported version of SPARX in UK adolescents.
2. PP1.2: HABITs digital platform: we will i) establish a shared source code repository accessible to NZ and UK developer teams. ii) use the shared code repository to deploy a running instance of the HABITs digital platform in the UK with support of the NZ team in configuring the service. iii) apply the UK instance of the platform to enable demonstration trials of an existing digital mental health app (SPARX app) already configured to interoperate with the HABITs platform, and proof-of-concept operation with novel tools as provided by UK researchers.
3. PP2.1: Developmental epidemiological methods will be used to interrogate existing data from the MILLENNIUM COHORT STUDY to investigate adolescent risk and resilience in digital environments.
4. PP2.2: To facilitate examination of brain resilience we will create an open-source framework capable of extracting a collection of quantitative and interpretable multivariate imaging-derived features per individual (imaging-derived phenotypes).
5. PP2.3: A qualitative interview study will examine the benefit and risks of digital skills in adolescents experiencing internet-related mental health difficulties - the benefits and risks of digital skills.
Planned Impact
Our long-term vision is to deliver benefits to young people, industry, health, education and social care practitioners, policy-makers, and the wider research community. Through the pilot projects and workshop activity, the Engagement Award will provide an important stepping-stone in progressing towards this goal.
YOUNG PEOPLE: Through our pioneering Café Connect work will engage with young people in relaxed, non-threatening environments in the community to ensure they have meaningful involvement in shaping and prioritising future research. Young people have helped shape the work planned here and will be involved throughout the research process from beginning to end.
INDUSTRY, PRACTITIONERS & CHARITIES: can potentially benefit from the identification of unmet needs in the field and have a say in prioritizing future research questions. We have excellent relationships with some partners already (e.g. Samaritans, Xenzone, BBC) but the engagement award will permit us to extend our networks significantly.
POLICY MAKERS: Through our PARTNERS BOARD and engagement events, we will work with policy-makers in health, education, social care and Government. This includes organisations such as the UK Department of Health and Social Care, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (CSA Professor Tom Rodden) and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to inform public health policies, regulation of digital technologies and guidance on new digital interventions. We will leverage the excellent contacts and networks afforded by the University of Nottingham Institute of Policy and Engagement led by Stephen Meek (ex Cabinet Office).
SCHOOLS & COLLEGES: our work will be important to the work of schools who possess unrivalled access to young people - especially new mental health practitioners. Our partnership with the Anna Freud Centre National Schools in Mind Network (>11,000 schools and colleges) will ensure that we engage with a wide range of professionals.
HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE: we will engage with NHS England, Public Health England, NHSX and Local Authorities who will be important partners to ensure that future interventions and tools are deliverable within the NHS and social care. It is vital to reduce the gap between the production of research and the application of findings within clinical practice. The Mental Elf Blog currently estimates the gap between research and delivery in mental health services to be 17 years.
Ultimately, the pilot and engagement work described here will provide vital information regarding the development of digital interventions for young people with mental health conditions and evidence-based policy to make the safest place in the world for young people to be online. These benefits could have huge potential to translate across the world, to help reduce global mental health inequalities, particularly in low and middle-income countries.
YOUNG PEOPLE: Through our pioneering Café Connect work will engage with young people in relaxed, non-threatening environments in the community to ensure they have meaningful involvement in shaping and prioritising future research. Young people have helped shape the work planned here and will be involved throughout the research process from beginning to end.
INDUSTRY, PRACTITIONERS & CHARITIES: can potentially benefit from the identification of unmet needs in the field and have a say in prioritizing future research questions. We have excellent relationships with some partners already (e.g. Samaritans, Xenzone, BBC) but the engagement award will permit us to extend our networks significantly.
POLICY MAKERS: Through our PARTNERS BOARD and engagement events, we will work with policy-makers in health, education, social care and Government. This includes organisations such as the UK Department of Health and Social Care, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (CSA Professor Tom Rodden) and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to inform public health policies, regulation of digital technologies and guidance on new digital interventions. We will leverage the excellent contacts and networks afforded by the University of Nottingham Institute of Policy and Engagement led by Stephen Meek (ex Cabinet Office).
SCHOOLS & COLLEGES: our work will be important to the work of schools who possess unrivalled access to young people - especially new mental health practitioners. Our partnership with the Anna Freud Centre National Schools in Mind Network (>11,000 schools and colleges) will ensure that we engage with a wide range of professionals.
HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE: we will engage with NHS England, Public Health England, NHSX and Local Authorities who will be important partners to ensure that future interventions and tools are deliverable within the NHS and social care. It is vital to reduce the gap between the production of research and the application of findings within clinical practice. The Mental Elf Blog currently estimates the gap between research and delivery in mental health services to be 17 years.
Ultimately, the pilot and engagement work described here will provide vital information regarding the development of digital interventions for young people with mental health conditions and evidence-based policy to make the safest place in the world for young people to be online. These benefits could have huge potential to translate across the world, to help reduce global mental health inequalities, particularly in low and middle-income countries.
Organisations
Publications
![publication icon](/resources/img/placeholder-60x60.png)
Khan K
(2022)
Digital and remote behavioral therapies for treating tic disorders: Recent advances and next steps.
in Frontiers in psychiatry
![publication icon](/resources/img/placeholder-60x60.png)
Hollis C
(2020)
Editorial: The role of digital technology in children and young people's mental health - a triple-edged sword?
in Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines
![publication icon](/resources/img/placeholder-60x60.png)
![publication icon](/resources/img/placeholder-60x60.png)
![publication icon](/resources/img/placeholder-60x60.png)
Valentine AZ
(2021)
Implementation of Telehealth Services to Assess, Monitor, and Treat Neurodevelopmental Disorders: Systematic Review.
in Journal of medical Internet research
![publication icon](/resources/img/placeholder-60x60.png)
Bergin AD
(2020)
Preventive digital mental health interventions for children and young people: a review of the design and reporting of research.
in NPJ digital medicine
![publication icon](/resources/img/placeholder-60x60.png)
Kostyrka-Allchorne K
(2023)
Review: Digital experiences and their impact on the lives of adolescents with pre-existing anxiety, depression, eating and nonsuicidal self-injury conditions - a systematic review.
in Child and adolescent mental health
![publication icon](/resources/img/placeholder-60x60.png)
Hollis C
(2022)
Youth mental health: risks and opportunities in the digital world
in World Psychiatry
Description | Adolescent Mental Health and Development in the Digital World |
Amount | £3,935,074 (GBP) |
Funding ID | MR/W002450/1 |
Organisation | Medical Research Council (MRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 09/2021 |
End | 08/2025 |
Title | Data parser |
Description | • Data parser: Given the size and type of data generated by the proposed Imaging Derived Phenotypes extraction pipeline, a visual front-end to the generated dataset has been implemented to enable effective data-mining by non-imaging experts. We developed and released (https://github.com/SPMIC-UoN/ABCD_visual_parser) an open-source Python-based interface that runs in any browser and that allows us to visually explore and find interesting associations between imaging and non-imaging data. The parser provides brief summaries of the loaded data, such as total number of data-points and missing values. It then allows the user to explore the distribution of individual variables, by visualising their histogram and computing the associated probability density function. An overview clustered correlation matrix is also automatically generated, and it quickly highlights relevant dependencies within and between data types. Then, a flexible interface allows any user to generate dynamic plots that allow investigation of specific associations or variable features. Matteo Bastiani (PP2.2) |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2020 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | We have successfully generated a database containing ~600 IDPs for the first ~1,500 ABCD baseline subjects. This sets the basis for novel and exciting cross-them scientific explorations that can probe developmental mental health and provide some mechanistic insights into resilience to mental health conditions. |
URL | https://github.com/SPMIC-UoN/ABCD_visual_parser |
Title | Imaging analysis framework |
Description | •Imaging analysis framework: Multi-modal Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) fully pre-processed data, i.e., T1-weighted, T2-weighted and diffusion, have been obtained for N~4,000 9-11 year old subjects from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD, https://abcdstudy.org) study. We implemented an automated pipelines to analyse the imaging data using High-Performance Computing (HPC) solutions and to automatically extract Imaging Derived Phenotypes (IDPs). This framework will quantify, for each subject, the volume of brain tissues (i.e., white, grey matter and cerebrospinal fluid), cortical areas and sub-cortical structures and white matter tracts-specific microstructural features. The total number of expected IDPs for each subject is ~600. Matteo Bastiani (PP2.2) |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2020 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | This will enable researchers to engage with ABCD data more efficiently. |
Description | New collaboration - Slovak, Jirotka and Townsend |
Organisation | King's College London |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Prof Ellen Townsend - expertise, intellectual input |
Collaborator Contribution | Dr Petr Slovak - expertise, intellectual input Prof Marina Jirotka - expertise, data |
Impact | New collaboration between Petr Slovak (KCL), Marina Jirotka (Oxford) + with Ellen Townsend (Nottingham), which has led to: - the follow up MRC Programme Award (Adolescent Mental Health and Development in the Digital World) - new data generated (25 youth interviewed at 2 times over 6 weeks period + 15 ethics experts interviewed) - submission of manuscripts based on this data and follow-up work (funded by other sources) - CHI'22 submission from KCL - JMIR MH submission from KCL (in preparation) - Ethics paper in preparation Oxford (Jirotka group) - new collaboration with Oxford Counselling service leading to deployment with moderate-severe anxiety students in Trinity term 2021 |
Start Year | 2021 |
Description | New collaboration - Slovak, Jirotka and Townsend |
Organisation | University of Oxford |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Prof Ellen Townsend - expertise, intellectual input |
Collaborator Contribution | Dr Petr Slovak - expertise, intellectual input Prof Marina Jirotka - expertise, data |
Impact | New collaboration between Petr Slovak (KCL), Marina Jirotka (Oxford) + with Ellen Townsend (Nottingham), which has led to: - the follow up MRC Programme Award (Adolescent Mental Health and Development in the Digital World) - new data generated (25 youth interviewed at 2 times over 6 weeks period + 15 ethics experts interviewed) - submission of manuscripts based on this data and follow-up work (funded by other sources) - CHI'22 submission from KCL - JMIR MH submission from KCL (in preparation) - Ethics paper in preparation Oxford (Jirotka group) - new collaboration with Oxford Counselling service leading to deployment with moderate-severe anxiety students in Trinity term 2021 |
Start Year | 2021 |
Description | New collaboration - Slovak, Jirotka, Schleider, Gross |
Organisation | Stanford University |
Country | United States |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Dr Petr Slovak (KCL) - expertise, intellectual input Prof Marina Jirotka (Oxford) - expertise, data access |
Collaborator Contribution | Prof Jessica Schleider (Stony Brookes University) - expertise, intellectual input Prof James Gross (Stanford) - expertise, intellectual input |
Impact | New collaboration established with Prof Jessica Schleider (Stony Brookes University; youth MH Single-Session Interventions) and Prof James Gross (Stanford, emotion regulation) - led to follow up data collection (Oxford counselling study) - ongoing collaboration funded by internal funds of Dr Schleider & Dr Slovak - designing a bespoke SSI intervention around the socially-assistive robot for Oxford university students. |
Start Year | 2021 |
Description | New collaboration - Slovak, Jirotka, Schleider, Gross |
Organisation | Stony Brook University |
Country | United States |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Dr Petr Slovak (KCL) - expertise, intellectual input Prof Marina Jirotka (Oxford) - expertise, data access |
Collaborator Contribution | Prof Jessica Schleider (Stony Brookes University) - expertise, intellectual input Prof James Gross (Stanford) - expertise, intellectual input |
Impact | New collaboration established with Prof Jessica Schleider (Stony Brookes University; youth MH Single-Session Interventions) and Prof James Gross (Stanford, emotion regulation) - led to follow up data collection (Oxford counselling study) - ongoing collaboration funded by internal funds of Dr Schleider & Dr Slovak - designing a bespoke SSI intervention around the socially-assistive robot for Oxford university students. |
Start Year | 2021 |
Description | New collaboration - Slovak, Townsend, O'Raw |
Organisation | University of Nottingham |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Dr Petr Slovak - expertise, intellectual input Prof Ellen Townsend - expertise intellectual input |
Collaborator Contribution | Dr Linda O'Raw - expertise, intellectual input |
Impact | - new collaboration established with Prof Ellen Townsend & Dr Linda O'Raw - investigating impact of SAR on foster children - new proposal to MRC in progress, including newly established collaborations with a range of Local Authorities in Nottinghamshire and elsewhere |
Start Year | 2021 |
Description | Academy of Sciences webinar |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | • Panellist, Covid-19, Screen Time and the Developing Brain. New York Academy of Sciences webinar, July 2020. [Link, video] (Livingstone, S.) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://www.nyas.org/ebriefings/2020/the-effects-of-screen-time-on-the-developing-brain/?tab=covid-1... |
Description | Conference workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Prof Sonia Livingstone: 'Fostering a culture of child online protection: Roll-out of the Child Online Protection Guidelines.' ITU (International Telecommunication Union), September 2021 This workshop was the occasion to provide a detailed overview of objectives, strategies and initiatives related to COP guidelines for children, parents and educators, industry, and policymakers. The workshop also provided a platform to exchange on challenges, opportunities and practical steps to roll-out the COP guidelines at the national level among relevant stakeholders. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Regional-Presence/Europe/Pages/Events/2021/COP/Default.aspx |
Description | Culture, Media & Sport webinar |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Panellist (Prof Sonia Livingstone), 'Technology and mental health: the issues today.' UK Council for Internet Safety/eNurture/Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport webinar |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw_6xnrKkPo |
Description | Education Now - Screen time sanity disucssion |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | • Screen time sanity. Panellist for Education Now. Harvard Graduate School of Education, October 2020. [Video] (Livingstone, S.) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBWTbiMdI0A |
Description | Focus groups on using technology to support starting university |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
Results and Impact | In November 2020 we conducted nine focus groups, involving a total of 38 participants. All participants were undergraduate students who started university, in the UK, in autumn 2020. Our overarching aim was to understand how these students made use of technology to support themselves through starting university, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Each focus group participated in four half-hour discussions, centred around the following themes: (1) use of technology to improve mental wellbeing; (2) impact of social media during Covid-19; (3) impact of technology on students' self-regulated learning strategies; and (4) challenges to maintaining focus during online lectures and strategies adopted to overcome them. This research was conducted by nine researchers: four undergraduates students facilitating the focus groups, three coordinators, and two senior researchers. The data is currently being analysed. Anna Cox/Yvonne Rogers (WS2.2) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
Description | Future priorities for self-harm and suicide prevention in young people |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Keynote presentation at Harm to Hope Conference organised by Harmless.org a user-led support charity. Townsend, E. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Good thinking podcast. |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Helping parents and their children to thrive in our digital present and our digital future. Good Thinking Podcast (NHS and others), May 2020. [Podcast] (Livingstone, S.) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://www.good-thinking.uk/coronavirus/personal-stories/parents-adapting-digital-present-and-futur... |
Description | Keynote conference presentation |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Prof Sonia Livingstone - 'From evidence of risk to advocacy of rights: learning from children's experiences in a digital world.' Keynote to the Cyberpsychology conference, British Psychological Society, July 2021 |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | LSE Festival Webinar |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Webinar organiser and chair - Prof Sonia Livingstone Digital by Default: the COVID-19 generation | LSE Festival Online Event Almost overnight, following lockdown, children's lives became digital by default. Our panel critically reflects on how children's experiences, needs and rights are being, and could be better, served in a digital world. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6O-Evcm_eE&t=4s |
Description | Labour party roundtable on online harms |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | • Panellist, 'Taking Action on Online Harms and securing a better future for the internet.' Labour Party Roundtable, September 2020. (Livingstone, S.) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
Description | Music and Noise Focus Group |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Prof Steve Benford, University of Nottingham 'Music and Noise focus group'. The groups and the research are in collaboration with Lesley Simpson-Gray, ACTO member and cyber play therapist. We are looking to develop music/noise provision for use by Children & Young People (CYP) within a virtual Therapeutic Environment. The Pandemic forced many CYP therapists to take their practices online, and this presented challenges to preserve the methods and processes which underpinned their use of music-based interventions. There were apps, in existence, that lend themselves to this work and some were developed prior to the pandemic with therapy in mind. Several have been developed over the last 15 months. In addition, therapists have used physical resources shared with the client or to facilitate the client in play and storytelling or items that clients bring to sessions, to name a few of the possibilities. However, there is the potential to develop a provision to help express the full range of noise and music that could be created in the physical play space, whilst online. Be that emotions expressed through noise, noise to accompany storytelling or composing. The initial part of development is to engage with the stakeholders, the CYP, who would use music and sound in the play space and ask what they would like to see in the online space, to create music/noise. This might take the form of matched physical resources, instruments from objects to hand, or a virtual music/noise resource. In this study we explored the process whereby CYP are drawn towards digital and traditional methods of recreating their internal experience through the creation of music and sound, the impact this has on CYP's ability to reciprocate, collaborate and receive support from music-based activities, and the potential for client-led, digital music therapy interventions within the 'virtual' therapy space. We had a total of 23 participants, aged from 8 - 17 yrs. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Open Psychology Prelude |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Professors Sonia Livingstone and Paul Stenner discuss the Psychology of Media. Giving a rare glimpse of her personal journey into researching media psychology, Sonia Livingstone explains her motivations for studying how young people use social media, and shares some of her insights into the dilemmas we all face in today's mediatised world. Anticipating the launch of the Open Psychology Research Centre, they also touch upon what it might mean for psychology to be an open field, sensitive to the futures of young people. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://www.easybranches.com/amp/youtube/PRrfpjt2Ltw |
Description | Returning to school blog |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | • eNurture (2020) Returning to School - Thinking About Mental Health and Building Supportive Environments. eNurture blog [Text] (Livingstone, S.) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://www.enurture.org.uk/blog/2020/5/20/returning-to-school-thinking-about-mental-health-and-buil... |
Description | Student focus groups |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
Results and Impact | Prof Anna Cox and Prof Yvonne Rogers, UCL In November 2020 we conducted nine focus groups, involving a total of 38 participants. All participants were undergraduate students who started university, in the UK, in autumn 2020. Our overarching aim was to understand how these students made use of technology to support themselves through starting university, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Each focus group participated in four half-hour discussions, centred around the following themes: (1) use of technology to improve mental wellbeing; (2) impact of social media during Covid-19; (3) impact of technology on students' self-regulated learning strategies; and (4) challenges to maintaining focus during online lectures and strategies adopted to overcome them. This research was conducted by nine researchers: four undergraduates students facilitating the focus groups, three coordinators, and two senior researchers. The data has been analysed and is being written up for publication. We have published a blogpost on our findings (https://www.eworklife.co.uk/focusing-online-during-lectures) and have another in progress. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://www.eworklife.co.uk/focusing-online-during-lectures/ |
Description | Theories Webinar 1: Understanding children's well-being in a digital world |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | • Chair and organiser, CO:RE Theories Webinar 1: Understanding children's well-being in a digital world, July 2020. [Video] (Livingstone, S. & Stoilova, M.) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUvfozd0O2U |
Description | World Innovation Summit |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | • Speaker, 'Children in the Digital Age.' World Innovation Summit for Health/UNICEF Day of the Child Special Symposium. Qatar. November 2020. (Livingstone, S.) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
Description | Young Person Advisory Group (YPAG) workshops |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Patients, carers and/or patient groups |
Results and Impact | Engagement Activities:Elvira Perez Vallejos (Youth Engagement). The YPAG meet with representatives of each work package theme leads on these dates: 14th Dec WP7 CaTS, 15th Dec WP5 HABITs, 16th Dec WP1, 5th Jan WP6 Smart Toys, 6th Jan WP5 HABITs (second meeting), 7th Jan SPARx, 8th Jan WP3 The meetings were attended by an average of 7-9 young people via Zoom. During these meeting young people provided feedback on each WPs and suggestions for improvement shaped the development of WPs and work proposed for an MRC Programme application. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
Description | Young Person's Advisory Group (SPARX) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Patients, carers and/or patient groups |
Results and Impact | - MRC Young Person's Advisory Group o Initial forming of the YPAG during this award, with two PPI co-chairs o The YPAG has been developed to directly feed into the MRC grant, using the Engagement award to fund this o Meetings were held with the YPAG as a whole, and smaller groups were also used to inform the content of this work package o SPARX was presented to the YPAG initially and feedback was given, with PPI members facilitating the sessions o Consent for safeguarding in the project was required due to having young people under 18 in the meeting, which felt necessary but also added pressure to setting up the group |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020,2021 |
Description | eNurture blog on online harms |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | • Livingstone, S. (2020) To regulate against online harms, we must understand both mental health and the digital environment. eNurture blog |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://www.enurture.org.uk/blog/2020/12/18/to-regulate-against-online-harms-we-must-understand-both... |