Developmental Science Seminar | Sarah Myruski PhD

Tuesday, February 8, 2022 1:00pm to 2:00pm

Location: 

Virtual via Zoom

Please join us for the next Developmental Science Seminar featuring Dr. Sarah Myruski, postdoctoral scholar in the Emotion Development Lab at Penn State University. All are welcome!

Date: Tuesday, February 8th
Time: 1:00-2:00 pm
Location: Zoom Meeting 916 8523 2011, Email Jen McDermott <jmm@umass.edu> for passcode

Anxiety, Emotion Regulation, and Digital Technology Use in Adolescents

Adolescence is a period of peak anxiety onset, and rapid social, emotional, and neural development. Over the past several decades, the social world of teens has been transformed by the pervasive use of digital technology (DT; e.g., social media, messaging apps, online games), with 95% of teenagers using a mobile device, and the plurality (45%) engaging with their devices nearly constantly throughout the day (PEW, 2018). Yet rigorous research on links between DT use and mental health is in its infancy, and has thus far yielded mixed results (e.g., Keles et al., 2020 review). A key step forward is to identify individual differences in cognitive and emotional functioning that may confer vulnerability to the negative effects of DT use. In this talk, I will present recent findings from studies leveraging psychophysiological metrics (EEG, ERPs) of emotion regulation (ER), the implicit and explicit processes by which we manage emotions. Results showed that ER vulnerabilities indexed via psychophysiology significantly moderated the link between DT use (including greater frequency and preferences to use DT versus face-to-face interactions) and elevated anxiety symptoms. This pattern suggests that youth with ER difficulties may prefer the low-barrier, relatively controllable opportunities for social engagement offered by DT, and/or DT use may exacerbate anxiety for those with ER vulnerabilities. Future research will clarify long-term implications and how within-person patterns of DT use precede and follow fluctuations in anxiety symptom severity.

Research Area: 

Developmental Science