RDP students look at the effects of social media on developing minds

Red Deer Polytechnic’s (RDP) Psychology Society is inviting community members to take part in their virtual symposium on March 10th. Five psychologists and local professionals have been selected to speak about the effects of social media on the developing mind.

“Annually, the psychology society at the Psychology Society at RDP puts on a symposium where the society picks a topic and then we get a group of speakers typically five to come speak, we have a panel. This year, our topic is surrounding social media and children brains, and we have a great group of speakers coming in. Four of them are professors and one of them is a child therapist in Red Deer,” said Mckenna Causey who is a fifth year psychology student and president of the Psychology Society.

Causey says there is something for everyone based on the wide variety of topics the speakers will be addressing.

“We have one social psychologist who is going to focus on adolescents. Then, we have a developmental psychologist who's going to focus on children.  We have a cognitive psychologist who will focus on more of the brain aspects and then we have a community studies professor. Then, the child therapist is going to talk about it real-life applications,” she explained. 

The Psychology Society is looking forward to extending invitations to the virtual event to parents in the community who might see a benefit from attending.

“This then would be really good for parents and anybody who is around children and wants to see what the impacts of social media on them is,” added Causey. 

As a student studying psychology at RDP, she says not all impacts of social media are negative.

“There are multiple positives and multiple negatives to social media for children. You can't really classify it as black or white, but it's really important to look at all the perspectives and see what's good for the kids and what's not good,” said Causey who is currently applying to earn her masters in psychology.

The symposium is free to attend and will be held online through Microsoft Teams on Thursday, March 10 at 7:00 PM, you can find more information, by clicking here.