Workshop - Eva Telzer

Public discourse about adolescent social media use has focused heavily on “screen time.” However, emerging evidence suggests that how platforms are designed—and the specific affordances they introduce into adolescents’ social environments—may be more developmentally consequential than time alone. This workshop provides a deep dive into the neuroscience of adolescent brain development and how it intersects with core social media features, including algorithmic personalization, quantifiable social metrics, intermittent social reward, social comparison, and constant peer evaluation. The workshop will examine how these design features interact with neural systems involved in reward processing, cognitive control, social cognition, sleep regulation, and stress responsivity. Particular attention will be given to peer dynamics and mental health. We will explore how social comparison, appearance-based feedback, and social monitoring may amplify adolescent sensitivity to status and belonging, contributing to body image concerns, anxiety, depressive symptoms, and digital stress. The session will also address downstream implications for sleep disruption, physical activity displacement, attentional fragmentation, and school functioning, highlighting potential mechanistic pathways linking digital engagement to academic and emotional outcomes. Participants will leave with a scientifically grounded framework for understanding social media as a structured developmental context and a clearer lens through which to interpret emerging research, clinical presentations, and school-related concerns.

Learning objectives: Delegates gain an understanding of

1. Differentiate between “screen time” models and design-feature models of social media impact, explaining why platform affordances may be more developmentally relevant than duration alone.

2. Describe how specific social media features interact with adolescent neurodevelopment, including reward circuitry, cognitive control networks, social brain systems, and sleep-regulatory processes.

3. Explain mechanistic pathways linking social media use to peer dynamics and mental health, including social comparison, body image concerns, digital stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms, as well as downstream effects on sleep, physical activity, attention, and school functioning.

 

Level: The content will be suitable for intermediate level neuropsychologists and experienced neuropsychologists who want to expand their skill set and understand the role of neuroscience and the developing brain in social media use.

 

Facilitator: Prof Eva Telzer, PhD, UNC Chapel Hill (USA)

Eva Telzer is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at UNC Chapel Hill. She is an Associate Editor at Child Development and Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, and the co-Director of the Winston Center on Technology and Brain Development. Her research examines how social and cultural processes shape adolescent brain development, with a focus on prosocial and risk-taking behaviors, family and peer relationships, and the role of social media in youth’s lives. She has authored over 200 publications, and her research has been continuously funded for over two decades by numerous agencies and foundations including the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Templeton Foundation, and the Jacobs Foundation. She has received many awards for her work including an Association for Psychological Science Rising Star Award, an early career award from the Society of Research on Adolescence, a Young Investigator Award from the Flux Congress Society for Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, and the American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology. She is regularly featured as an expert in psychological science in consultation to government agencies and non-profit associations as well as media appearances in The New York Times, NPR, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC.

 

Keywords: social media, adolescence, brain development