| When: | Wednesday, May 21st, 2025 |
| Time: | 6:30 pm — 8:00 pm |
| Location: | Richcraft Hall, 2200 |
| Audience: | Anyone |
Hosted by the Faculties of Science and Arts & Social Sciences, this Q&A-style event with Dr. Jim Davies features Dr. Kim Hellemans and Dr. Andrea Howard as they explore what research really says about social media’s impact on youth mental health.
Social media is often blamed for rising mental health challenges among young people, but what does the research actually say? In this engaging and interactive discussion, Dr. Kim Hellemans (Neuroscience) and Dr. Andrea Howard (Psychology) will take a critical look at the narratives surrounding social media use, mental health, and addiction. Drawing from empirical research—including longitudinal studies and daily experience sampling—they will explore how social media influences well-being, substance use, and developmental outcomes in youth and young adults. The conversation will also address common myths and misconceptions, the role of individual differences, and the broader social context that shapes online engagement. This moderated Q&A will provide an evidence-based perspective on a timely issue, inviting participants to rethink the ways in which social media is framed in public discourse.
Join us for a thought-provoking discussion that moves beyond fear-based narratives to examine what the science really tells us about youth and digital life.
Meet our speakers!
Dr. Kim Hellemans is an award-winning educator, neuroscientist, and Associate Dean of Science at Carleton University. Recognized for her passion for teaching, she has earned prestigious awards, including the OCUFA Provincial Teaching Award. Her research focuses on the intersection of mental health, substance use, and academic outcomes, with recent work exploring problematic cannabis and social media use, graduate student mental health, and the experiences of gender and sexual minority students in higher education. A champion of knowledge translation, she has created widely viewed neuroscience animations on addiction and stigma. She also co-hosts the award-winning podcast Minding the Brain, bringing cutting-edge neuroscience to the public.
Dr. Andrea Howard is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and Director of the Pickering Centre for Research in Human Development. She studies well-being and health-related behaviours (mental health, alcohol/drug use, social media) in adolescence and the transition to adulthood, with an emphasis on special challenges facing university students and facing young people with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. A fundamental assumption behind her work is that all young people have the capacity to thrive across development. This has led her to question the validity of popular but negative stories about youth that appear in the media and are embraced by the public but aren’t clearly supported by empirical research. This includes myths about the harms caused by smartphones and social media. She has overseen numerous longitudinal, daily diary, and experiencing sampling studies, and work on large, collaborative team science projects. Her research has been published widely and funded by national granting agencies in Canada (SSHRC, CIHR) and the U.S. (NIH). She is active in research communities promoting transparency and open science in developmental and clinical psychology.
Dr. Jim Davies is a full professor in the Institute of Cognitive Science at Carleton University, where he has won awards for his teaching and research. He has degrees in philosophy, computer science, and cognitive psychology. As director of the Science of Imagination Laboratory, he explores processes of imagination in humans and machines, and specializes in artificial intelligence, analogy, problem-solving, and the psychology of art, religion, and creativity. His work has shown how people use visual thinking to solve problems, and how they visualize imagined situations and worlds.
He is author of over 50 peer-reviewed publications in the fields of cognitive science, artificial intelligence, philosophy, and psychology. He wrote the popular science books Riveted: The Science of Why Jokes Make us Laugh, Movies Make us Cry, and Religion Makes us Feel One with the Universe, Imagination: The Science of Your Mind’s Greatest Power, and Being the Person Your Dog Thinks You Are: The Science of a Better You. He has been asked to speak at four TEDx events, and is co-host of the award-winning Minding the Brain podcast.