The eGeneration: Impact of social media use on communication skills and non-verbal communication among students. A cross cultural study

Dr Elisa Berdica currently works at the Chair of Clinical Psychology and at the Law School of the University of Mannheim, Germany. Her research focus lies on processing of emotional visual stimuli, and the role that emotions play in psychopathology, especially anxiety disorders. Elisa is particularly interested in cross-cultural psychology and is happy to discuss anything related to diversity issues.

Project description

Technology has rapidly changed the way we communicate. This rapid change is occurring at the same time with the social and emotional development of children and adolescents. Previous research has shown that extensive use of digital communication influences children’s social skills. But how does it influence the processing of nonverbal cues? To answer this question we will run an online study where participants will observe pictures of body postures from the bodily expressive action stimulus test (BEAST) that communicate basic emotions, and they will complete an emotion recognition task. Infrequent social media users are expected to perform better in the emotion recognition task compared to extensive social media users. The cross-cultural aspect of the study will have an exploratory nature.

The last remaining Supervisor will be announced shortly.
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