2026 IDeaS Center Spring Seminar Series
Tuesday, February 3, 2026 4:00pm – 5:00pm
Zoom Only
Sophia Choukas-Bradley PhD
Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh
Social Media Platform Design and Adolescent Girls’ Mental Health: A Developmental Systems
Perspective
Abstract: Why are adolescent girls disproportionately vulnerable to body dissatisfaction and mental health concerns, and how does social media platform design contribute to these risks? In this talk, I will present theory and empirical findings from my program of research examining adolescent girls’
mental health in the context of social media. I introduce a “perfect storm” developmental systems framework that conceptualizes mental health risk as emerging from dynamic interactions among (a) platform design features (e.g., algorithmic content curation, engagement-optimization architectures, visual self-presentation affordances), (b) adolescent developmental processes (e.g., pubertal change, heightened peer sensitivity, identity formation), and (c) gendered sociocultural pressures (e.g., sexual objectification, unrealistic beauty norms, influencer marketing). I discuss how these interacting systems amplify exposure to appearance-focused content and increase risk for body dissatisfaction, depression, anxiety, and disordered eating. I will conclude by discussing my ongoing work to design, implement, and evaluate brief, scalable social media interventions aimed at fostering more intentional and values-aligned platform use.
Register Here
Please register in advance, you will then receive a confirmation email containing zoom line information about joining the seminar. You do not need a zoom account to attend or register.
The IDeaS Seminar series are held during Spring and Fall semesters.
If you have suggestions for speakers, please submit them here.
If you have questions about upcoming seminars, please use the contact us link below.
**Unless noted all seminars will be held virtually via Zoom. Additional talk details and registration links will be posted online prior to seminar dates. Email centerforideas@andrew.cmu.edu to be added to the mailing list.
Upcoming Seminars:
IDeaS Spring 2026 Seminar Series:
Tuesday, February 17, 2026
Chinmayi Sharma
Associate Professor of Law at Forham Law School
March 10, 2026
Ethan Zuckerman
Associate Professor, Director of the Digital Public Infrastructure Initiative at UMass Amherst
March 24, 2026
Brandy Aven, PhD
Associate Professor in Organizational Theory, Strategy, and Entrepreneurship, Carnegie Mellon University
Tuesday, April 7, 2026
Hans W. A. Hanley
Meta Research Scientist
Tuesday, April 28, 2026
Alex Abdo
Litigation Director, Knight Institute
Additional talk details and registration links will be posted online prior to seminar dates.
Past Seminar Presenters
Daniel Silverman
Asst. Prof. of Political Science, CMU Institute for Strategy & Technology, Understanding Misinformation in Contemporary War: From Iraq and Syria to Russia and Ukraine and Beyond. 12/2/2025
Rachel Kuo
Asst. Professor at the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison in the Dept. of Gender and Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies Title: Democracy and Technology Under the Shadow of Empire -11/11/2025
Victor Pickard
C. Edwin Baker Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy at the Annenberg School for Communication Talk Title: The Present and Future of U.S. Journalism on 10/28/2025
Making correction visible: The value of observed correction to reduce misperceptions on social media
Computational and Design Approaches for Combating Problematic Online Information
Juliana Schroeder - The Psychology of Reading "Mind" During Conversation
Katie Harbath - Tech and elections - A brief history of how we got here and where we go next
Sam Gregory - Deepfakes: Critical questions on current problems and emerging ‘solutions'
Ananya Sen - Quantifying the User Value of Social Media Data
Daniyar Serikov - Distortions in the Kazakh Media Landscape
Jessica Dawson - The Surveillance App Economy and the National Security Risk
Joshua Tucker - The (Surprisingly?) Limited Impact of Russia's Election Interference on Twitter in the 2016 US Election
Yan Leng Ph.D. - Analysis of misinformation during the COVID-19 outbreak in China: cultural, social and political entanglements
