Seminar in Psychological Processing

Media and Mental Health is the topic for the Comm 372G seminar in Winter Quarter 2022. The seminar will focus on new ways to define media interactions that can be linked to mental health, taking advantage of new methods and computational analytics that provide granular details about media use. We will consider both the role of media in diagnosing mental illness, as well as how media use may change the onset, course and treatment of mental illness. We will discuss and write about psychiatric illnesses including bipolar disorder, suicide and suicidal ideation, post-traumatic stress disorders, anxiety, attention disorders, addiction, schizophrenia, post-partem depression, obsessive-compulsive disorders and eating disorders. Dr. Thomas Robinson (MD, Stanford Medical School) will join in instruction, and mental health experts will provide briefings on different diagnoses. The main focus of discussions (and writing), however, will be on media and technology content, applications, contexts, functions, sequences, rhythms, applications and services. We will be guided by new work and data from the Screenomics Lab that records moment-by-moment changes in screen use (see screenomics.stanford.edu for background). The seminar is open to MA and PhD students across the university, and with permission of the instructor, to advanced undergraduates.