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Wired Minds: Exploring Mental Health in the Digital Age
Join us for this special event to coincide with Mental Health Month in October.
In our digital age, social media, smartphones, online gaming, and AI have become powerful forces, reshaping how we connect, communicate, and perceive ourselves and others. While this bold new digital world offers unprecedented opportunities for connection and self-expression, it also brings complex challenges to mental health and wellbeing across all age groups.
For young people, social media can amplify pressures relating to body image and peer acceptance. Adults may experience similar stress from constant comparison with one another, the pressures of maintaining a curated online persona, the addictive pull of online gaming and the popularity of online dating platforms. The relentless nature of social media and the development of AI technology can blur the boundaries between virtual and real-life interactions, leading to increased stress and decreased wellbeing.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. Our expert panel of psychologists and academics, moderated by comedian Julian Morrow of The Chaser fame, will examine how properly understanding and managing these relatively new social impacts of online engagement is crucial so we can strive for a balanced and nuanced approach that supports mental health, fosters genuine connections and harnesses the power of digital technology for the greater good.
The Speakers
Julian Morrow
Host
Julian Morrow has made a career of public nuisance in various forms, co-founding satirical media empire The Chaser and joke company Giant Dwarf, as well as making TV shows including The Election Chaser, CNNNN, The Chaser's War on Everything, The Hamster Wheel and creating consumer affairs show The Checkout. His work has been nominated, unsuccessfully, for many awards, and prosecuted successfully in many courts. He currently hosts Sunday Extra on ABC Radio National.
At the 50th Annual AWGIE Awards, the Fred Parsons Award for Outstanding Contribution to Australian Comedy was awarded to Julian Morrow by the event’s MC, Julian Morrow.
Dr Jasmine Fardouly
School of Psychology, Faculty of Science
Dr Jasmine Fardouly is an ARC DECRA Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology, where she leads a research program investigating positive and negative social media content for users’ body image and mental health. She holds a prestigious Sydney Horizon Fellowship on improving social media for users’ body image via interventions among individuals, social groups, social media influencers and policy initiatives. In 2023 she was named on Clarivate’s Highly Cited Researcher list (Top 0.1% most cited scientists globally). She has twice been ranked top Australian researcher in communications by The Australian newspaper. In 2024, Dr Fardouly received a Young Tall Poppy award.
Professor Mark Dadds
School of Psychology, Faculty of Science
Mark Dadds is Director of Growing Minds Australia, Australia’s Clinical Trials Network in Child and Youth Mental Health, Professor of Psychology at the University of Sydney and Founding Co-Director of the Child Behaviour Research Clinic, which develops state-of-the-art treatments for children and adolescents with mental health problems. He has developed and directed several national intervention programs for children, youth and their families at risk for mental health problems. He has received several notable awards for his work in child and youth mental health, and his innovative treatment methods were the subject of an ABC-TV documentary for which he was awarded the Inaugural APS Award for Media Engagement with Science.
Dr Rebecca Pinkus
School of Psychology, Faculty of Science
Dr Rebecca Pinkus is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology. She was awarded her PhD and Master of Arts from the University of Toronto, and her Bachelor of Science (Hons) from Western University (London, Ontario, Canada). Dr Pinkus’s research interests are in social cognition within close relationships. In particular, she is interested in how individuals balance concerns about the self with concerns about the relationship. She is also interested in how partners can help or hinder each other's health outcomes.
Associate Professor Andrew J. Campbell
School of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health
Associate Professor Andrew J. Campbell leads Australia's first Cyberpsychology Research Group (CRG) at the University of Sydney. A registered and practising psychologist for more than 15 years, Andrew has led research in the field of virtual therapies and the use of internet tools for mental health and wellbeing since 2003. He has extensive experience working with NGOs, corporate partners and government agencies to develop cost-effective and practical technology solutions using VR, games and social media for evidence-based mental health therapies.