Two umbrella reviews on social media and mental health
8 September 2021
Patti Valkenburg completed two umbrella reviews of the effects of social media use on mental health. An umbrella review is a review of existing meta-analyses and literature reviews.
23 April 2021
Project AWeSome Spring Webinar online
The project AWeSome team presented their research results in a Spring webinar. In case you missed it, you can watch the full recording here. 
22 February 2021
Project AWeSome Winter Webinar online
The project AWeSome team presented their research results in a Winter webinar. In case you missed it, you can watch the full recording here: https://www.project-awesome.nl/the-research
1 July 2020
New study by Project AWeSome published
Do social media benefit or undermine adolescents’ well-being? Many parents, health practitioners, and scholars are concerned about the question. A new study by Project AWeSome shows that the answer is not a simple yes or no: The effect differs from adolescent to adolescent. The study is now published in Scientific Reports. Free access to the full paper is available here.
3 March 2020
Best Published Article award for ICA-CAM 2020
The article “Child’s Play? Assessing the Bidirectional Longitudinal Relationship between Gaming and Intelligence in Early Childhood”, published in the Journal of Communication has been awarded the 2020 best published article award from the Children, Adolescents, and Media Division of ICA. The article was lead-authored by Karin Fikkers and co-authored by Jessica Piotriowski and Patti Valkenburg.
13 February 2020
Posting, scrolling, chatting & snapping
The public report by Project AWeSome is now also available in English. Click here to read it.
17 December 2019
Eureka!
Jim Jansen interviewed Patti Valkenburg about her "Eureka!" moment. The article appeared in the December edition of New Scientist and in the AD newspaper on 17 December.
The Eureka! articles by Jim Jansen are also combined in a booklet. Read the article here.
3 December 2019
Posting. Scrolling. Apping. Snapping.
Posting. Scrolling. Apping. Snapping. We know they do it, but how do they feel when doing this?
To answer their questions, Project AWeSome, lead by Patti Valkenburg conducted a survey with nearly 1000 youth (aged 14 and 15) living in the Netherlands. Their public report of this research - Posten, scrollen, appen en snappen - released today, reflects the most current information we have about Dutch teens and their social media environment. A copy of this report (available in Dutch) is available here.
For the UvA press release click here
3 October 2019
Patti Valkenburg master of ceremony at Spinoza award celebration
On Wednesday 2 October the award ceremony for the yearly Spinoza and Stevin prizes took place at the Koninklijke Schouwburg in The Hague. The minister of Education, Culture and Science, Ingrid van Engelshoven, was present to hand out the awards to the four Spinoza and two Stevin laureates. As a former Spinoza laureate, Patti Valkenburg was invited by NWO, the Dutch National Science Foundation, to act as master of ceremony at the celebration.
Below, a picture of Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven (left), Professor Mirjam van Praag (President VU University), and Patti Valkenburg.
More information on the Spinoza and Stevin prizes and the 6 laureates, can be found on the website of NWO:https://www.nwo.nl/onderzoek-en-resultaten/programmas/spinozapremie
27 May 2019
Plugged in translated into Romenian
A Romenian version of Patti Valkenburg's book Plugged in- How media attract and affect youth is now available.
The entire book is available here.
2 April 2019
Project AWeSome website
Project AWeSome, Patti Valkenburg's new research project now has a website. Please visit: http://www.project-awesome.nl for more info.
21 Januari 2019
APS fellow status awarded to Patti Valkenburg
Patti Valkenburg has been elected as a Fellow in of the Association for Psychological Science (APS). The APS is the leading international organization dedicated to advancing scientific psychology across disciplinary and geographic borders.
22 September 2018
Kick-off: Project AWesome
Adolescents, Wellbeing, & Social Media
Why is it that the use of social media makes some adolescents feel happy while leaving others feeling blue? This week Project AWeSome, a new interdisciplinary collaboration between the Universities of Amsterdam and Tilburg, officially kicked off. The project’s aim is to answer this and other questions related to the effects of adolescents’ social media use on their wellbeing.
5 December 2017
Valkenburg again among the top 1% percent communication scholars worldwide
Patti Valkenburg has been listed again among the top one percent of authors contributing to the leading journals in communication science. This list of authors appeared in the November 2017 issue of Communication Education.
23 October 2017
Patti Valkenburg on Facebook’s new teen app TBH
Matthew Reynolds, journalist of the renowned tech magazine WIRED, discusses the possible implications of Facebook’s new App tbh (to be honest). Can such apps really improve the mental health of teens? Patti Valkenburg was asked to summarize the state of the art of research on the positive consequences of social media for teens. You can read the full article here.
12 September 2017
Has technology transformed communication?
Just released: Human Communication Research's October issue on communication and technology edited by Joseph Walther and Patti Valkenburg.
24 april 2017
Changing Technology, Changing Childhood
Blog by Patti Valkenburg published by
Yale University Press
Every now and then, I hear teachers lament that today’s children have changed. And they are right. In the West, this generation of children exhibits significant developmental differences that distinguish them from generations that grew up without television, video games, and smartphones.
26 februari 2016
Patti Valkenburg invited distinguished speaker Nanyang Technological University in Singapore
Op 17 februari 2016 heeft Patti Valkenburg op uitnodiging van de Nanyang Technological University in Singapore een lezing gehouden voor studenten en medewerkers.