20 april 2024
Patti Valkenburg has been invited to join Academia Europaea, the prestigious European Academy. Academia Europaea recognizes individuals who have demonstrated sustained academic excellence. Valkenburg's selection reflects her leadership in media psychology and her innovative approaches to studying media's impact on youth.
14 December 2023
Dutch adolescents spend about six hours per day on their mobile phones, of which two and a half hours are spend on social media. What does this their mean for their mental health?
6 June 2023
Members of Project AWeSome (Adolescents, Well-being, and Social media) interviewed 480 adolescents aged 14 to 17 about the pros and cons of social media, relying on a survey study and qualitative interviews.
27 May 2023
Team AWeSome I (2018-2021)—Ine Beyens, Loes Keijsers, Loes Pouwels, Irene van Driel, and Patti Valkenburg—received the Innovation Award for Method from ICA’s Mass Comm Division.
13 april 2023
On 13 April Patti Valkenburg was invited for another debate in the Dutch House of Representatives.
12 april 2023
On 12 April Patti Valkenburg took part in a debate in the Dutch House of Representatives about the question if mobile phones should be forbidden at schools.
23 maart 2023
In an article in De Volkskrant Patti Valkenburg pleas for guidelines regarding mobile phones in class rather than a law forbidding them in class. You can read a translation of the article here.
25 januari 2023
Patti Valkenburg has been listed among the top 10 authors contributing to the four “central” communication journals from 2017 to 2021. She is the only listed scholar affiliated to a Dutch university. The four central communication journals are: Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Human Communication Research, and Communication Monographs. The acceptance rates of these journals typically lie around 5-8%.
4 november 2022
In the podcast series “Architects of Communication Scholarship” the ICA presents interviews with leading communication scholars about their experience in the field and their life as academics and researchers.
The lastest episode features Patti Valkenburg, interviewed by PhD candidates Tim Verbeij and Teun Siebers. The podcast can be found on the ICA website.
27 September 2022
Together with influencers Mo Bicep, Numidia and Ouassima Tajmout, Patti Valkenburg was guest at a theme visit about the influence of social media on youth organized by MIND US. Queen Maxima , the honorary president of MIND US, was there to speak with adolescents, influencers and scientists about the subject and she was the first to receive a road map designed by MIND US to help influencers in their contact with adolescents. More information on their (Dutch) website.
23 August 2022
In a New York Times article Matt Richtel writes about depression and anxiety among adolescents and how social media affects this. The article mentions Project AWeSome's research to argue that some adolescents are more vulnerable for the influence of social media then others. Read the New York Times article
5 July 2022
On 4 July Patti Valkenburg was invited as a guest on the current affairs program Nieuwsuur, where she was interviewed by Mariëlle Tweebeeke about 15 years of social media and how social media are affecting youth (in Dutch).
A more extensive interview was published on the Nieuwsuur website (in Dutch).
The Nieuwsuur broadcast can be viewed below.
21 June 2022
The June edition of Current Opinion in Psychology (Volume 45) is a special issue on Social Media and Well-being. It was edited by Patti Valkenburg, Ine Beyens, Adrian Meier and Mariek van den Abeelen and contains 26 excellent reviews by over 50 authors.
29 March 2022
The article "Just a Joke? Adolescents’ Preferences for Humor in Media Entertainment and Real-Life Aggression", published in Media Psychology has been awarded the 2022 Best Published Article award from the Children, Adolescents, and Media Division of ICA. The article was lead-authored by Amber van der Wal and co-authored by Loes Pouwels Jessica Piotriowski and Patti Valkenburg.
4 maart 2022
Project AWeSome receives the Outstanding Interdisciplinary Contribution Award of the Society for Research on Adolescence. AWeSome investigates adolescents, well-being and social media and was established by Patti Valkenburg (University of Amsterdam) and Loes Keijsers (Erasmus University).
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
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
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
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.
