Amy Orben

Amy Orben
Orben lectures for the University of Basel in 2020
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge
University of Oxford
Scientific career
InstitutionsEmmanuel College, Cambridge
MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit
ThesisTeens, screens and well-being : an improved approach. (2019)
WebsiteAmy Orben

Amy Orben is a British experimental psychologist who is a group leader at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit. Her research considers how digital technologies impact adolescent mental health. Orben was awarded the British Neuroscience Association Researcher Credibility Prize in 2021 and the inaugural Medical Research Council Impact Prize in 2023.

Early life and education

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Orben was an undergraduate student at the University of Cambridge where she studied natural sciences. She moved to The Queen's College, Oxford for graduate studies, where she specialised in experimental psychology.[1] During her doctoral research, she was a visiting researcher at the University of Tübingen and Eindhoven University of Technology. After completing her doctorate Orben was made a Cambridge Research Fellow at Emmanuel College.[2]

Research and career

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As a PhD student, Orben questioned the methods applied by Jean Twenge and others who had arrived at claims about the negative effects of technology and social media use.[3] In 2021, Orben was appointed a programme leader at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit.[4] Her research considers novel methodologies to understand how screen time and use of social media impacts psychological well-being in adolescents.[5] Post-millennial mental health (in particular stress, depression and anxiety) is reportedly worse than in previous generations, which is often attributed to social media. Orben showed that this wasn't the entire story: statistically speaking, eating a potato every day had a worse impact on well-being.[6] She argued that social media can be helpful in times of anxiety and loneliness.[7] Orben believes that significant quantities of high quality data about how children engage with technology could be provided by technology giants such as Google and Facebook.[8][9]

Orben has criticised several of the methodologies currently being used, which largely rely on self-report methods and generate incorrect results.[10][8] She is also an advocate for open science, and created ReproducibiliTea,[11] an international journal club for researchers to discuss improving science.[12]

Awards and honours

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Selected publications

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  • Amy Orben; Andrew Przybylski (14 January 2019). "The association between adolescent well-being and digital technology use". Nature Human Behaviour. 3 (2): 173–182. doi:10.1038/S41562-018-0506-1. ISSN 2397-3374. PMID 30944443. Wikidata Q92830198.
  • Amy Orben; Livia Tomova; Sarah-Jayne Blakemore (12 June 2020). "The effects of social deprivation on adolescent development and mental health". The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. doi:10.1016/S2352-4642(20)30186-3. ISSN 2352-4642. PMC 7292584. PMID 32540024. Wikidata Q96427197.
  • Amy Orben; Tobias Dienlin; Andrew Przybylski (6 May 2019). "Social media's enduring effect on adolescent life satisfaction". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 116 (21): 10226–10228. doi:10.1073/PNAS.1902058116. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 6534991. PMID 31061122. Wikidata Q91803322.

References

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  1. ^ "Amy Orben". The Queen's College, Oxford. Retrieved 2021-12-30.
  2. ^ "Amy Orben | Cumberland Lodge". www.cumberlandlodge.ac.uk. Retrieved 2021-12-30.
  3. ^ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/social-media-has-not-destroyed-a-generation/
  4. ^ "Dr Amy Orben appointed as Programme Track Leader Scientist". www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 2021-12-30.
  5. ^ Orben, Amy (2020-04-01). "Teenagers, screens and social media: a narrative review of reviews and key studies". Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology. 55 (4): 407–414. doi:10.1007/s00127-019-01825-4. ISSN 1433-9285. PMID 31925481. S2CID 210123027.
  6. ^ Orben, Amy (2020-04-26). "Don't despair if your child is glued to a screen, it may be keeping them sane". The Guardian. Retrieved 2021-12-30.
  7. ^ "In touch with their emotions and extremely online—here's what you need to know about Gen Z". Prospect Magazine. Archived from the original on 2021-12-09.
  8. ^ a b "Amy Orben: 'To talk about smartphones affecting the brain is a slippery slope'". the Guardian. 2020-02-01. Retrieved 2021-12-30.
  9. ^ "The Question We've Stopped Asking About Teen-Agers and Social Media". The New Yorker. 2021-11-09. Retrieved 2021-12-30.
  10. ^ a b "Amy Orben honoured". The Psychologist. British Psychological Society. Retrieved 2021-12-30.
  11. ^ Orben, Amy (2019-09-24). "A journal club to fix science". Nature. 573 (7775): 465. doi:10.1038/d41586-019-02842-8. PMID 31551562. S2CID 202733672.
  12. ^ "ReproducibiliTea". Open Science Framework. 2018-06-05.
  13. ^ "TechWomen50 Awards: 2017 Winners". WeAreTechWomen - Supporting Women in Technology. Retrieved 2021-12-30.
  14. ^ "Award for Outstanding Doctoral Research Contributions to Psychology". British Psychological Society. Retrieved 2021-12-30.
  15. ^ "Awards". Retrieved 2021-12-30.
  16. ^ "Winners of the 2021 Credibility Prize". British Neuroscience Association. Retrieved 2021-12-30.
  17. ^ "ACAMH Awards 2021 Results". ACAMH. 2021-10-22. Retrieved 2021-12-30.
  18. ^ "MRC awards inaugural Impact Prizes". News. Medical Research Council. Retrieved 15 March 2023.
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