At the invitation of Emmanuel Ponsot from the laboratory's PDS team, Les Mercredis de STMS will welcome Lucía Vaquero (New York University, Department of Psychology, Centre for Language, Music and Emotion, and Music and Audio Research Laboratory), who will present the SMART project as part of a study of the effects of digital musical composition in the use of social media and its consequences for the brain and mental health of adolescents.
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Abstract
Studying the effects of digital music composition in social media usage and its brain and mental-health consequences in teenagers: the SMART project
Social media (SM) has rapidly become ubiquitous, especially among younger generations. However, which SM activities are beneficial or detrimental for the developing brain of children and adolescents is still an open question. Previous research shows opposite findings: while some reports highlight the beneficial contributions of SM for learning, social interaction, and wellbeing, other investigations describe decreased attention, cognitive and emotional control, and an increase in mental-health related disorders (such as depression and anxiety) associated with the overuse of SM. Interestingly, the cognitive and emotional functions negatively affected by the intense use of SM, as well as some of its neural underpinnings, have been previously and consistently reported to benefit from music and art-based interventions. Our goal in the ‘Social Media Artistic tRaining in Teenagers (SMART)’ project is to use digital art-based trainings to teach adolescents how to use SM in a more goal-oriented, critical, and stimulating way, in the context of learning music composition or photography edition through specific software (i.e., Soundtrap, PixelR).
Evaluations include cognitive (attention, executive functions), mood, and mental-health (depression, stress, anxiety, self-esteem) measures, as well as functional and structural connectivity and morphological biomarkers obtained via MRI and MEG techniques. A first group of 10 participants (age: 14-16 years) was recruited and completed a 3-month music composition intervention program, being evaluated before and after the intervention, and providing weekly measures on SM usage and mood. Preliminary behavioral results showed an improvement in mental health markers (stress, depression, anxiety, self-esteem), as well as an enhanced sensitivity to music rewards and a more intense interest to aesthetic experiences (including visual arts) after the 3-month music composition intervention. No significant pre-post-intervention differences in the use of SM were detected. Nonetheless, data collection planned over the next 1.5 years will confirm/refute and hopefully expand our findings and expectations. We believe our conclusions will have great consequences for our understanding of brain and mental health effects linked to SM overuse, while offering potential counteracting measures.
Biography:
Lucía Vaquero is a postdoctoral researcher / adjunct faculty at the New York University, affiliated to NYU’s Department of Psychology, the Center for Language Music and Emotion (CLaME), and the Music and Audio Research Lab (MARL). At the same time, she is also part of the Research Group in Digital Culture and Social Movements at Complutense University of Madrid (UCM, Spain). Her work lies in the neuroscience of music field, with a focus on applying music for well-being in educational, preventive, and therapeutical contexts. Her expertise also includes the use of neuropsychological, structural neuroimaging and neurophysiological methods to investigate music predispositions and brain plasticity related to musical experience. Dr. Vaquero has recently received a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions fellowship for her project ‘Social Media Artistic tRaining in Teenagers (SMART)’, which she is currently carrying out between NYU and UCM, in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics and the company Salumedia Labs/Adhera Health