Author: Eve Park, MindTech Research Placement Student.
On Thursday 13th November, I had the opportunity to go to the Digital Youth X MindTech conference at County Hall in London. It was my first ever conference and if I was to sum it up in three words they would be: empowering, exciting, and perhaps also exhausting.
After an early train to London and a battle with rush hour traffic, we jumped straight into the first session hearing about current projects which showcased the positive and negative effects that technology can have on young people. These talks covered DIORA, Purrble, and SPARX. Key take-aways for me were the significant effect of social comparison on mental health, interesting results around gender diversity and Purrble, and the honest discussion about recruitment difficulties for SPARX.
DIORA (Dynamic Interplay of Online Risk and Resilience in Adolescence) explored the different aspects of young people’s online activity and its effects on mental health. I found myself wearing my ‘lived experience’ hat more than my ‘researcher hat’ as they explained how social comparison can drive anxiety and depression. Being a 14-year-old neurodivergent girl when lockdown hit is, I think, a perfect example of someone vulnerable to social comparison online. This talk also raised an important question: is removing technology a solution, or just a different kind of problem? It was a theme that resurfaced later in the policy panel.
Purrble, the socially assistive robot, intrigued me and I had a list of questions for after the talk. This cuddly robot encourages young people to calm down by soothing it and has already shown to be effective. This particular study was on LGBTQ+ young people in particular, as a group known to struggle with mental wellbeing. Curiously, Purrble only had a significant positive impact on cisgender youth, not trans youth. This is not necessarily a fault of Purrble but could be due to a multitude of factors in the world affecting trans youth. I was shocked into realising that gender diversity has rarely, if ever, been mentioned in my education despite it being something I am incredibly passionate about. Trans youth are a group desperately in need of caring attention and inclusion now more than ever, so I am grateful to Purrble (and other teams) for reflecting this.
The talk on the cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) game SPARX was refreshingly honest about the difficulties in recruiting participants and how identifying and addressing public barriers made a real difference. It created a safe atmosphere in the room — many people had faced similar challenges, and that was okay. As someone just beginning to explore research, I found it reassuring to know that difficulties are normal and not disastrous. The analysis of SPARX is still ongoing, so we’re eagerly waiting to see how this computerised CBT game performs in the UK compared to other countries.
The first keynote speaker was Professor Amy Orben on fixing the science of technology harms and the current government report on this issue. This sparked a lot of thoughts and discussion in the break afterwards. It was suggested that the mental health crisis and the speed of technology development was moving much faster than the current research process to contend with. “You wouldn’t do a randomised control trial for parachutes; you use them because you know they work”. The research community need to be working together to provide and build on evidence to progress policy quickly to help the younger generations stay safe with the harms of technology.
For the afternoon session, I attended Creative Approaches in Research and PPI. This revealed to me the amount of thought and intention that goes into the name, logo, and posters for a research project, as well as defeating the stereotype that science and creativity are mutually exclusive. In attempting to create our own designs in only 10 minutes, we collectively concluded that it is much more difficult than a quick job, but we do have the ability and resources to do it – despite not being graphic designers.
The final panel and keynote speaker, Cathy Cresswell, talked about ‘Bridging the Valley of Death’ between research and implementation. This was a complex issue that I wasn’t even aware existed and contrasted interestingly with the morning’s urgency for quicker development. I could sense the eagerness and desperation from all who were working so hard to get their research technology commercialised for the world to use. My only slight area for improvement was that both panels sparked so many ideas and questions from the audience but only a couple had time to be asked.
Overall, I found the conference interesting and insightful. As well as the scheduled talks, the venue, food and people were all lovely. Special mention is also to ‘The Sprouts’ the young people (yet older than me) of Sprouting Minds who contributed to the majority of the projects on show. They spoke with confidence to everyone and welcomed me kindly to join them in the breaks. Also huge thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make this event happen and ensure everyone had an interesting and enjoyable time!
The Digital Youth X MindTech event 'Digital Risk, Resilience and Interventions: co-creating change in youth mental health' took place at County Hall, London on Thursday 13th November. The event welcomed over 200 delegates including researchers, young people, policy makers, academics, industry innovators and parents for a series or talks and interactive workshops. Within the event a space was dedicated to an exhibition summarising the Digital Youth project findings and demonstrations from industry of innovative mental health technology.
Find out more about the various Digital Youth projects in the published programme report