Published Jun 12 2020

People You May Know: What Happens Next? podcast on social media and mental health

Brady
Robards
Associate Professor in Sociology
Gemma sharp
NHMRC Emerging Leadership Investigator Fellow, Senior Clinical Psychologist, Monash University
Susan carland
Academic, author and social commentator

Every generation faces its own moral panic over new technology. Even right back to Socrates when the use of written text in books was seen as something that would negatively impact our lives. In the 20th century, wireless radio and television was thought or assumed to bring about the downfall of civilisation.

In this social media digital age, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Monash University Brady Robards focuses on the positive impacts social media brings to our lives. Whilst obviously there are negative impacts of social media, he is looking at ways young people are using these platforms as ways to help open communication and help deal with issues they face. Brady is currently working on a publication called Growing up on Facebook. Studying sustained or longitudinal social media use among people in their 20s who have grown up using social media. Gemma Sharp, a Clinical Psychologist and Monash researcher on the impact of social media on body image, is also using social media as a positive tool to help at-risk young people.

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About the Authors

  • Brady robards

    Associate Professor in Sociology

    Brady's research sits between the sociology of youth and a cultural sociology of digital media. He's interested in how young people use and thus produce digital social media, such as on Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat, and how social media come to serve as sites of identity-work and archival memory constituted through digital traces.

  • Gemma sharp

    NHMRC Emerging Leadership Investigator Fellow, Senior Clinical Psychologist, Monash University

    Gemma is an Associate Professor and NHMRC Emerging Leadership Investigator in the Department of Neuroscience, where she leads the Body Image & Eating Disorders Research Group. She is also a senior clinical psychologist and research lead at Alfred Health where she specialises in the treatment of eating disorders. Associate Professor Sharp originally trained as a molecular biologist, graduating with a Masters degree in Oncology from the University of Cambridge. She then transitioned to a career in clinical psychology and was awarded a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Flinders University.

  • Susan carland

    Director, Bachelor of Global Studies, and Lecturer, School of Language, Literature, Cultures and Linguistics

    Susan's research and teaching specialties focus on gender, sociology, contemporary Australia, terrorism, and Islam in the modern world. Susan hosted the “Assumptions” series on ABC’s Radio National, and was named one of the 20 Most Influential Australian Female Voices in 2012 by The Age.

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