Dr Kathy Weston

Roxana Pomplun, who has recently passed her PhD viva, is our Researcher of the Month for June 2025. Her research focuses on how a group of younger adolescents (11-13 years old) interact with algorithmically curated social media like TikTok and YouTube Shorts during this critical stage of brain development. Through interviews with 19 participants, Roxana uncovered these young people's complex perceptions of the emotional impacts of algorithmically curated feeds, and explored the self-regulating strategies that they subconsciously use to manage their social media use. Learn about her fascinating findings here.