Adriana Manago, a professor of developmental psychology at UC Santa Cruz, will be presenting a talk entitled, Communication Technologies as Cultural Tools for Adolescent Development."
Abstract: In this talk, I conceptualize communication technologies as cultural tools that have come to permeate daily life, transforming social and identity development in the process. I discuss how mobile devices and social media influence four major tasks of social development in the transition from adolescence to adulthood: the development of social networks and social capital, the construction of valued gender roles, the development of sexual intimacy, and the renegotiation of autonomy-relatedness in relationships with parents. Employing a variety of methods with diverse youth in the U.S., Mexico, and Israel, I demonstrate how communication technologies enable and constrain particular psychosocial capacities and developmental pathways in different ecological niches.
About the presenter: Adriana Manago is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She earned her PhD in developmental psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2011 with an interdisciplinary certificate from the FPR-UCLA Center for Culture, Brain, and Development. Her research focuses on cultural change, new media technologies, social and identity development during adolescence and the transition to adulthood.
