NUI Galway Workshop to Explore Psychological Impacts of Social Media

NUI Galway will hold a workshop on ‘The Dark Psychological Impacts of Social Media in the Workplace’ at the J.E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics on Monday, 10 April.

A large body of research has considered the positive aspects of social media in the workplace. However, emerging research and practice are beginning to focus on complex and often alarming ways in which use of social media may harmfully affect workers. For example, addiction, anxiety and depression, privacy violation, stress, information overload, and work-family conflict are some of the issues that have been studied so far. This workshop focuses on these psychological effects of social media in the workplace.

Dr Eoin Whelan, Lecturer at the J.E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics said: “We are delighted to be hosting this workshop the dark psychological impacts of social media in the workplace. Social media plays an increasingly significant role in our experience of work. But what we need to remember is that unintended consequences arise when we begin to use new communication technologies. For example, email was initially used by scientists to share important information across geographically boundaries. But now we email people sitting a few metres away with information that is often not very important. We are only beginning to understand the unintended consequences of social media use in the workplace. The line-up of international speakers will discuss state-of-the-art knowledge on how social media is affecting the psychology and physiology of workers. We particularly welcome industry practitioners to the event.”

Speakers at the workshop will include: Dr Eoin Whelan, NUI Galway; Professor Hanna Krasnova, University of Potsdam; Professor Tom Jackson, Loughborough University; and Professor Monideepa Tarafdar, Lancaster University.

Industry practitioners are especially welcome. To register for the workshop, click here.