Skip down to main content

Professor Andrew Przybylski delivers the OII London Lecture

With Professor Andrew Przybylski
Recorded:
22 Oct 2019
Speakers:
With Professor Andrew Przybylski
Event Series:
OII London Lectures

Rarely a week goes by without an expert commentator or a seemingly credible organisation drawing the conclusion ‘screen time’ is having a negative effect on our lives. Screens, they say, are damaging our relationships, harming our mental health and interrupting our sleeping patterns and chipping away at our ability as humans to communicate in a face-to-face context.

In this talk Professor Przybylski looks at the myths and misconceptions people might understandably have about the concept of ‘screen time’, particularly given the media obsession with this topic. He frames the debate in a historical context, as screens are not new. He looks at how we actually measure screen time and why we can’t necessarily draw conclusions simply from counting the hours we spend looking at screens. He also looks at the suggested correlation between screen time and negative outcomes, and argue that the evidence linking the two is, at best, scant.

Professor Przybylski considers where we go from here in this debate, and how with the support of the tech companies and others in this space we can harness data to better understand where screen time might benefit or harm individuals. Ultimately, we have an opportunity to better understand if those who use screens to sell us a product or experience are really operating in our own interests. Most importantly though, he looks at how the wider context of how we live as adults and children in our modern societies might actually provide greater clues as to our online – and offline – wellbeing.

Related Topics:

Privacy Overview
Oxford Internet Institute

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies
  • moove_gdrp_popup -  a cookie that saves your preferences for cookie settings. Without this cookie, the screen offering you cookie options will appear on every page you visit.

This cookie remains on your computer for 365 days, but you can adjust your preferences at any time by clicking on the "Cookie settings" link in the website footer.

Please note that if you visit the Oxford University website, any cookies you accept there will appear on our site here too, this being a subdomain. To control them, you must change your cookie preferences on the main University website.

Google Analytics

This website uses Google Tags and Google Analytics to collect anonymised information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages. Keeping these cookies enabled helps the OII improve our website.

Enabling this option will allow cookies from:

  • Google Analytics - tracking visits to the ox.ac.uk and oii.ox.ac.uk domains

These cookies will remain on your website for 365 days, but you can edit your cookie preferences at any time via the "Cookie Settings" button in the website footer.