Wide Walls Smartphones, AI Companions, and Mental Health - Merve Cerit
In this new episode of Wide Walls, I’m thrilled to welcome Merve Cerit, a PhD Candidate from Stanford University working at the intersection of artificial intelligence, learning sciences, and mental health.
Merve’s work explores how we can better understand the impact of digital media on individual well-being, using innovative person-specific and computational methods.
She studies how people’s smartphone use relates to mental health on a highly granular level, and is now exploring how AI can be leveraged to support reflection, reasoning, and education in an increasingly digital world.
Whether it’s designing interventions that help us think more critically about media and technology or developing tools that reflect on our media behavior, her research has big implications for the future of learning, digital well-being, and human-centered technology.
In this episode, we:
- Unpack her innovative research methods to understand how we spend our time on screens
- Discuss key findings from her research projects
- Explore concrete applications to protect our children and improve our lives.
If you enjoyed the conversation, please share this podcast around and spread the word!
Find more about Merve’s work:
References from the episode:
Shows:
Adolescence, Netflix
The Social Dilemma, Netflix
Books:
The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt
Mindmasters, Sandra Matz
Healing, Thomas Insel
Hooked, Nir Eyal
Stolen Focus, Johann Hari
Podcast:
Your Undivided Attention, Center for Humane Technology
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit widewalls.substack.com