When Social Media Becomes Too Much
During the worst of the COVID-19 crisis, many people turned to social media to stay connected, informed, and entertained. That hasn't always yielded positive results—for older adult users who may have had some cognitive decline and were new to social media, it left them vulnerable to scams and propaganda. In this podcast, neuropsychologist Maria Loizos, PhD, discusses the challenges and risks of social media use, especially among older patients.
[00:00:00] Stephen Calabria: From the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, this is Road to Resilience, a podcast about facing adversity. I'm your host, Stephen Calabria, Mount Sinai's Director of Podcasting.
[00:00:12] On this episode, we welcome Maria Loizos, PhD. Dr. Loizos is a clinical neuropsychologist, Assistant Director of the Adult Neuropsychology Center and APA accredited adult psychology internship program, and an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
[00:00:31] Among other areas, Dr. Loizos specializes in the use and overuse of social media among her patients, with a particular interest in geriatric populations.
[00:00:41] The influx of social media and technology use, especially post COVID, illustrates how the problems with and potential solutions to social media overuse are only just starting to be understood.
[00:00:53] We're honored to welcome Dr. Maria Luizos to the show.
[00:00:56] Dr. Maria Loizos, welcome to Road to Resilience.
[00:01:00] Maria Loizos: Hi, thanks for having me.
[00:01:01] Stephen Calabria: Could you give us an overview of your background?
[00:01:04] Maria Loizos: I'm a clinical neuropsychologist. I assess older adult patients for cognitive decline and dementia.
[00:01:10] And I'm also a researcher with the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center and so a lot of my research focuses on older adult technology use, how they use it, how often they use it and kind of how that can affect our patients, both cognitively but emotionally as well.
[00:01:25] Stephen Calabria: So you have an expertise in the effects of social media use, especially, and overuse. Could you give an overview of how excessive social media use affects mental and physical health across different age groups, not just geriatrics?