IRLInteractions & Relationships Lab
The IRL studies how relationships shape adolescents’ mental health in the digital age. We use brief surveys sent to participants’ phones and, in some studies, information that phones collect in the background to understand daily experiences.
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Currently in data collection, this project studies how kids ages 10–12 use technology in daily life, and how parents guide them. By looking closely at these patterns, we hope to uncover what helps kids thrive, what puts them at risk, and how families can build healthy digital habits together.
Our goal is simple: to give parents science-backed tools and tips for raising confident, well-balanced kids in the digital age.
A collaboration with UNCG faculty in Developmental Psychology (Jessica Dollar) and Kinesiology (Laurie Wideman).
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Parents and children are more digitally connected than ever before, but there is little research on the ways in which technology may impact the parent–child relationship.
We have developed a coding system for aspects of parent–child text interactions (warmth, monitoring, conflict), and applied it to 30,000+ text messages between college students and their parents.
Top researchers on what matters in parenting research today.
In collaboration with Duke’s C-StARR and the ADAPT Lab, this project sends brief surveys to young adolescents’ phones over two weeks. Their answers help us understand how technology fits into daily life and development.
Text messages can offer a window into young adults’ lives, but researchers need reliable ways to study patterns in them. This project examines language in participants’ messages to better understand alcohol use and mental health.
We developed an “Alcohol Talk” word list to measure alcohol-related language and its connection to drinking on the same day. We also study whether similarities in the way two people write to each other relate to depression risk.
Young people today are navigating the transition from adolescence to adulthood in a digital age, with unique opportunities and potential risks. In collaboration with Melissa Lippold at UNC Chapel Hill, this project examines how young people and their parents navigate this potentially stressful period.
This project combined focus groups, text-message analysis, and surveys to explore how families use technology to stay connected to their culture. It also examined how families communicate about race, ethnicity, and cultural identity.