Dr. Douglas A. Parry

Assistant Professor of Media Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands

External Associate Research Fellow, Department of Information Science, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
External Associate Researcher, Methods Lab, Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, Germany

I study how adolescents and young adults use digital media, and what that means for their cognition and well-being.

About my research

My research focuses on how adolescents and young adults engage with digital media, the cognitive and psychological effects of this engagement, and the competencies they need to navigate digital environments effectively. Specifically, I study how digital media use influences attention, mental health, and cognitive control, drawing on experimental, experience sampling, and computational tracking methods.

My work also extends to digital well-being, where I investigate both the narratives around media effects and the effectiveness of strategies, both behavioural and technological, for mitigating harms and enhancing benefits. A central thread is understanding the digital competencies that enable people to thrive in a technology-driven world. Beyond self-regulation and digital well-being, these include digital literacy, and the ability to critically engage with increasingly complex digital ecosystems. Running through all of it is the development, analysis, and use of digital trace data techniques to better capture real-world media use and its effects over time.

I’m an advocate of mixed methods, and I routinely combine quantitative, qualitative, and computational approaches. I also have experience with systematic reviews and meta-analyses. I follow open science practices, and wherever possible, my materials, data, and analyses are publicly available.

My research has appeared in leading journals across communication science and related fields, including Nature Human Behaviour; the Journal of Communication; Technology, Mind and Behaviour; JAMA Pediatrics; Media Psychology; the Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science; Computers & Education; Behaviour Research Methods; and Computers in Human Behaviour.

You can browse my publications or grab my CV.

Get in touch

Have a question or want to collaborate? I’d love to hear from you. Send me an email.