Behavioral Health | Penn Today

Cluster of multicolored balls drawn with various emoji faces.

Cross-cultural similarities and differences in emoji usage

While the idea of emojis unifying people across language barriers is enticing, people of different cultures might not use emojis in the same way.

Social media vs. video games: Not all screen time is equal

Melissa Hunt of the School of Arts and Sciences commented on a study that found a difference in the way social media impacts mental health, as compared to video games. “The vast majority of kids play the games socially, either physically side by side with friends or joining friends via headset. Skills (both technical and social) are rewarded, just like on a playing field or a Science Olympiad team. It only becomes problematic if that’s the only thing a kid is doing,” she said.

Three students engaged in conversation sitting at a desk covered with papers, notebooks, and a computer.

Q&A

Advice-giving benefits the person sharing guidance

In a Q&A, Wharton postdoc Lauren Eskreis-Winkler discusses new findings that signal it may be time to shift how we think about motivation and achievement.

crushed cigarette butt vertical on the ground

How doctors can help cancer patients quit tobacco

A simple set of decision-support tools combined with institutional buy-in can help increase the number of cancer patients who engage in treatment to help them quit tobacco.

Doctor in white coat with stethoscope sitting by window talking to an adolescent

Use of evidence-based therapies for youth psychiatric treatment is slow to catch on

Intensive training and practices are critical but underutilized in Philadelphia, despite city and researchers’ substantial efforts to showcase their value.

open door with young person sitting on bottom stair of a staircase in background, looking down at a phone in hand.

Facebook posts better at predicting diabetes, mental health than demographic info

Analyzing language shows that identifying certain groups of words significantly improves upon predicting some medical conditions in patients.

Two people, one older, one younger sitting and looking at their phones.

What influences how parents and their gay adolescent sons talk about sexual health at home?

Research from Penn found that even when parent-child conversations avoid heteronormative stereotypes, outside factors like mass media and religion—those beyond the parents’ control—can reinforce them.

Back of a person's head overlooking a city horizon.

Predicting post-injury depression and PTSD risk

Up to half of all acute injury patients experience post-traumatic stress disorder in the months after injury. For urban black men, some of whom have experienced prior trauma, childhood adversity, and neighborhood disadvantage, acute post-injury stress responses are exacerbated.

Lego figurines seated at a toy desk made to look like a business office

How to fix a toxic workplace

Is the workplace really any more toxic than it once was? Despite improvements in equality and discrimination, greater awareness of calling out toxic environments is having an impact. So what are employees, and businesses, doing about it?

teen holding up a phone inside in the sunglight.

How self-harm images on Instagram affect viewers

A new study at the Annenberg Public Policy Center investigates the relationship between exposure to self-harm on Instagram and subsequent self-harm and suicidal ideations.

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