معرفی
Jolien Trekels is an Assistant Professor of Media Literacy at the Department of Communication, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Vienna (Austria), where she holds a Tenure-Track Professorship focused on understanding youth development and well-being in a digital society. Her research aims to promote positive adolescent development through understanding the motivations behind digital media use from a multidisciplinary perspective that integrates biological, social, and psychological factors.
Dr. Trekels earned her PhD at the Media Psychology Lab at KU Leuven in Belgium (2018), where she also conducted postdoctoral research. She subsequently held postdoctoral positions at KU Leuven (2019-2022) supported by competitive fellowships from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and Internal Funds at KU Leuven, and at the Developmental Social Neuroscience (DSN) Lab at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2022-2024), affiliated with the Winston National Center on Technology use, Brain, and Psychological Development.
Dr. Trekels specializes in examining the complex relationship between digital media use and adolescent well-being through a biopsychosocial lens. Her research focuses on four interconnected domains: Body Image, Sexuality and Gender Identity, Media Literacy, and Well-Being. She investigates how adolescents navigate diverse and sometimes contradictory media messages, particularly regarding appearance ideals, and how these experiences shape their development. Her work emphasizes the importance of social context, particularly peer interactions, in understanding how media affects youth.
Her recent publications reveal a clear trend toward examining the nuanced, context-dependent effects of social media rather than simplistic positive/negative dichotomies. She increasingly incorporates neurobiological measures (fMRI) alongside traditional psychological assessments to understand individual differences in susceptibility to social media effects. Her research has evolved from examining negative impacts of media exposure to understanding how youth actively process diverse media messages and how individual and social factors create boundary conditions for media effects.
- Outstanding Interdisciplinary Contribution Award, Society for Research on Adolescence (2024)
- Top Paper Award, Children, Adolescents and Media Division, ICA Conference (2015)
- FWO Postdoctoral Fellowship (2019-2023, 15% success rate)
- Internal Funds KU Leuven Postdoctoral Fellowship (2019)
Dr. Trekels serves as Co-Promotor for PhD researcher Fé Verelst on a project examining social media surveillance and psychosocial well-being across adolescents with varying neurodevelopmental backgrounds. She has secured significant research funding including an NIH Exploratory/Developmental research grant award (R21), a Templeton Research Foundation grant, and multiple competitive fellowships. Her current projects examine how adolescents' neurobiological sensitivities interact with social media experiences to influence well-being, and how social context moderates digital media effects.
Dr. Trekels collaborates extensively through international networks, working with scholars from institutions including the University of Vienna, University of North Carolina, University of Michigan, Erasmus University, and universities in South Korea. Her research integrates methods from psychology, neuroscience, and communication science, often employing longitudinal designs, experimental approaches, and neuroimaging techniques to understand the complex interplay between digital media use and adolescent development.