Candice Odgers 
Professor Psychological Science | UC Irvine
Irvine, CA, UNITED STATES
Candice Odgers is a developmental psychologist who studies adolescents’ mental health and development.
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Biography
Candice Odgers is a developmental psychologist who studies adolescents’ mental health and development. Her research team tracks adolescents’ daily mental health and device use via smartphones and has built new virtual tools for capturing the neighborhoods where children live and attend school.
Areas of Expertise (7)
Early Adversity
Quantitative Psychology
Social Inequality
Technology and Young People
Digital Inequality
Developmental Psychology
Adolescent Mental Health
Accomplishments (5)
Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest Early Career Award (professional)
2015 American Psychological Association
Janet Taylor Spence Award (professional)
2012 Association for Psychological Science
Excellence in Mentorship Award (professional)
2012 Institute for Clinical and Translational Science
Early Career Contributions Award (professional)
2011 Society for Research on Child Development
Distinguished Assistant Professor Award for Research (professional)
2010 University of California, Irvine
Education (3)
University of Virginia: PhD, Psychology 2005
Simon Fraser University: MA 2001
Simon Fraser University: BA 1999
Affiliations (2)
- Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology : Editorial Board
- Perspectives on Psychological Science : Editorial Board
Links (8)
Media Appearances (9)
What's the right age to get a smartphone?
BBC online
2022-09-14
"By the time we get to older teens, over 90% of kids have a phone," says Candice Odgers, professor of psychological science at the University of California, Irvine, in the US.
‘It’s Life or Death’: The Mental Health Crisis Among U.S. Teens
The New York Times online
2022-04-23
“Young people are more educated; less likely to get pregnant, use drugs; less likely to die of accident or injury,” said Candice Odgers, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine. “By many markers, kids are doing fantastic and thriving. But there are these really important trends in anxiety, depression and suicide that stop us in our tracks.”
The Metaverse’s Effects on Mental Health: Trivial or Troubling?
The Wall Street Journal online
2022-01-09
"We have observed that youthful men and women are early and enthusiastic adopters of new technology. A ton of the effects [of the metaverse] are heading to depend on how mindful we are, as adults, as technology builders, policymakers, educators, at scaffolding that youth in a way that we know encourages optimistic improvement. [...]" —Candice Odgers, professor of psychological science, University of California, Irvine
Senators to grill Instagram chief over platform’s effect on children
The Hill online
2021-12-07
The analysis, as University of California Irvine psychological science professor Candice Odgers has pointed out, asked respondents about the impacts they think social media use has on them. That kind of self-reporting leaves space for external factors, like what people have heard about social media, to inform answers and is not very useful for establishing causal links.
Better research into Instagram, WhatsApp effects on young users needed, academics say
USA Today online
2021-12-06
Regardless, it's important to know how social media can lead to depression, anxiety and other issues for children, teens and young adults, said Candice Odgers, professor of psychological science at the University of California, Irvine, and one of the letter's authors.
Is social media the main issue affecting our children's mental health?
WFTS online
2021-10-14
Candice Odgers is a professor of psychological science at the University of California Irvine. “And so people have been treating it really as a smoking gun in terms of a big secret or evidence that social media is really harming young people," Odgers said.
Are Facebook and Instagram as Bad for Teens as We Fear?
Psychology Today online
2021-10-13
As Candice Odgers, a psychologist who studies adolescence at The University of California at Irvine and Duke University has found, many teens report that screens are harmful when asked because they are under the impression that they are harmful. Somewhat paradoxically, perceptions that screens are harmful to kids and teens are perpetuated by scary headlines, which prove, in a way, that screens are causing harm because we are living in fear of screen harm.
Facebook's own data is not as conclusive as you think about teens and mental health
NPR online
2021-10-06
That reliance on self-reporting — the teens' own opinions — as a single indicator of harm is a problem, says Candice Odgers, a psychologist who studies adolescence at University of California, Irvine and Duke University. That's because teenagers are already primed by media coverage, and the disapproval of adults, to believe that social media is bad for them.
Dr. Michael Kobor, Dr. Candice Odgers, Dr. Kim Schmidt: The hidden costs of COVID-19 for children
The Province online
2020-05-30
The fact that severe cases of COVID-19 in children are relatively rare has led some to claim that children are “spared” from the harmful effects of the novel coronavirus. But this should not lull us into a false sense of security that the kids will be alright.
Articles (8)
Annual Research Review: Adolescent mental health in the digital age: facts, fears, and future directions
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry2020 Adolescents are spending an increasing amount of their time online and connected to each other via digital technologies. Mobile device ownership and social media usage have reached unprecedented levels, and concerns have been raised that this constant connectivity is harming adolescents’ mental health.
Young Adolescents' Digital Technology Use, Perceived Impairments, and Well-Being in a Representative Sample
The Journal of Pediatrics2020 To examine the cross-sectional associations between young adolescents' access, use, and perceived impairments related to digital technologies and their academic, psychological, and physical well-being.
Adolescents’ perceptions of family social status correlate with health and life chances: A twin difference longitudinal cohort study
PNAS2020 Despite growing up in the same family, siblings do not always see their family’s social standing identically. Eighteen-year-old twins who rated their family as having higher social standing, compared with their cotwin’s rating, had fewer difficulties negotiating the transition to adulthood: they were less likely to be convicted of a crime, not in education, employment, or training, and had fewer mental health problems.
Biological embedding of experience: A primer on epigenetics
PNAS2019 Biological embedding occurs when life experience alters biological processes to affect later life health and well-being. Although extensive correlative data exist supporting the notion that epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation underlie biological embedding, causal data are lacking. We describe specific epigenetic mechanisms and their potential roles in the biological embedding of experience.
Smartphones are bad for some teens, not all
Nature2018 Last year, I received a phone call from an angry father. He had just read in the newspaper about my research suggesting that some adolescents might benefit from time spent online. Once, he raged, his children had been fully engaged with family and church and had talked non-stop at meal times. Now, as adolescents who were constantly connected to their phones, they had disappeared into their online lives.
Persistence and Fadeout in the Impacts of Child and Adolescent Interventions
Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness2015 Many interventions targeting cognitive skills or socioemotional skills and behaviors demonstrate initially promising but then quickly disappearing impacts. Our article seeks to identify the key features of interventions, as well as the characteristics and environments of the children and adolescents who participate in them, that can be expected to sustain persistently beneficial program impacts.
Seven Fears and the Science of How Mobile Technologies May Be Influencing Adolescents in the Digital Age
Perspectives on Psychological Science2015 Close to 90% of U.S. adolescents now own or have access to a mobile phone, and they are using them frequently. Adolescents send and receive an average of over 60 text messages per day from their devices, and over 90% of adolescents now access the Internet from a mobile device at least occasionally. Many adults are asking how this constant connectivity is influencing adolescents’ development.
Systematic social observation of children’s neighborhoods using Google Street View: a reliable and cost‐effective method
The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry2012 Children growing up in poor versus affluent neighborhoods are more likely to spend time in prison, develop health problems and die at an early age. The question of how neighborhood conditions influence our behavior and health has attracted the attention of public health officials and scholars for generations. Online tools are now providing new opportunities to measure neighborhood features and may provide a cost effective way to advance our understanding of neighborhood effects on child health.
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