The team from the Royal Society of Public Health speaks with Digital Mindfulness about their new campaign Scroll Free September and the ways people around the world can lead more meaningful lives with social media. The RSPH is the oldest public health organisation in the world and in this episode, we are joined by Bridie O’Toole, Niamh McDade, and Olivia Watkins to give an overview of the campaign and the thinking behind it.
Olivia works in the membership and educational services team as Educational Services Coordinator and helps facilitate a number of training programmes each year and manages the RSPH Behaviour Change Special Interest Group. A significant part of Olivia’s role involves researching a variety of public health topics and using this research to develop e-learning programmes for a range of audiences. From Campylobacter to Sleep, Olivia has authored an array of programmes with the help of subject-matter experts to create informative and engaging online resources.
In her role as Events and Educational Services Assistant, Bridie co-ordinates training, conferences, and student engagement. She assists in the organisation of conferences on a range of topics, including food safety, water, arts and health and behaviour change, alongside coordinating training for RSPH’s educational centres across the UK. Her primary role is to develop the RSPH e-learning portfolio of programmes for the public, specialists and those with an interest in public health and is a co-author of Looking after your self-ie: a guide to finding your balance on and offline.
Niamh joined the external affairs team of RSPH in 2017. As Senior Campaigns and Communications Executive, Niamh manages much of the public-facing work of the charity, including running the Scroll Free September campaign and acting as a media spokesperson on a variety of topical public health issues. Niamh is mental health, social media, young people and gambling policy lead, provides the secretariat to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Social Media, and authored the group’s report “#NewFilters to manage the impact of social media on young people’s mental health and wellbeing”.
What You Will Learn In This Episode
- The importance of Scroll Free September in an always-on society
- The steps taken by industry actors to address problematic social media use
- The gaps in current research addressing problematic social media use
Resources Mentioned In The Show
