Department at the Conference Media Psychology in Duisburg [05.09.25]
The Media Psychology Division of the German Psychological Society (DGPs) hosts the conference. This year, the department will travel to Duisburg from September 9 to September 12 to discuss current issues and study results in the field of media psychology.
The conference begins with a workshop for doctoral students, hosted this year by Sabine Trepte and conference organizer German Neubaum. Doctoral students from around the world will travel to the conference to discuss their dissertation projects with experienced mentors in the field of media psychology. They will have the opportunity to receive valuable feedback on their work, gain insights into academic careers, and expand their professional networks.
Kicking off the main conference, Jana Dombrowski and Sabine Trepte will present a position paper that takes a fresh look at a long-standing concept: screen time. They examine why it’s so difficult for people to accurately estimate their screen use, how screen time actually feels to users, and why these insights matter for research. Their presentation offers practical recommendations for studying screen time and calls for a new research agenda—one that focuses not only on how long people use media, but also on how they experience that time.
Is TikTok really shortening our attention spans? Also on the first day of the conference, Kerria Drüppel, Jana Dombrowski, and Sabine Trepte will present new findings on this timely question. Their research shows that individuals who struggle to maintain attention in everyday life tend to spend more time on short-video platforms. Moreover, users who spend more time on these platforms perform worse on tasks requiring sustained attention. Interestingly, this pattern was not observed for other media types such as television or video games, suggesting a specific link to short-form video content.
We look forward to an exciting few days in Duisburg!
