Last week I had the pleasure of opening the British Psychological Society’s Cyberpsychology Section annual conference, #CYBER25. I’ve been honoured to Chair the Cyberpsychology Section for the last 3 years and this year marked a personal milestone for me – my last time opening the annual conference before I passed the reins to new Co-Chairs, Dr Lisa Orchard and Dr Dave Harley!
Having been a Committee member since the section’s official formation and recognition by the British Psychological Society back in 2018, it has been wonderful to act as Chair for such a welcoming, inspiring community and to also have the privledge of delivering the opening remarks at every in-person conference the Section has held! We started in Brighton in 2022, followed by Newcastle (at my home institution, Northumbria University), Liverpool John Moores University, and this year we were at the STEAMhouse at Birmingham City University. What a lovely venue this was too…
And what a wonderful 2 days we had at this year conference. We had talks covering almost all aspects of cyberpsychology including social media, gaming, AI, political discourse, health, digital leadership, online harms and more. Not to forget our two amazing keynotes from Professor Andrew Przybylski & Dr Joanne Lloyd!
As always, the presentations were on point…
Plus we had merch… who doesn’t love a freebie 😉
We also hosted a discussion panel on Ethics in Cyberpsychology – which was a huge success with conversation flowing and lots of interesting questions, provocations and reflections for future research.
It was wonderful to see PaCT alumni at the conference, including Dr Andrew McNeill, now at Queen’s University Belfast, and Dr Catherine Talbot, now at Bournemouth University (and also a Cyberpsychology Committee member). Andrew delivered a fascinating talk on historical references in Reddit discussions on Irish unification – using novel AI methods for his analysis.
One of the highlights this year was seeing our conference continue to grow and reach students at every stage of their academic journey. Over the years, we’ve welcomed more and more postgraduate students, then undergraduate students – and this year, for the first time, we were delighted to welcome our first 6th form student, Arnab Sengupta. It is such an honour to have those who are the future of cyberpsychology attending and contributing to the annual conference. We also had a team of brilliant student ambassadors – both undergraduate and postgraduate – who were vital to the conference’s success. From chairing sessions and presenting research to welcoming delegates and supporting behind the scenes ✨
There are too many highlights to mention! Thank you to everyone who attended and to everyone involved in organising this event and making it a huge success. Special shout out to the Committee Organising Team: Dr Graham Scott, Nadine Rose-Smith, Dr Sofia Petisca, our Student rep team: Bethany Thomas, Fraser Carey & Raul Szekely and our friend and colleague Dr Chris Fullwood from BCU who helped arrange the STEAMhouse as the location of this years conference.
What a great way to round off my time as Chair 🙂 As I now step into my Past Chair role, I look forward to seeing the Section continue to go from strength to strength with Lisa & Dave at the helm.
Finally, a thank you to everyone for the support and kind words, and to the British Psychology Society for the unexpected but much appreciated thank you gift 🙂
See you all at next years #Cyber26!
(If you aren’t already a member, you can find out about joining the section via this link: https://www.bps.org.uk/member-networks/cyberpsychology-section)