Lunchtime Debating Club - Are Social Media Damaging to Mental Health?

Dine, Discuss, and Debate in a friendly environment!

Join us for our popular Lunchtime debating Club for an afternoon of friendly conversation whilst dining at a local restaurant.

At our next meeting we will be discussing concerns about the impact of social media on mental health. Roger Heppleston will be opening the discussion by outlining the work of Harvard social psychologist Jonathan Haidt on this subject. Roger will base this on Haidt's latest book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Haidt's research suggests that social media are seriously damaging the health of teenagers, particularly girls. This is leading to serious mental health issues including a dramatic increase in rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide.

We will also discuss the wider impact of social media and the internet on mental health and social life in general.

Come along and share your views.

We’ll be informally discussing ideas about human progress, social issues, and human fallibility. If you’re open minded, enjoy a good debate, and interested to learn from the ideas of others, come along to dine and discuss in a local pub. We believe that everyone has something valuable to contribute to the conversation and we would love for you to be a part of it.

The discussion will cover any socially relevant issue. Participants will decide on the topics for discussion based on their interests. From evolution to anthropology, from economics to psychology, from the environment to . . . anything that catches your interest.

If you want to contribute, we’d ask you to prepare something that has fired up your imagination. Contributions might be sharing ideas from a book or article you’ve read, or simply an idea that you’ve researched. Individuals will submit a written summary of their idea before the meal.

On the day, the group will question, debate, and assess the implications. If you want to come along to listen and comment, that’s fine too. The aim is to engage a group of like-minded people who enjoy understanding and challenging each other’s ideas.