“Cell Phones and Social Media” A Lecture with Dr. Jill Walsh and Atty. Liza M. Hirsch
In April, the Department welcomed Dr. Jill Walsh and Atty. Liza M. Hirsch to campus for a talk titled “Cell Phones and Social Media: Impact on Young Adult Mental Health”.
Dr. Walsh is a Sociology lecturer and researcher at Boston University. She is also the founder of Digital Aged, a consulting group that educates students, families, and educational institutions about positive technology use. She earned a Ph.D in Sociology from Boston University, a Master’s in Public Policy from Brown University and a B.A from Harvard University. Before graduate school she taught 9th-12th grade at an independent school. Her research looks at the way that digital media use impacts psychosocial well-being and development. Her book Adolescents and their Social Media Narratives: A Digital Coming of Age was published in 2017, and she publishes academic journal articles in Sociology, Education, and Adolescent Development. Her research interests include social media and identity work, parasocial relationships, mental health, and digital hate speech.
Atty. Hirsch is the Director of the Children’s Justice Unit at the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office where she works to advance justice and equity for Massachusetts children and youth through civil investigations, litigation, policy, and community engagement. She is a member of the AGO team working to address the impacts of social media on youth mental health. Prior to joining the AGO, Liza was a Senior Attorney at Massachusetts Advocates for Children, where she provided representation to low-income families in special education and school discipline matters and directed a program on disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline. She previously worked as a manager in the Holyoke Public Schools, and as a Skadden Fellow/Staff Attorney at Massachusetts Law Reform Institute and at Medical-Legal Partnership | Boston where she represented homeless and low-income families in housing and shelter matters. She is a graduate of Northeastern University School of Law.
