 Let's reconvene so we can maximize our time in discussion. Before I turn it over to Marie Walker, I just want to introduce everyone else who's on the dais with us in the order you see them. Professor Joseph P. Gahn is immediately to the left of Professor Tynes. Then Professor Manuela Barreto. Then Professor Jean Nick Ryder. Professor Daniel Eisenberg. And Professor Merrill Alper. Obviously you'll be hearing a lot more from all of them, but at least to welcome them officially to the conference. So at this point I will turn it over to my colleague Marie Walker. Okay. So those were both very fascinating, I'd say cutting edge talks on technology and mental health and discrimination as they would impact youth. I'm thinking that your colleagues might have some thoughts or questions or comments that you might have about the talks that you heard. Does anybody want to open up with some sort of question or comment? I can if the sound is working. Yes. Okay, Dr. Alper. Sure. Yeah, no, I found both talks incredibly interesting thinking about, you know, we can talk about technology as a cause or as a variable in mental health, but also for mental health assessments is really interesting. And I was really struck by Brindisha's talk. The TikToks that you had shown of the young women talking about the filters and the effects of, you know, sort of seeing other beauty standards imposed upon them by the technology. I've recently been looking at TikTok as a space of understanding how young people are coping with the world. And so one thing that struck me was thinking about how there might be a positive, you know, mental health effect of being able to look at somebody or see or interact with somebody through the comments, potentially, who's having a shared experience with you. So there being potentially a short term, maybe positive effect, but then also you could watch a video and that could also make you feel bad about yourself, even if you feel good, but because you're identifying with something, you might then be negatively affected by knowing, oh, there's filters in the world that reify a beauty standard I don't fit into, and that could make you feel bad too. And I'm wondering to what extent you might think the utility of studying these things in the short term and the long term and what those, in what way social media in that way might be a mixed bag of being able to identify with somebody, but at the same time being reminded of that, you know, discriminatory experience can also just make you feel bad, especially if you consume a lot of content and the algorithm keeps feeding you more of that content too. Can anybody hear me? Okay, so we're finding that being able to ask people about these experiences and the particularly the positive experiences that people have, the fact that we did not find that they were associated with mental negative mental health outcomes has us questioning whether maybe the positive experiences will be a buffer. And, you know, we think that the benefits will sort of outweigh any sort of negatives that might be associated with being reminded of your experiences. And so, yeah, I mean, we can have more of a conversation about it, but and we're definitely going to be analyzing in the future like whether the positive experiences are a buffer. And I'll keep you posted. Yeah, I was thinking also about British's presentation, although I really like Priscilla's too. Thank you very much for both of you. About the fact that, you know, some, you know, devil's advocate might say being exposed to that kind of contact would be harmful to anyone. So irrespective of your racial background, seeing such horrendous contact is shocking. It's it makes you think that the world is a really hostile place. I think I know what the answer is to my question, but I wanted to know whether you have looked at that in more detail in other studies, perhaps without a methods, but how the differential harm that it makes when you are part of that group or you're not part of that group. It's a really good question. We haven't looked at the differences. And I am actually interested if interested in finding out if white people actually feel, you know, feel bad. When they see, you know, like a police killing of an unarmed black person. And so maybe future work will look at those differences. So there is some work that would suggest that indeed they do. But of course, the extent to which you feel bad really depends on your own personal involvement with that group because clearly it is a possible future for you. It's not a possible future for someone else. Right. So so there is some work that would suggest that but not not really looking at the exact kind of stimulus you're looking at, which is really sort of the impact of it is that it's daily and it's relentless and continuous. And I think it would be really important to make that point. And I also think sort of identifying with the police and sort of, you know, revering these people who are committing this terror may also play a role as well. Daniel has a comment. Oh, Daniel. Okay. Sorry. I'm an awesome moderator, aren't I? Thank you. Yeah. I wanted to ask Priscilla if I could. I thought the virtual reality technique was a fascinating way of understanding something. And just wanted to hear a little bit more about what is that like for the participants today? Like how real does it really feel to them? And is that something you can also kind of manipulate? Can you make it feel more real by like having them think or maybe actually having like other subjects being the ones speaking for the avatar? Or do they think that it's just kind of a role play that's coming from, you know, like the research team? It's interesting that you got stress levels even when probably some of them understood that it was just role play, right? It wasn't like a real interaction in a sense or not. I don't know. Yeah. So several things I think there's some individual differences in terms of how real they think or how immersed they are in it. So several factors that affect what we call presence in virtual reality research is kind of how realistic the avatars might be, the artifacts in the environment. But also what's important is we tell participants what to anticipate in the situation. We tell them this could be stressful and then you are at a party. And so that increases their sense of immersion and their presence. And we do actually have data about their ratings of immersion and realism of the virtual reality environments. And then also they kind of tell us, did you participate in this scenario as you wouldn't realize? So on average, our participants say it's, you know, on a scale of one to five, five being the highest level of immersion realism. They say it's about three and three to four. So they also understand from their qualitative response, they know this is not real life. They are going through some kind of role play and simulation. They do know they're talking to a person. Sometimes they think it's AI or sometimes they're like, is this an actual person I'm talking to? So, but then like regardless they are showing genuine responses. So it kind of depends like also maybe people who have more experience previously with virtual reality, they're going to rate it a little bit less realistic just because they're like, oh, this guy is kind of creepy. It does not really look like a real human being. But nevertheless, the experience can be quite similar to what they experienced in real life. So Priscilla and I have been having a conversation about this and I've been telling her that my blood pressure is still up after watching those VR experiences. I just sort of felt for the participants and I find it extremely unethical to willingly expose people to discrimination that is so realistic. And I mean you see their stress levels rise and that I think is harmful. Like with the amount of discrimination that black people experience every day to willingly expose them in the name of science, I find just particularly egregious. So can you just, can you talk about the ethics involved and how you get over like doing this study, expelling people in the name of science? Yeah, I think that's a great question. That's why we're here at a conference that speaks to both science and ethics. So I think several things prior to the study, we have kind of built up to this particular study where we've involved focus groups and asking participants about their lived experiences using observational methods that I was talking about. And then they kind of rate some of the, including our research team that's including diverse kind of groups of color, research assistants and other consultants with expertise in the content. So we have chosen some of those scenarios that are not the most blatant, very exceedingly harmful scenarios. And at the same time, I think there are several issues to consider in terms of scientific advancements. I think for us to understand something, it's oftentimes a tradeoff between sort of what, you know, sort of the gain from the study for the general public, the masses as much as possible, so that we have the tools to not only advocate and kind of understand the lived experiences and help other people also understand the lived experiences and also find ways that can actually mitigate the negative impacts. So part of the draw of virtual reality as our research participants told us is you can actually use this to train people to adapt to these incidences and also train bystanders and allies to disarm discrimination experiences. So it has multiple benefits. And here we're talking about sort of basic understanding of the causal effects and mechanisms. And we do have safeguards in place as with, you know, ethical research is we consult heavily with our human subjects protection boards and we have consent and we consent process and debriefing process. So each step of the way we ask, well, one, we tell them if any part of the study is uncomfortable, you don't want to continue. You can leave and there's no penalty. You can still get your compensation as promised. And we also tell them as part of the study, you can experience stress or discomfort. And according to our consultation with the human subjects protection board, it is they consider we consider is no more than sort of experiences that are out of the ordinary for people of color. So, you know, as you mentioned, people experience discrimination and stress on a daily basis. And this will be consistent and similar to some of the experiences. And we have safeguards in place that people get resources. If they do experience or maybe are triggered or traumatized or in some ways experienced mental health problems, we have resources available to them. And, you know, they can call us if anything happens. And from the debriefing and also we have follow-up ethics study that we ask, we contacted these participants in the virtual reality study several weeks and up to, you know, seven months after and kind of ask them, hey, remember the study that you participated in? How much distress? How much harmful maybe alcohol use have you engaged the day of or after the study? And do you think the study actually was ethical? Do you think the researchers treated you with respect? Do you think the study allowed you to make informed decision to participate? And did you experience harm? And what degree of harm did you experience as part of the study? And our research participants rated that the study was highly ethical, that the researchers treated them with care. They did not feel like they experienced harm on a scale of one to seven. The average is one point something. So they also felt like they had the agency to decide to participate or not. So nobody had terminated the study prematurely. Nobody had asked, actually like wanted to take the mental health resources. And this is at debriefing after the studies, even when we recontacted them. So I do think there are issues sort of any research studies have ethical issues and potential, you know, sort of ethical concerns. And we do take it very seriously. So, you know, as some of the technologies and more research tools and methods are made available to scientists, I think it's important that we ask the folks that we conduct research with and want to serve, kind of ask them about their perspectives. So, yeah. Being Dr. Tynes, I know that you are very much an advocate for digital media literacy. And I've heard you speak or write about how do we equip young people of color to deal with microaggressions. And I wonder, is this a possible method or is, you know, and I also do know that your research trajectory is going from correlational research, saying how microaggressions are tied into mental health issues and trying to create an experimental paradigm, right? So I just wonder if there's any, I don't know, middle ground or teaching ground with this sort of research. So we just proposed, we submitted a proposal to NIH to use VR to train people to cope with the experiences that they have online. But we are not going to expose them to discrimination. We're going to have them imagine an experience that they've already had and teach them the coping skills they need and then have them practice. But we're not going to create a VR experience where people are harmed. Okay. Yes, please, Dr. Gunn. I really appreciate this exchange. It raises a question I hadn't thought about and the ethics of it. And I think it's important to think it through. A few thoughts come to mind in response. One I think is that, you know, in this work we often proceed together in collective fashion to try to counter the kinds of racism that it does in American society today. And yet I think that all racism are not created equal in America. And so I think part of what might be important to introduce is the recognition that different groups have different experiences of racism in America and have that in different domains and different ways. And I think that anti-black racism is especially pernicious and has been for a very, very long time. To me, it matters whether your group has been allowed or not in American history to marry into whiteness or not. And American Indian people, I'm American Indian. We have been allowed to marry into whiteness. It means that a lot of American Indian people today have mixed ancestry. And we just don't have the concerted campaign that has carried on for so, so long, even though we continue to experience racism and discrimination in all kinds of instances. So I think that's one subtlety to track here. A second thing is I'm struck by the relationship of the outcomes we're talking about. So we talk about stress. We talk about symptoms. We talk maybe about distress. We talk about harm. And of course, in the back of it all underneath, all those mental health problems are what psychiatrists and psychologists might think of as mental disorders. And of course, those are not all the same thing. You know, it's a spectrum between stress, which is everyone has stress every day, I think. All the way to disorder, which is more the exception rather than the norm. And so harm and how we imagine and conceive of harm takes on an important role, maybe definitionally, in terms of what we consider and conceive to be harms. So I think that these are two things that have raised in my mind as we have this conversation, just in terms of parsing out some of this. The third thing that really strikes me here, I'll just put on the table as well, is, you know, here we are outside of the Twin Cities in Minnesota, pretty rural Minnesota. I look at our in-person audience. I don't know who I was on here. But, you know, I suspect that racism for a lot of you in our audience might feel like an exotic, like maybe that happens down south or in the big city, but not around here. And I just wonder, I probably, there's some engagement with our audience about assumptions and expectations and orientations to what racism is. You know, we talked about microaggressions this morning. Microaggressions are interesting because, at least as originally conceived, they were defined as, you know, somewhat ambiguous. But if it's ambiguous, then that means we don't really know if it was intending to be discriminatory or not. And in part, it makes me wonder about these dynamics because if someone, you know, calls you a racial slur to your face, it's like a slap. You know what it is, you know what to do, and you react however you react to that. If someone microaggresses you in a way that's ambiguous, I just wonder how long do you spend sitting there turning over in your mind? What did that really mean? What did that person try to convey? Did they mean it? Are they ignorant? You know, just try to get around it. So those are different dynamics as well that I think are worth introducing to this conversation. If I can add to that too, the question of not only is it a person, but is it a bot? Like, am I even being engaged by an actual person with these views? Or has this been manufactured to surround me? And that itself is another kind of stress as well. And so thinking about the uncertainties that young people are engaging with online because it is one thing to know who you're encountering, but you don't necessarily know if whose avatar or profile picture it is online is that person or not. And so I think that, and especially when you consider how cheap and easy and fast and quick it can be to mobilize this kind of hate online. Yeah, that part of like, who's doing this to me becomes this bigger question mark. Thinking about Russian interference and Facebook and, you know, who do I trust, right? Can I trust the person I'm talking to online or can I not? I mean, I imagine for young people especially, it's very isolating. And I'm sure this will come up again. So I do want to engage our audience to and ask them some questions here or ask some of the questions that they have put forth. And so one of them is, I'll just read this, obviously anxiety and mental illness issues are more prevalent than ever and the solutions are complicated. Have society's values and motivations changed over time to the point of causing this mental health crisis? For example, the economy is growth-driven, which does not seem sustainable. Has this consumption-based growth mindset contributed to widespread mental illness? And what about other societal pressures? So over time, how has the mental health crisis been impacted by things that are going on in society right now? Big question. But any thoughts on that? Our economist, Daniel Eisenberg. My answer has nothing to do with economics, but I just would point people to one piece of research by Jean Twenge and colleagues. They published this in 2010 around there. It's an interesting study looking at the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Disorder, MMPI, that goes back to the 1930s and they kind of collected every piece of data they could on young people taking the MMPI, which has some questions about depressive symptoms and other aspects of mental health. And they found that there's actually a steady rise in apparent depression and anxiety as well, I think, since the 1930s in the U.S., going through like 2005. And their best explanation was kind of sociological it had to do with a shift in society to more of an extrinsic motivations like popularity, success, money, fame, and less kind of more what would be considered intrinsic kind of self-fulfillment, more kind of intrinsic values. I think it's all very circumstantial evidence, but I found that compelling. Looking to wealth or fame as ways to gauge your success in the world would be something that's related to that increase in mental illness that we're seeing. Yeah, Dr. Godd. And sorry, you see us flapping around up here. There's a lot of flies. Yes. What's going on up here? I just want to say that I think there's a generational shift to in terms of how we think about racism, of course, and the threat that it poses for people. You know, when I grew up on primetime television was a sitcom called All in the Family. Some of you remember Archie Bunker, for example. And of course his bigotry was, he was a buffoon, essentially, but his bigotry was part of that buffoonery. But he said things on primetime TV that, of course, he would never say today by today's standards. You know, I felt like the lesson of Archie Bunker for me was, yeah, there are bigots in the world, but someone like Archie Bunker has no power. He was a forklift operator down at the plant, whatever plant that was. You know, a union guy, whatever. So he was this buffoon probably because of his class background being working class who would say all this stuff. But Archie Bunker is not going to deny you a mortgage. He's not going to stop you from your promotion at work and those sorts of things. So the kind of structural elements of racism versus the kind of interpersonal bigotry you might encounter, to me are really different kinds of things. And in my own life, at least, I have felt like if a bigot says something ignorant to me, I used to hear growing up sticks and stones, you know, can break my bones, but names can never hurt me. That was our saying, right? And so there's a sense about how do you come to insulate yourself a little bit from people's ignorance, even as the structural stuff as well can stop you from having the life that you've been aiming for and some maybe foothold in the American dream that supposedly we've been promised in this society. So I think that that's a generational difference that might matter a little bit here, too. But what about if Archie Bunker calls the police on you, on a black person? Yeah, yeah, right. And I think there were probably episodes about that actually, so that's a great point. Dr. Helper. Yeah, I think when we're talking about mental health and we're talking about this present moment, it is helpful to look at the past. I think we have to, because we also have to reckon with how mental health has been measured and framed in our society in kind of the first place. So thinking about how the very diagnostic tools themselves have been developed in ways that were, like, not just subtly, but like expressly homophobic, like expressly transphobic, expressly racist, and they were kind of designed to be, like they were designed to pathologize people and designed to institutionalize people. So there's like a whole broad history of that in the U.S. around that's very eugenic. It's very rooted in, you know, who gets to procreate, who's deemed to be mentally fit or unfit. And so when we talk about mental health and we talk about this very present moment, there's the historian in me that says we also have to recognize how the way we even define it, how we measure it, things that we maybe think of as sort of neutral objective, their numbers, the ways that those histories shape the legacies of, you know, whose care is deemed important and whose care would have been sort of offloaded a century ago to, you know, to being excluded from society altogether. Yeah, okay. I'm going to go back to our audience and ask for another question from them that they put forth and I believe, and I'm sorry we can't get to all the questions. I apologize to those in the audience who put them out there, but I'm going to ask this one. As technology advances, the tactics for cyberbullying and online discrimination will diversify. How can combatants for this bullying and discrimination match this progression in technology? Sorry, match the what? The progression in technology. So how can... So as the technology progresses and maybe cyberbullying and discrimination get, I don't know, more insidious I just think about what you talked about is that, you know, taking someone's images and creating something so it makes them look like they're doing or saying something that they haven't. So that sort of idea, how can we counteract this progression? What do we need to do? So I think the average person can advocate for people online. They can model for folks how you critique racism, how you stand up to somebody who is trolling or stand up to misogynoir. And you can educate yourself about America's history. Read all the banned books, every single one. And just be ready, like an army, to fight for justice in these online spaces. Okay, we have time for one more question. And it's nice to also, I think, be able to think about, as you were saying, ways to help, ways to change. And so this question is saying, people of color experience countless external factors from institutions, everyday interactions online, etc., that impact their mental health and well-being. The speakers have talked a lot about how these areas can be systematically improved via educators programs, etc. But how can we, as peers, which is kind of what you've said, minorities or not, support others via in-person or online interactions? And Dr. Tynes or Dr. Loy, or any of you on the panel, if you have something you want to say to that? I think knowledge helps. It's maybe one of the first steps. And certainly ability to advocate and disarm these vulnerabilities and risks for other people. So some of the work that we have done, particularly during the COVID pandemic, not only anti-Black racism but also anti-Asian hate, was we wanted to understand who are the people who are more likely to step in to help, like classic social psychology bystander effects. So I think several things like what are people needing to be able to become allies? So some of the things in terms of bystander actions have to do with just understanding, right? Reading education, educating about yourself, the histories and the lived experiences of people who are like you and who don't look like you. And then kind of the circumstances surround, like we talked about mental health disparities and inequities, and as well as sort of actual tools that are available. So resources that people can draw from, which scientific information is one way to do so. And also kind of like some of the protective factors that we have for ourselves, like selective self-esteem, racial, private regard, and kind of being able to connect with our ethnic heritage. And that's very important. And then also sort of people who have privilege, who have the abilities, step in to also help. So I think it's a multi-prong approach can be empowering. So I think we have a lot of similarities in terms of our next step is after we understand some of the mechanisms, what are the protective factors and how do we actually use the tools that we have to train folks to actually use the tools, use the abilities to be able to disarm and support one another. Thank you. Thanks. I think in order in the interest of keeping us on schedule, we'll call this first panel to close and thank our presenters and all of the discussants. Just a reminder, there's a whole list of things you can do during this noon to hour period. The workshops are listed, the chapel. There is a forum in the forum that is the basketball part. There are interactive displays, mental health fair. You can tour Nobel Hall. You can now go inside of it. And there are art exhibitions and you get out into the Arboretum and just do some walking therapy for yourself. At 12.20, there is the dedication as we noted. Food choice information and other such things are found on page 27 of the program. Please know this is a tobacco free campus and please also know that we're trying to be zero waste. So to the extent that you can help us in those efforts, that would be great. And for those of you online, there's a whole slew of really wonderful videos about things. Please go stay with us and interviews as well. So thank you. We'll see you back here when the program says. I didn't write that down.