Lara N Wolfers
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 934072 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Lara N Wolfers |
| PRENOMES | Lara N |
| SOBRENOME | Wolfers |
| ASSINATURA | WOLFERS L N |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1074-1617 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 23 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 4 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 23 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2020 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 1 |
Mobile Media and Communication as a Post-Field? Introduction to a Special Issue on Theory
Mobile Media and Communication (MMC) is a theoretically diverse field which lacks a single shared theoretical and methodological paradigm. Much like communication more broadly, MMC can therefore be understood as a post-field. In this Introduction to the special issue on “Mobile Communication Theory: The State of the (Post-)Field,” we describe the theoretical landscape reflected in the contributions to the special issue. The contributions span and…
For women only? A gendered view on media-based guilty pleasures
Too Much Screen Time or Too Much Guilt? How Child Screen Time and Parental Screen Guilt Affect Parental Stress and Relationship Satisfaction
Recent decades have witnessed a surge in public discourse around the negative effects of media technologies. One of these public debates concerned the negative effects of child screen time on children’s development resulting in parental feelings of guilt and stress as parents struggle to limit their children’s screen use. Based on a social constructivist perspec tive, we suggest that parental stress around child screen time and subsequent relati…
The next media-fueled moral technology panic? News media’s and audience’s views on ChatGPT
With the diffusion of new technologies, “moral panics” often tend to emerge, with news outlets frequently seen as catalysts. However, empirical evidence on their specific role still remains scarce. The rise of ChatGPT offers a unique chance to observe a new form of moral technology panic in real time. Using a longitudinal survey of a Dutch quota sample and computational content analysis of Dutch news coverage on ChatGPT, we examined whether both …
What do you mean by “social media”? Introducing the Reporting Items for Social Media Research (RISoMeR)
Scholars from various disciplines study social media. However, neither researchers nor users have a unified understanding of social media. Even more problematically, many researchers do not define how social media is understood in their studies reducing the transparency, interpretability, and comparability of research. In this article, we introduce the Reporting Items for Social Media Research (RISoMeR), a flexible and easy-to-use matrix with whi…
Examining Comfort Media
Coping with the Covid-19 Pandemic by Using Media
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people had to cope with stress in two different ways: engaging in problem-focused behaviors (e.g. seeking information) and regulating their emotions. In particular, during lockdowns, media played an important role in these coping processes. This short-term longitudinal study during the first stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020 in Germany (N = 348) tested how coping strategies related to two categories of cop…
Commentary
Recent years have seen a widespread integration of technology into the daily lives of families. Psychological science has recently started to focus on the use of smartphones by parents while they are engaged in parenting activities, a behavior known under the terms “phubbing,” “technoference,” “parental screen distraction,” and various other terms. We argue that understanding the real impact of co‐present smartphone use by parents is inhibited by…
Online stress and offline stress
There is an increasing interaction between our offline and online lives, which puts forward a challenge to understanding the relationship between stress and health, as online and offline stress may be mixed. This study used 4,127 adolescents to test the uniqueness of online stress, the distinction between online and offline stress, and their co-occurrence and cumulative effects. The results showed that after controlling for offline stress, online…
Can mothers avoid guilt about their smartphone usage behavior? Effects of the availability norm and goal conflict on guilt, recovery, and accomplishment experiences
Balancing everyday tasks with the expectations of others regarding one's availability via smartphone is a challenge, especially for mothers. This research replicated and further developed studies by Halfmann and colleagues in 2021 and 2024 that yielded contradictory results regarding the conditions of feelings of guilt about (not) using the smartphone. More specifically, we investigated how smartphone-related goal conflict, the availability norm,…
A social constructivist viewpoint of media effects
New media technologies are often assumed to have negative effects on user’s mental health. However, several studies found no or only small effects. Building on a social constructivist perspective on media effects, this article aims to advance the debate around media’s effect on mental health, theoretically by proposing an extension of the social influence model of technology use. Mirroring the original model’s argumentation for media characterist…
Conditionally helpful? The influence of person-, situation-, and device-specific factors on maternal smartphone use for stress coping and on coping effectiveness
Smartphones are omnipresent in the daily lives of parents and provide access to multiple resources in stressful situations. Thus, smartphones might be valuable coping tools. Previous research has mostly focused on the negative effects of parental phone use. In the present study, we investigated how mothers use smartphones for coping with stress and whether their phone use for coping is effective. We also explored factors on different levels (situ…
Do you love your phone more than your child? The consequences of norms and guilt around maternal smartphone use
Previous research mainly linked smartphone use while parenting to adverse consequences. However, smartphones also offer helpful resources for parents, especially in stressful situations. We suggested that negative norms against maternal smartphone use and associated feelings of guilt may inhibit effective smartphone use for coping with stress. In a 1-week experience sampling study with mothers of young children (N = 158), we found that more negat…
Social media use, stress, and coping
In this review, we systematize work on the relationship between social media use and stress by providing a functional perspective that distinguishes between three functions that social media can have in the stages of the stress-coping process: as stressors, as resources, and as coping tools. Current research provides evidence that social media can cause stress, serve as resources, and can be used as a tool for various coping strategies, but it re…
Coping with Covid-19 stress
Does Digital Media Use Harm Children’s Emotional Intelligence? A Parental Perspective
Emotional intelligence (EI) is comprised of a set of critical life skills that develop, in part, through practice in social interaction. As such, some have expressed concern that the heavy screen media diet of today’s youth threatens the development of those crucial abilities. This research assesses how the media diet of children and the media use of their parents relates to child EI levels to assess what, if any, specific patterns exist. Four hu…
How-to videos on YouTube
How-to videos on YouTube have become a popular source for procedural learning. An important difference to traditional educational videos is that the instructor is often not a professional educator, but an amateur or peer. Building on work on social learning from models, this paper explores how instructor characteristics such as model-observer similarity, instructor credibility (expertise, trustworthiness, attractiveness), and conversational human…
Guidance in the chaos
During the COVID-19 pandemic, virologists gained a prominent role in traditional and social media in Germany; several participated in regular podcasts. Using a two-wave survey ( n = 696/361 at Time 1/2), we explore which impact the strong media presence of virologists had on media users and what role parasocial phenomena (asymmetric interactions and relationships with virologists) played. People who favored a specific virologist scored higher on …
The Effects of Situational and Individual Factors on Algorithm Acceptance in Covid-19-Related Decision-Making
In times of the COVID-19 pandemic, difficult decisions such as the distribution of ventilators must be made. For many of these decisions, humans could team up with algorithms; however, people often prefer human decision-makers. We examined the role of situational (morality of the scenario; perspective) and individual factors (need for leadership; conventionalism) for algorithm preference in a preregistered online experiment with German adults (n …
Using Media for Coping
Mobile phones, television, internet services, games, and social media offer diverse and numerous opportunities for coping with stress in everyday life. Different disciplines have contributed to answering how these media are used for coping. Consequently, fragmented and disconnected research perspectives have evolved. To improve integration, we conducted a scoping review. A total of 318 articles met the inclusion criteria. Three main perspectives …
Parental mobile media use for coping with stress
Mobile devices are deeply integrated into the everyday lives of families and provide direct access to many resources in stressful situations. By proposing that mobile devices might be fitting tools for parental coping, this study connects work on mostly beneficial parental Internet use with work on detrimental effects of device use on the parent–child-interaction. The results of five focus groups conducted in a clinical and a non-clinical context…
Do smartphones and social network sites become more important when experiencing stress? Results from longitudinal data
Previous research on stress and media use mainly concentrated on between-person effects. We add to this research field by additionally assessing within-person associations, assuming that experiencing more stress than usual goes along with more nomophobia (“no-mobile-phone phobia”) and more passive and active Facebook use than usual, cross-sectionally and over time, and by exploring potential age differences. We conducted a secondary analysis of t…
Phone use while parenting
A social constructivist viewpoint of media effects
New media technologies are often assumed to have negative effects on user’s mental health. However, several studies found no or only small effects. Building on a social constructivist perspective on media effects, this article aims to advance the debate around media’s effect on mental health, theoretically by proposing an extension of the social influence model of technology use. Mirroring the original model’s argumentation for media characterist…
Examining Comfort Media
Do smartphones and social network sites become more important when experiencing stress? Results from longitudinal data
Previous research on stress and media use mainly concentrated on between-person effects. We add to this research field by additionally assessing within-person associations, assuming that experiencing more stress than usual goes along with more nomophobia (“no-mobile-phone phobia”) and more passive and active Facebook use than usual, cross-sectionally and over time, and by exploring potential age differences. We conducted a secondary analysis of t…
Phone use while parenting
The Effects of Situational and Individual Factors on Algorithm Acceptance in Covid-19-Related Decision-Making
In times of the COVID-19 pandemic, difficult decisions such as the distribution of ventilators must be made. For many of these decisions, humans could team up with algorithms; however, people often prefer human decision-makers. We examined the role of situational (morality of the scenario; perspective) and individual factors (need for leadership; conventionalism) for algorithm preference in a preregistered online experiment with German adults (n …
Using Media for Coping
Mobile phones, television, internet services, games, and social media offer diverse and numerous opportunities for coping with stress in everyday life. Different disciplines have contributed to answering how these media are used for coping. Consequently, fragmented and disconnected research perspectives have evolved. To improve integration, we conducted a scoping review. A total of 318 articles met the inclusion criteria. Three main perspectives …
Parental mobile media use for coping with stress
Mobile devices are deeply integrated into the everyday lives of families and provide direct access to many resources in stressful situations. By proposing that mobile devices might be fitting tools for parental coping, this study connects work on mostly beneficial parental Internet use with work on detrimental effects of device use on the parent–child-interaction. The results of five focus groups conducted in a clinical and a non-clinical context…
Social media use, stress, and coping
In this review, we systematize work on the relationship between social media use and stress by providing a functional perspective that distinguishes between three functions that social media can have in the stages of the stress-coping process: as stressors, as resources, and as coping tools. Current research provides evidence that social media can cause stress, serve as resources, and can be used as a tool for various coping strategies, but it re…
Coping with Covid-19 stress
Does Digital Media Use Harm Children’s Emotional Intelligence? A Parental Perspective
Emotional intelligence (EI) is comprised of a set of critical life skills that develop, in part, through practice in social interaction. As such, some have expressed concern that the heavy screen media diet of today’s youth threatens the development of those crucial abilities. This research assesses how the media diet of children and the media use of their parents relates to child EI levels to assess what, if any, specific patterns exist. Four hu…
How-to videos on YouTube
How-to videos on YouTube have become a popular source for procedural learning. An important difference to traditional educational videos is that the instructor is often not a professional educator, but an amateur or peer. Building on work on social learning from models, this paper explores how instructor characteristics such as model-observer similarity, instructor credibility (expertise, trustworthiness, attractiveness), and conversational human…
Guidance in the chaos
During the COVID-19 pandemic, virologists gained a prominent role in traditional and social media in Germany; several participated in regular podcasts. Using a two-wave survey ( n = 696/361 at Time 1/2), we explore which impact the strong media presence of virologists had on media users and what role parasocial phenomena (asymmetric interactions and relationships with virologists) played. People who favored a specific virologist scored higher on …
Conditionally helpful? The influence of person-, situation-, and device-specific factors on maternal smartphone use for stress coping and on coping effectiveness
Smartphones are omnipresent in the daily lives of parents and provide access to multiple resources in stressful situations. Thus, smartphones might be valuable coping tools. Previous research has mostly focused on the negative effects of parental phone use. In the present study, we investigated how mothers use smartphones for coping with stress and whether their phone use for coping is effective. We also explored factors on different levels (situ…
Do you love your phone more than your child? The consequences of norms and guilt around maternal smartphone use
Previous research mainly linked smartphone use while parenting to adverse consequences. However, smartphones also offer helpful resources for parents, especially in stressful situations. We suggested that negative norms against maternal smartphone use and associated feelings of guilt may inhibit effective smartphone use for coping with stress. In a 1-week experience sampling study with mothers of young children (N = 158), we found that more negat…
Coping with the Covid-19 Pandemic by Using Media
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people had to cope with stress in two different ways: engaging in problem-focused behaviors (e.g. seeking information) and regulating their emotions. In particular, during lockdowns, media played an important role in these coping processes. This short-term longitudinal study during the first stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020 in Germany (N = 348) tested how coping strategies related to two categories of cop…
Commentary
Recent years have seen a widespread integration of technology into the daily lives of families. Psychological science has recently started to focus on the use of smartphones by parents while they are engaged in parenting activities, a behavior known under the terms “phubbing,” “technoference,” “parental screen distraction,” and various other terms. We argue that understanding the real impact of co‐present smartphone use by parents is inhibited by…
Online stress and offline stress
There is an increasing interaction between our offline and online lives, which puts forward a challenge to understanding the relationship between stress and health, as online and offline stress may be mixed. This study used 4,127 adolescents to test the uniqueness of online stress, the distinction between online and offline stress, and their co-occurrence and cumulative effects. The results showed that after controlling for offline stress, online…
Can mothers avoid guilt about their smartphone usage behavior? Effects of the availability norm and goal conflict on guilt, recovery, and accomplishment experiences
Balancing everyday tasks with the expectations of others regarding one's availability via smartphone is a challenge, especially for mothers. This research replicated and further developed studies by Halfmann and colleagues in 2021 and 2024 that yielded contradictory results regarding the conditions of feelings of guilt about (not) using the smartphone. More specifically, we investigated how smartphone-related goal conflict, the availability norm,…
A social constructivist viewpoint of media effects
New media technologies are often assumed to have negative effects on user’s mental health. However, several studies found no or only small effects. Building on a social constructivist perspective on media effects, this article aims to advance the debate around media’s effect on mental health, theoretically by proposing an extension of the social influence model of technology use. Mirroring the original model’s argumentation for media characterist…
Too Much Screen Time or Too Much Guilt? How Child Screen Time and Parental Screen Guilt Affect Parental Stress and Relationship Satisfaction
Recent decades have witnessed a surge in public discourse around the negative effects of media technologies. One of these public debates concerned the negative effects of child screen time on children’s development resulting in parental feelings of guilt and stress as parents struggle to limit their children’s screen use. Based on a social constructivist perspec tive, we suggest that parental stress around child screen time and subsequent relati…
The next media-fueled moral technology panic? News media’s and audience’s views on ChatGPT
With the diffusion of new technologies, “moral panics” often tend to emerge, with news outlets frequently seen as catalysts. However, empirical evidence on their specific role still remains scarce. The rise of ChatGPT offers a unique chance to observe a new form of moral technology panic in real time. Using a longitudinal survey of a Dutch quota sample and computational content analysis of Dutch news coverage on ChatGPT, we examined whether both …
What do you mean by “social media”? Introducing the Reporting Items for Social Media Research (RISoMeR)
Scholars from various disciplines study social media. However, neither researchers nor users have a unified understanding of social media. Even more problematically, many researchers do not define how social media is understood in their studies reducing the transparency, interpretability, and comparability of research. In this article, we introduce the Reporting Items for Social Media Research (RISoMeR), a flexible and easy-to-use matrix with whi…
Examining Comfort Media
Mobile Media and Communication as a Post-Field? Introduction to a Special Issue on Theory
Mobile Media and Communication (MMC) is a theoretically diverse field which lacks a single shared theoretical and methodological paradigm. Much like communication more broadly, MMC can therefore be understood as a post-field. In this Introduction to the special issue on “Mobile Communication Theory: The State of the (Post-)Field,” we describe the theoretical landscape reflected in the contributions to the special issue. The contributions span and…
For women only? A gendered view on media-based guilty pleasures
Psychology (20 obras) · Impact of Technology on Adolescents (13 obras) · Social Psychology (13 obras) · Computer Science (10 obras) · Media Influence and Health (10 obras) · Child Development and Digital Technology (9 obras) · Clinical Psychology (8 obras) · Developmental psychology (8 obras) · Social media (7 obras) · Sociology (7 obras)