October 27, Computational Social Science Lab Speaker Series
Computational Social Science Lab Speaker Series.
The talk by Dr. Munmun De Choudhury, Associate Professor at Georgia Tech, will offer insights into the bias and harms in measuring mental health with online technologies.
Time: Friday, October 27 at 1:00pm
Location: on Zoom at https://bit.ly/css-lab-talks
Bias and Harms in Mental Health Measurement with Online Technologies
As digital technologies have proliferated in the past two decades, so has research harnessing these technologies. Online platforms like social media are offering unprecedented potential benefits for individuals seeking mental health support, and machine learning based modeling of this data is promising to offer news ways to intervene. However, concerns are arising regarding the presence of bias and the potential for harm in these applications. This talk will first present the multifaceted aspects of this bias and harm surrounding the unintended consequences of using online mental health measurement tools. I will shine light on the possible psychological harms that may arise due to these platforms, fragmented and heterogeneous usage patterns of online technologies, and semantic gap in inferred assessments resulting from the subjectivity of the mental health experience. The talk will then describe how some of these biases and harms have deeper historical roots that have influenced algorithmic decision-making, data collection techniques, the design of technology-mediated interventions, or even the operationalization and abstraction of the complex and nuanced human experience in machine learning models. Broadly, the talk will emphasize how biased algorithms and assessment methods can inadvertently amplify mental health disparities and perpetuate stigmatization. I will conclude with a call for transparent, accountable, and culturally sensitive approaches to digital mental health measurement to overcome these pitfalls.
Munmun De Choudhury is an Associate Professor of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. Dr. De Choudhury is best known for laying the foundation of a new line of research that develops computational techniques towards understanding and improving mental health outcomes, through ethical analysis of social media data. Dr. De Choudhury has been recognized with the 2023 SIGCHI Societal Impact Award, Test-of-Time Awards in 2022 and 2023 by ICWSM and the Web Science Trust, the 2021 ACM-W Rising Star Award, the 2019 Complex Systems Society – Junior Scientific Award, over a dozen best paper and honorable mention awards from the ACM and AAAI, and features and coverage in popular press like the New York Times, the NPR, and the BBC. Dr. De Choudhury serves on the Board of Directors of the International Society for Computational Social Science. She is also an appointed member of a committee by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that is examining research on the impact of social media on the wellbeing of young people, and has contributed to the Office of U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory on The Healing Effects of Social Connection.
Computational Social Science Lab Speaker Series.
The talk by Dr. Munmun De Choudhury, Associate Professor at Georgia Tech, will offer insights into the bias and harms in measuring mental health with online technologies.
Time: Friday, October 27 at 1:00pm
Location: on Zoom at https://bit.ly/css-lab-talks
Bias and Harms in Mental Health Measurement with Online Technologies
As digital technologies have proliferated in the past two decades, so has research harnessing these technologies. Online platforms like social media are offering unprecedented potential benefits for individuals seeking mental health support, and machine learning based modeling of this data is promising to offer news ways to intervene. However, concerns are arising regarding the presence of bias and the potential for harm in these applications. This talk will first present the multifaceted aspects of this bias and harm surrounding the unintended consequences of using online mental health measurement tools. I will shine light on the possible psychological harms that may arise due to these platforms, fragmented and heterogeneous usage patterns of online technologies, and semantic gap in inferred assessments resulting from the subjectivity of the mental health experience. The talk will then describe how some of these biases and harms have deeper historical roots that have influenced algorithmic decision-making, data collection techniques, the design of technology-mediated interventions, or even the operationalization and abstraction of the complex and nuanced human experience in machine learning models. Broadly, the talk will emphasize how biased algorithms and assessment methods can inadvertently amplify mental health disparities and perpetuate stigmatization. I will conclude with a call for transparent, accountable, and culturally sensitive approaches to digital mental health measurement to overcome these pitfalls.
Munmun De Choudhury is an Associate Professor of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. Dr. De Choudhury is best known for laying the foundation of a new line of research that develops computational techniques towards understanding and improving mental health outcomes, through ethical analysis of social media data. Dr. De Choudhury has been recognized with the 2023 SIGCHI Societal Impact Award, Test-of-Time Awards in 2022 and 2023 by ICWSM and the Web Science Trust, the 2021 ACM-W Rising Star Award, the 2019 Complex Systems Society – Junior Scientific Award, over a dozen best paper and honorable mention awards from the ACM and AAAI, and features and coverage in popular press like the New York Times, the NPR, and the BBC. Dr. De Choudhury serves on the Board of Directors of the International Society for Computational Social Science. She is also an appointed member of a committee by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that is examining research on the impact of social media on the wellbeing of young people, and has contributed to the Office of U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory on The Healing Effects of Social Connection.