‘I hope the next cyberpsychologists come aware of their assumptions, thinking outside the box, and questioning everything’

Joanne, you're a Professor of Applied Digital and Behavioural Psychology. Can you tell us a little more about your research interests?

Sure. It encompasses several strands, but the core of it tends to be applied work looking at behaviours, often online and digital behaviours, but not always. So, I do research into gambling and gambling harms, and that includes both online and offline. But then other online behaviours that I look at are things like video games – not just the risks or the negatives, I'm also interested in benefits. And then I've also done some work looking at real world violence where people have captured footage or images of that and shared it. That's a relatively new area.

A really wide range of topics there! How did you first come into this?

It wasn't a planned trajectory into cyberpsychology. I just found that over the years, the digital or cyber was a common thread to a lot of the things that I did. So, when I did my PhD, that was looking at route learning in people with acquired brain injuries. But I ended up using a video game environment as a tool within that… an environment where people could practise routes. That was in the early 2000s, so at the time that was, I guess, an early cyberpsychology type approach, but I didn't really think of it as that. It was just a tool. But then I went on to my first postdoc role, where we were looking at gambling research. And again, it just so happened that it was looking at online gambling. 

So over the years I've done various things, but that cyber element seems to keep coming back in. 

What would you say your proudest research achievement so far?

A couple of years ago we did a project looking at the convergence of gambling and video games – specifically, loot boxes within video games. There has been growing interest in that in the past decade or so, lots of research into it. We got some funding to do a fairly large-scale project, collaborating with people at several different organisations, and we managed to find out some interesting things, hopefully some helpful things. We contributed to some of the government calls for evidence around that topic – it felt nice to have that opportunity to feed into the political realm, to contribute to that base of evidence to help us decide what's the best approach to keep people protected from potentially risky products.

That research is so impactful. So, you'll be keynoting at the BPS Cyberpsychology Section conference in July. Can you give us any early spoilers of what to expect from your talk?

I haven't finished writing it yet, but I know that I'll be talking about what we might think of as risky online activities, the kinds of areas I've mentioned. I'm interested in what draws people to engage in behaviours that might be risky; what people get out of them, and also consequences and why they can be harmful, and what contributes to whether or not someone might experience difficulties or negative effects of engaging in them. 

But I am keen to keep it balanced… I don't want to focus on just the negatives. So I'm also going to talk about the existing affordances of the online world, some of the potential, and where there are opportunities to mitigate against risks. That's always been something I find quite interesting with, even from the early work I did looking at online gambling. People have been concerned – for good reason – that there are various features of the Internet that make risky products very accessible all around the clock, but there are also lots of potential online support services, or tools and algorithms. Whether or not they are being used to their fullest extent at the moment for good, they do have the potential to be used for benefits. So I'll be looking at some of the optimistic features of the Internet and of technology for mitigating risk or helping people with recovery.

I'm so looking forward to that! What are you most looking forward to at the conference?

It's always nice to catch up with people I've collaborated with in the past, and to make new connections. There are overlaps in areas of cyberpsychology and traditional fields of psychology that you don't always think of until you do something like go to a conference and listen to someone talking. You see those synergies and areas of overlap. It will be really interesting hearing about all the diverse work that's going on because it's quite an open theme this year.

Definitely, and the schedule is so different every year, and there seem to be different trends that come through every year. So with that, how do you see cyberpsychology evolving over the next 5 to 10 years?

I think AI has got to be a big topic with the massive advancements in generative AI and things. I'm sure there's going to be lots of interesting research into that, and the applications and impacts. AI becoming involved in the research process is probably inevitable in one way or another, so that will be interesting as well. I hope that we'll see more research looking at some of the benefits of technology and the Internet, because there has been that tendency for some research to focus on all the risks. The technology is not going away. Rather than being scared of it we should be looking into how we harness the benefits and mitigate the risks, rather than having a focus on some of the worst-case scenarios. Lots of people are already doing that, but hopefully there's more of that to come as well.

Before we finish, it will be great to hear a little more about you. How did you end up in academia?

I stumbled into it a little bit! I just carried on after doing my degree in psychology. Just really enjoyed it, so looked to do some postgraduate research, saw a funded PhD post, thought it sounded interesting, so I did that. Then the next thing that came along was a 12 month research assistant post. That ended up just continuing into several different research roles in fixed term contracts, doing various different studies that appealed to me. And then, once you've been doing it for a few years, you start to feel quite at home in that environment. I eventually made the move from research to a more teaching and research role, really enjoyed the teaching and supervision side of it and have stayed in academia since then. But yeah, there was not a grand plan. It was just stumbling from one opportunity to the next and focusing on things that interested me.

What motivates you or keeps you motivated in research?

Over the years as I've done more research, I've become particularly attracted to doing things that have got a clear applied value. Not that I don't see the value in more blue skies or core theoretical research, but I really like working in that space where you can see where your research could have an impact fairly soon down the line, informing policy or practice. 

I think coming from a family of non-academics keeps you grounded. I remember talking about research with my parents in the early years… some really basic research that just contributed an incremental bit of information about something. They'd say 'Oh, why is that? How is that helpful? What's that going to do?' And I think it's good to keep questioning yourself – What is this going to do? What is the purpose of it? Academia as a whole has grown in in the past few decades in terms of recognising the importance of impact, and how we can use our research beyond academia in order to inform real world policies. That's what keeps me motivated nowadays.

What advice would you give to someone just beginning their career in cyberpsychology research?

In any kind of research, be critical and question some of the assumptions and the things we are being sold by the media. We make assumptions about the consequences of technology use based on intuitive ideas about things, or moral assumptions about what types of activities are a good use of time or a bad use of time. If we start from that point, where we've already made our minds up, then we're not going to have that critical research and we're not going to find out new things. So I hope the next cyberpsychologists come aware of their assumptions, thinking outside the box, and questioning everything. 

I also think about how we can improve our methods. A lot of research relies on those easy methods of cross-sectional surveys. I'm guilty of this as well, and there are practical and financial reasons for it. But I do think it'd be good to start to use some more creative methods and robust methods, and to move away from relying quite so heavily on surveys.

Moving outside of research now, what kind of hobbies and interests do you have outside of academia?

This is where I sound really boring… I don't have any exciting things! I like to go on long walks with the dog. I actually do quite like playing video games. I'm not very good, so I don't do any of the really difficult ones, but we just got getting back into Minecraft, with my son, building strange worlds. Reading. Yeah, just get getting out and about and going for country walks and things like that. Nothing too exciting!

And my final question is, what's on the top of your bucket list?

My partner is currently doing a van conversion. So once that's finished – who knows how long it will take – the plan is to get the dog's passport up to date and have a trip around Europe.