Amber van der Wal is an assistant professor working in the Youth and Media Entertainment program group in the Department of Communication Science.
Amber's research examines how youth engage with algorithmically curated social media platforms, and how these shape young people’s everyday experiences, emotions, and overall well-being. Amber teaches in the Master and PhD program. From 2016 to 2021, Amber was a PhD candidate at ASCoR studying teens’ differential preferences for humor and aggression in media entertainment and their potential consequences. Before that, she studied Social Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Amsterdam.
Her current research focuses on the role of technology and media entertainment in the lives of children and adolescents. As a member of project AWeSome, Amber studies the relationship between adolescents' social media use and well-being, with a particular focus on the role of humor in this relationship. Along with this project, Amber is an advisory board member and a researcher contributing to the SpaceTeen project.
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