Name: Social Media - Evil Player or Buffer for Connections?
Start: 2025-05-21T19:30:00
End: 2025-05-21T21:30:00
Location: The Durell Arms

Join us for a fun and thought-provoking evening exploring the power of social media! First, we’ll dive into how social platforms impact our mental health—helping us connect with others, but also fueling anxiety, loneliness, and comparison. Then, we’ll shift to how social media gives queer men agency in navigating intimacy. Discover how they use platforms to gain control over vulnerability, protect themselves from discrimination, and curate meaningful connections, all while reshaping the way they engage in queer spaces. It’s an exciting look at how social media can empower and challenge us.

Scroll, Click, Connect: The Double-Edged Sword of Social Media

Dr. Ruth Plackett (Senior Research Fellow )

Discover how our online interactions impact mental health and social connectedness. From virtual friendships to digital detoxes, we'll dive into the science behind our screens and uncover ways to navigate the digital age mindfully.

Vulnerability and Control: Queer Men, Smartphones and Cultures of Intimacy

Dr. Jamie Hakim (Lecturer in Culture, Media and Creative Industries)

Dr. Hakim critically examines the stereotype that queer men's sexual lives are "out of control", a discourse invoked in relation to the HIV/AIDS crisis, same-sex marriage debates, and recently, the impact of dating apps like Grindr. Drawing on interviews with 43 queer men, he argues that smartphone technologies enable them to assert agency over intimate vulnerabilities. From utilizing messaging apps for sensitive conversations to employing blocking functions to mitigate racism and transphobia, his talk explores how digital practices reconfigure contemporary queer cultures of sex and intimacy.

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