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Lena Zarifoglu

Department of Clinical Research
Profiles & Affiliations

I am a PhD candidate working for the SWIPE project at the Research Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University Psychiatric Clinics (UPK) in Basel, in the research group of Prof. Dr. Dr. Christina Stadler. Furthermore, I am affiliated at the Faculty of Psychology, University of Basel, in the Digital Lives research group led by Prof. Dr. Lara Wolfers.


Before focusing on digital media research, I worked for several years in clinical and transcultural mental health. My earlier work spanned psychosocial distress and social support among somatic inpatients and the development of a culturally adapted skills-training programme aimed at reducing distress among youth refugees. This period gave me valuable research experience that laid an important foundation for my academic work and continues to inform my perspective today.


I am now pursuing my PhD within the SNSF-funded longitudinal SWIPE follow-up study on children's screen media exposure in Switzerland. In my research I aim to go beyond traditional indicators such as screen time to examine how, when, and with what content young children engage with digital media and how these contextual and content-related aspects relate to their socio-emotional, language, and motor development. To capture media use as it unfolds in everyday life, SWIPE draws on a comprehensive longitudinal multi-method design that combines objective and passive measures, ecological momentary, and laboratory assessments.


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Selected Projects & Collaborations

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10006203 - SWIss Preschoolers’ screen Exposure (SWIPE) - Longitudinal effects on Socio-emotional, Language, and Motor Development

Research Project  | 3 Project Members

There is widespread concern about how screen use might affect children’s development, but studies on this topic yelded mixed results. This is probably due to the fact that it is not just the time that children spend in front of a screen that matters, but also what children are watching and under what circumstances. Therefore, the goal of this study is to examine whether child screen time is a risk factor for child development, considering additional factors that might play a role, such as screen content, parental motivations, time of day, non-screen based activities, sleep, and physical activity. The present study thus adresses three research questions: 1) How do young children in Switzerland use screens and how does this change during childhood? 2) Is child screen time a longitudinal risk factor for socio-emotional, language, and motor development? and 3) Which factors play a role in the longitudinal associations between child screen time and socio-emotional, language, and motor development?

To answer these questions, we are conducting a study with three timepoints each one year apart. At each timepoint, parents will answer online surveys on child screen use and socio-emotional, language, and motor developmental outcomes. Some parents will be invited to also complete a web add-on with additional online surveys and in-depth screen use assessment and a lab add-on with behavioral tests that measure child socio-emotional, language, and motor development, as well as a parent-child interaction during joint screen use.

This study will be the largest longitudinal study on children’s screen use starting in early childhood in Switzerland.


Imported from Grants Tool 4717721