Buckingham’s Psychology at BPS Cyberpsychology Conference 2025

The 2025 BPS Cyberpsychology Conference, held this July at Birmingham City University, showcased ground-breaking interdisciplinary research at the intersection of psychology and technology. Among the many impressive contributions, three PhD students from the University of Buckingham’s School of Psychology proudly presented their work.

Over two packed days, our PhD candidates heard from many interesting presenters as well as two brilliant keynote speakers:

• Dr Joanne Lloyd (keynote speaker) – on online behaviours that carry risk of harm, including gambling, gaming, and exposure to disturbing content.
• Professor Andrew Przybylski (keynote speaker) – on the evolving impacts of internet-mediated technologies and AI on young people’s mental health.
• Dr Nicola Fox Hamilton’s research on dating during Covid-19
• Dr Graham Scott’s work in progress on a study investigating the role of gender when it comes to ghosting.

The conference was an excellent opportunity for our students to disseminate their work and demonstrate the breadth of research within the School of Psychology.

Student Highlights

Charlotte Carry, recipient of Buckingham’s prestigious Royal Charter 40th Anniversary Scholarship, said:

“I was thrilled to attend the conference again this year and to represent the School of Psychology—and even more excited to serve as a Student Ambassador! This role gave me the opportunity to support the event behind the scenes and even take part in conference chairing.

I also had the chance to reconnect with colleagues from last year and make new connections, especially during the conference dinner and, of course, over pastries and coffee (always a highlight!).

A personal highlight was presenting a work-in-progress project I’m developing with Dr Sofia Petisca (Lecturer in Psychology at Buckingham), exploring Psychological attitudes towards AI in Gen Z; a hot topic that is increasingly important not just in psychology but for many different stakeholders from the tech industry to government.

The final highlight was seeing my fellow PhD student, Morgan-Ann Tidy win Best Dressed with her amazing crocheted gaming belt.

I’m so grateful for the opportunity to learn, share, and connect with such a vibrant community of researchers and practitioners and hopefully I’ll be presenting my first PhD study results next year at Cyber26!”

Megan Hogg presented the first study of her thesis, a qualitative exploration of adolescents’ experiences with sexually explicit online material and its impact on their sexual attitudes and behaviour.

Megan said:

“I thoroughly enjoyed my second year attending the Cyberpsychology conference, representing The University of Buckingham.

Attending gave me the opportunity to both connect with other academics in my field, researching different and interesting topics, as well as to present some research from my thesis for the first time!

I was very grateful to be able to attend this conference again this year and hopefully I’ll be able to present more of my thesis research there in the future!”

Morgan-Ann Tidy, who presented on ‘The (Positive) Impact of Violent Video Games, shared her reflections:

“I had the fantastic opportunity to represent the School of Psychology at the BPS Cyberpsychology conference this year (2025).

With it being my first time at an external conference, I was incredibly nervous to attend. I was even more nervous to present my research for the first time! Fortunately, I had the support of my fellow University of Buckingham PhDs (Charlotte Carry, and Megan Hogg – who both did excellent presentations!).

The conference was two packed days of amazing and insightful presentations. From gaming (like my own research) to social media use, AI, and cybercrime (to name a few) – it is amazing to me how varied the field of Cyberpsychology can be and how many avenues it can take!

I am eager to attend and hopefully to present at more conferences in the future, and I am very grateful for this experience.”

Congratulations to Charlotte, Megan, Morgan-Ann, and their supervisors for their impressive contributions and for representing Buckingham Psychology on a national stage.