NAMI CC General Meeting Speaker Series: Free and Open to the Public
Social Media and Your Mental Health: No Laughing Matter
Meeting Information
This meeting will be held in-person on September 18, 2025 from 7 PM to 8:30 PM at John Muir Health, Concord Medical Center in Concord Rooms 1 & 2.
Address
2540 East Street, Concord CA 94520
Speaker
Vaibhav A. Diwadkar, PhD, Professor & Co-Director Brain Imaging Research Division, Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, MI
Meeting Description
This month’s special LIVE In-Person General Meeting will feature Dr. Vaibhav A. Diwadkar with the mission to provide listeners with some articulation of why social media can be bad for the brain, what the impact of it being bad might be, in terms of mental health symptoms, and what could be done to preempt these symptoms. His presentation has been featured on ABC News.
Dr. Diwadkar will discuss this overall framework in the context of “information”. Until recently, “information” or “news” was a relatively scarce commodity. “Social media” represents the newest, and most serious challenge to the human brain’s ability to balance a) novelty and equilibrium and b) exploration and exploitation. Dr. Diwadkar wants to discuss a) how this challenge has come about, b) what it does to the brain and to our mental health and c) what possible strategies can be used to combat challenges the social-media related challenges to your mental health, and how they might work. This presentation will seek to relate some scientific knowledge in neuroscience and psychiatry research, with some of society’s ongoing socio-economic trends. It will be very accessible to a general audience.
Dr. Diwadkar is Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Neurosciences at Wayne State University School of Medicine. He has had interdisciplinary training in computer science, psychology and clinical neuroscience, allowing him to adopt complex systems approaches to the study of the brain in health and psychiatric disease. He uses in vivo neuroimaging to collect information on brain function. Then, he and his students apply complex computational techniques to recover the “hidden” brain states that give rise to those fMRI signals. His scientific philosophy gives his work substantial applicative range allowing for an understanding of brain network mechanisms of function (both psychological and physiological) and dysfunction in multiple psychiatric conditions. His group has also applied these methods in several psychological domains
including learning, memory, cognition, sensorimotor function, and thermoregulatory mechanisms.
Victoria Fairchild and Bianca Berrios from the Office for Peer and Family Empowerment will briefly share information about applying for the Contra Costa County’s Service Provider Individualized Recovery Intensive Training (SPIRIT) Program for the 2026 school year. If you are interested in applying for the 2026 SPIRIT class, please email Victoria at gro.htlaehcc@dlihcriaF.airotciV or Bianca at gro.htlaehcc@soirreB.acnaiB for the SPIRIT 2026 Application.
Questions, Comments, and Closed Captioning
If you have questions or comments for our speakers during the presentation, you may contact Cri Campbell at gro.atsocartnociman@irc.
Closed Caption Translation is available in various languages for any of NAMI CC’s General Meetings on ZOOM. Attendees can select the language of their choosing. RSVP to Cri Campbell at gro.atsocartnociman@irc by September 18, 2025 if you require audio language translation.
