Meet Yalda T. Uhls, MBA, PhD

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Hi, my name is Yalda T. Uhls; I am the Regional Director of Common Sense Media in Los Angeles. I am also a researcher in developmental psychology at the Children's Digital Media Center, at LA, which is at UCLA, and I'm also a mom. I have a 13 year-old girl and I have a 10 year-old boy. I study media effects on children and one of the reasons I study media effects on children - I started out in the film business; I was a content creator, I was the Senior Vice-President at MGM; and I believe that media can really change the world. It can do exciting things, there are a lot of amazing opportunities. Look at this whole kidsInthehouse thing, it's amazing, but at the same time, the media landscape has changed and kids use media all the time, so there are also a lot of challenges with media, and I feel like it's really important for parents, educators, anyone who is concerned with youth development to understand how media impacts children and how it affects children. That's why I do what I do, and I really believe in the mission of Common Sense Media and understanding media effects and creating great content for children. Outside of all of this, besides being a mom, I love to travel, I love to ski, I like to read, actually on paper, and I like to have face-to-face communication.

Video Categories: ALL PARENTS, Experts, Introductions

The effects of media on childhood development by expert Yalda T. Uhls. Guide for parents and educators on impacts of media.

Transcript

Expert Bio

Yalda T. Uhls, MBA, PhD

Regional Director, Common Sense Media

Yalda T. Uhls, MBA, PhD, is the Regional Director of Common Sense Media, the leading non-profit dedicated to improving the lives of kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in a world of media and technology. Yalda's own research with the Children's Digital Media at UCLA was written about in the New York Times, CNN, Time Magazine, The Huffington Post, and more. As an expert on media’s effects on children, Yalda has been featured on the BBC News, KPCC, the LA Times and many other news outlets. Her awards include UCLA's Psychology in Action Award for excellence in communicating psychological research to audiences beyond academia as well as honorable mention for the National Science Foundation's GSRF. Yalda's former career as a Senior VP at MGM, in film production, informs her perspective that media content has great power to socialize children, to inspire and teach as well as to be used inappropriately. In her talks, she brings her deep knowledge of the latest research about how children ages eight to 18 use media, as well as a realistic understanding of how digital natives use media from her experiences with her two children, ages 10 and 13. Her newest book, Media Moms & Digital Dads: A Fact-Not-Fear Approach to Parenting in the Digital Age will be published in Fall 2015.