Paulo Dias

Paulo C. Dias, Psychologist, with master degree in Educational Sciences and PhD in Health Psychology. He started his career as School Psychologist (at Colégio das Caldinhas: 2004-2006 and FORAVE – 2008), having the opportunity to collaborate with Higher Education institutions as Professor and Researcher. As professor he is Auxiliar Professor and Coordinator of Psychology course at the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences of the Catholic University of Portugal and directs the research group regarding Developmental Pathways and Life Context at the Center of Philosophical and Humanistic Studies. Since 2009 he has been involved in several National and European funded research in educational field (project GENIUS, about plagiarism in secondary schools, during 2011-13; and project SCENE, about project-based learning in secondary schools, from 2012-14) and in health and addictions (at the project European Network on Exchange Early Detection Drug-consumption, 2009-10; in a national project regarding alcohol prevention in adolescence, 2012-15; and actually at the "European implementation of the Cannabis Abuse Prevention Program for Young Consumers and evaluation of their results using a scale measuring attitudes towards drug use", 2014-16). During this period, outputs have been published in national and international journals. 

In recent years, it has been discussed a lot about the role of social networks and the Internet in adolescents, especially the way they relate to themselves and to the peer group. For some authors, these tools are a means to maintain daily contact with peers and / or couples who live together every day (also called off-line contacts), or a way to make new contacts and friends (contacts on-line); others authors have studied potential risk behaviors. In this line, our goal is to present and analyze the state of research on the influence of social networks on the behavior of adolescents, analyzing the predictive role of emotions in the use and abuse of the Internet, the use of APPs and social media among underage, as well as the impact of social networks in abusive situations as cyberbullying. From these arguments, we present and discuss some implications of social networks and internet on education and prevention, and new lines of future research.