Amber van der Wal is an assistant professor at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR) in the Youth and Media Entertainment group. She is appointed within the interdisciplinary Sectorplan theme The Human Factor in New Technologies, which focuses on the dynamic interplay of technology, society, and values.
Amber's research examines how youth engage with algorithmically curated social media platforms, and how these shape young people’s everyday experiences, emotions, and overall well-being. A central aim of her work is to identify when and for whom social media use is beneficial or harmful, and how platform design and content characteristics can be leveraged to promote positive outcomes. She pursues this research line across several projects, including her NWO Veni project on redirecting social media algorithms to support youth well-being, project AWeSoMe, in which she studies person-specific effects in adolescents’ social media use, and SpaceTeen, a research project that works with teens to develop design interventions that help adolescents regain control over their social media use. In addition, she teaches in the Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD program in Communication Science.