#OnceASMAHRTieAlwaysASMAHRTie
Our team has had incredible members that have contributed greatly to the research and integrity of the Social Media and Adolescent Health Research Team – and we do not easily forget them! One of these SMAHRT alumnae is Rosalind Koff, who is currently a Survey Director at the NORC independent research institution at the University of Chicago. She served as an undergraduate Research Intern and Graduate Research Associate at SMAHRT and contributed greatly to the work done on the team. Our alumnae have accomplished so much outside of SMAHRT, and Koff is no exception. We are pleased to feature one of her studies completed while with SMAHRT, “Older Adolescents Perceptions of Internet Use” as our Study of the Month, while also showcasing what Koff has achieved after her time with SMAHRT.
How well can we actually quantify our personal internet use? Do we judge this off of assumptions; do we actually quantify the times we spend on our electronics? Koff examined these questions through her study that looked at self-reported internet use; focusing on how often and how long the respondent typically uses the internet each day. As the internet continues to become increasingly pervasive in our daily lives, it becomes a challenge to separate internet use with other parts of our daily lives and/or quantify their own personal internet use. Current perceptions and actual internet use behaviors that are established in older adolescence are likely to follow individuals throughout their adulthood. This is why it is particularly important among the adolescent population to understand their current perceptions and actual behaviors of internet use. Koff’s study found that most users were unable to consistently identify their total estimates of self-reported internet use from their calculated internet use, based on their answers to the questions asked during the study. This is a personal favorite study of Koff’s as this paper hit on everything she loves about the adolescent population and technology, and she was able to use her passion as leverage to conduct this study.
After her time with SMAHRT, Koff started working for a large survey research nonprofit at the University of Chicago where she is still working today. During her first three years at this company, Koff was able to contribute to a variety of different projects through her position as a Survey Operations Analyst. She worked on projects including the National Immunization Survey (CDC), the Survey of Doctorate Recipients (NSF), and U.S. Energy Information Administration (U.S. Department of Energy). Currently, Koff serves as a Survey Director working on the AmeriSpeak Panel, the first U.S. multi-client household panel to combine the speed and cost-effectiveness of panel surveys with enhanced representatives of the U.S. population.
Although Koff’s accomplishments continue to stack up, she still holds a special place in her heart for SMAHRTeam and the SMAHRTies she had to opportunity to work and collaborate with. Koff shared with us that “during my SMAHRT days, my favorite part of work was sitting in our scrum room all together and tossing ideas around to develop new and better practices.” The SMAHRT bond for Koff also reaches far beyond work, as she just recently stood as a bridesmaid in the wedding of a fellow SMAHRT alumna, claiming, “SMAHRTies are colleagues and friends for life!”
After examining all of Koff’s accomplishments, you would assume research has always been her niche; however, she actually never imagined herself in a research career until she took advantage of the research opportunity with SMAHRT. She originally joined as a Communications and Gender Studies double major, and started on the team conducting focus groups with underage college students discussing alcohol advertisements. Once her skillset and responsibilities on the team began to grow, she was motivated to enroll in a graduate program at Georgetown University in Communication, Culture and Technology. Now tackling this role at NORC, she continues to apply the skills she learned with her undergraduate experience at SMAHRT. “When I say that working with Megan [Moreno] changed my life – it really did!”