The Metropolitan police "needs to do things differently" after the August riots, assistant commissioner Lynne Owens told the Reading the Riots conference.

She was speaking at an event to discuss Guardian and LSE research that spoke to more than 270 people who took part in the riots. Owens, who is in charge of the Met's public order policing, told delegates attending a panel discussion on policing the unrest: "We said some time ago that it was really important there was calm, considered reaction to the riots rather than knee-jerk reaction … and to that extent we really welcome the research by the LSE and the Guardian.

"I've got seven streams of work looking at areas where we could and should have done things differently," she said, citing public order policing, social media use and the force's relationship with the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Owens also tackled criticism of the force's use of stop and search, after the home secretary Theresa May announced a review by the Association of Chief Police Officers into use of the controversial power.

The Reading the Riots research found young people involved in the disorder were eight times more likely than the average Londoner to have been stopped and searched in the past 12 months.

"It is not as simple as stop and search is good or stop and search is bad," said Owens. "The reality is stop and search is a really effective and essential tool for us in stopping some of the most horrible crimes in our communities."

Owens said 75% of people who responded to a police survey after the riots said they supported stop and search as a tactic, but had concerns about how it was carried out.

"The [Met] Commissioner had already taken a position that he wanted us to be doing more in respect to gangs in London, and part of that work was getting more engagement on stop and search with communities in London."She also tackled criticism of the Met's attitude to Twitter. It emerged in the days following the riots that the acting commissioner had considered looking into shutting the service down. Later research confirmed it had played very little role.

"We've been very slow on social media, we're still quite a traditional service," she said. "In fact, we're still not wholly up to speed in using social media as an intelligence tool, an investigative tool and most importantly as an engagement tool."

Speaking on the same panel, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said she had "serious concerns" about how the police and IPCC communicated with each other and communities after the riots, and felt there should be "significant reforms".

She moved on to response speed. "In Tottenham, when police were unable to stop people burning a car, they [rioters] burned a bus ... When no-one stopped that, the situation escalated. The police need to be able to gather very fast, and that raises questions as to the number of police officers we need. This is the wrong time to be cutting 16,000 police officers."

Cooper said she was concerned about disintegrating relations between police and young people, and said this would be examined by Lord Stevens's review, which Labour launched last week.

"We have to give attention to testimony from people who were not involved in the riots, not involved in the violence, who also raised concerns, for example about the use of stop and search and what the relationship should be between police and young people. That's why we've launched our policing review with Lord Stevens."