Even an 'ideal Bayesian' human actor would agree that these chatbots are too sycophantic 🤪 arxiv.org/abs/2602.19141

A Morningstar article cited Professor @veenadubal.bsky.social’s research on “surveillance wages,” describing how employers may use personal data and algorithms to determine the minimum pay a worker is willing to accept. www.morningstar.com/news/marketw...

Mike Males' Substack posts have been very informative regarding the recent social media trials and verdicts. This is one of the only places to look at all the reporting on the courtroom testimony: mikemales.substack.com/p/two-radica...

This was an interesting read that reminded me of my feelings that some academic work done in the past few years about engagement-centered algorithms may need to be updated to engage with the sensitivity exhibited by TikTok's FYP system. irrationaltechnology.substack.com/p/what-the-w...

It’s shocking how the motivation behind almost every single bad tech bill is about hating LGBTQ people and specifically trans people

Here's the thing. I understand the jury's decision today. I understand the folks celebrating the verdict too. I have so much personal disdain for Google and Meta. They are actively undermining our democracy, and selling out our privacy and speech for the bestest billionaire award from Trump.

I don't know how 'new' this is, there was a lot of it with Syria. The new seems more the gen AI side of it.

Great work here as always! This is a really great unpacking of this phenomenon.

FBI is buying location data to track US citizens, director confirms

We review our recent findings on the negative impact of over-estimating social media addiction here, and discuss research-based solutions for users who feel like they overuse social media and may feel “addicted” but don’t meet clinical standards.

"True clinical addiction means more than overuse," @aanixel.bsky.social and Wendy Wood write. https://wapo.st/47jzfyY

I have watched 6 hours of a DOGE bro deposition. The whole thing, start to finish. It's a fascinating, and horrifying, look at the people who caused so much damage, didn't really achieve anything at all, while still being so sure they are right. Here's what they said: www.404media.co/i-watched-6-...

"Companies ought to be regulated better to curb those and other damages. They should also amend their platforms to help users regain control over their habits — say, by allowing users to toggle features such as likes on and off, hide the repost button, or make scrolling finite."

Congressional Republicans Push Bills That Would Block Kids Access To Content For Ideological Reasons Should parents have a right to monitor and control which sites and apps their kids use? Today, parents do have that legal right under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The 1998…

*Help manage* their use 😩

We (myself and Wendy Wood) have one more piece to share on our @springernature.com Scientific Reports paper, this time via the Washington Post! We also discuss how social media users can use habit science to help their use (and how companies should help!). www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

A DHS document obtained by 404 Media shows for the first time CBP used location data sourced from the online advertising industry to track phone locations. ICE has bought access to similar tools. @evystadium.bsky.social reports. Story by @josephcox.bsky.social: www.404media.co/cbp-tapped-i...

I have a piece out in @theguardian.com today on how the internet is becoming a fully surveilled digital panopticon and why we need to fight back with everything we have

1908: the Lancet, one of the most respected scientific journals, calls for 18 age limit on reading in bed amidst a moral panic surrounding children becoming "addicted" to novels, which were "designed to keep kids hooked" and destroy their attention/mental health

The term ‘Artificial Intelligence’ (AI) means many things to many people (see Table 1). (...) One meaning of ‘AI’ that seems often forgotten these days is one that played a crucial role in the birth of cognitive science as an interdiscipline in the 1970s and ’80s." 2/n

Every month the United States provides even more reason to boycott its products and companies — the strikes on Iran being just the latest. In light of that, it’s a great time to ditch the products and services of US tech companies. I made a comprehensive guide to help you.

CALL YOUR CONGRESS PERSON NOW!!!!!! Tell them: — NO to KOSA — NO to Section 230 reform — NO to the SCREEN Act — NO to the App Store Accountability Act —NO age verification laws —NO to digital ID systems

Was great to work with a big team of talented researchers on this paper! And to help apply some interesting network science methods to smartphone sensing data + surveys 😁

🚨New pre-print🚨 osf.io/preprints/ps... What if the relationship between smartphone use and mental health depends not just on specific harmful or beneficial activities, but also on how users transition between activities?

This doesn't seem worth having a Discord account

A landmark lawsuit against Google and Meta went to trial this week. The jury’s verdict will influence the outcome of thousands of similar cases across the country. @madlinbmek.bsky.social on what it all means: on-the-media.visitlink.me/IYc6S1

Had a brief cameo to discuss my research in this episode about the social media addiction trials! Really good listen for those interested in these cases in the US…

We absolutely MUST adopt relegation in American sports. How else can we compete with these levels of haters on a global scale?

In her latest column, @bakerdphd.bsky.social looks at the history of AAU regarding campus free speech. If they took a stance on many key issues today, some status-obsessed public universities would face very difficult membership decisions.

Research finds that people overestimate how many social media users post harmful content--which makes us think the world is worse than it really is. academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

Appreciate this thread--was curious whether the data backed up that narrative and the anecdotal evidence I'd seen from users across social media. Also 100% agree that more transparency is crucial to getting a complete picture of how the ownership change is/isn't impacting the site.

Wrote about a recent study that suggested calling it "social media addiction" can do more harm than social media itself, in that it takes agency away from people, and makes it more difficult to help people who actually have a problem with not being able to put down social media.

As a longtime follower, it’s really cool to see my work covered here! Thank you 🙏🏻

Florida took another step Thursday toward banning all its public universities from hiring foreign workers on H-1B visas. The public comment period on the proposal will last two weeks: www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

There was a paper recently advocating for friction in certain domains…this also seems like a case where more friction would be beneficial…

"Haidt’s claims of inherent harm are not well-founded, and the policy proposals to ban kids entirely from social media are a bad idea. For older teenage boys, having no social media was associated with *worse* outcomes than having too much of it"

For anyone new to the idea that Alt National Parks Service is a grift, @taylorlorenz.bsky.social made a nice little primer about the hijacking of resistance politics by hucksters and charlatans youtu.be/mz3Rf820ozE?...

"Contemporary fascism is simply neoliberalism with its multicultural mask off. We have been heading in this direction since the latter half of the 20th century, at least."

Was fun to speak with @apnews.com's Kaitlyn Huamani about anti-doomscrolling interventions and my work on social media addiction / habits! Full article here: apnews.com/article/soci...

One of the issues that has come up again and again in my reporting on misinformation and social media is the massive influence social media companies have on research in the field. Last night a preprint dropped that tries to get at this with some numbers. My piece in @science.org (and 🧪🧵 coming):

Governments are banning teenagers from social media to cover up officials' failure to confront real crises. It’s wrong, dangerous, and cruel. mikemales.substack.com/p/government...

I am a victim of deepfake porn. The technology has reached ubiquity since I was targeted in 2022. How many more women and girls need to bear their scars to the world before someone with real power in the tech industry stands up for us? (Gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

For many years I've assigned @shuhbillskee.bsky.social 's nice BBC Ideas video on the myth of tech "addiction" www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSNp... - and it has cute animations, students like it. But @taylorlorenz.bsky.social released this interview with @aanixel.bsky.social youtu.be/K-0z0j0QvPI?...

This and the actual paper are both really good. Must-reads.

saw someone recently who was in their feelings about this, but I think it just gets more obviously true every day. www.everythingishorrible.net/p/our-proble...

The only solution is for corporations who manufacture systems that do this and demonstrate no interest in preventing it to be legally on the hook. “Oops” is not a legal defense, and “we tried” isn’t enough. There’s no alternative that makes sense.

“None of these laws actually crack down on Big Tech. Instead, age verification schemes consolidate power among the largest and most powerful tech conglomerates and allow the companies to harvest and profit from even more highly sensitive data from users.“

Was really exciting for me to sit down with @taylorlorenz.bsky.social and discuss my research on her Podcast, Power User! I’ve followed her social media coverage for a long time. Highly recommend watching the full YouTube version below (has visuals from the relevant paper): youtu.be/K-0z0j0QvPI?...

Thanks to the editors @pnas.org for their support! New piece from me, @georgiaturner.bsky.social and @fassiluisa.bsky.social…