Preprinted! Been working on this for ~1 year w wonderful coauthors Nancy & Mark: > Understanding Artificial Neural Networks: Mysterianism about Known Mechanism is Mysticism doi.org/10.5281/zeno... Have you noticed many experts say they don't understand AI? What's going on? 🤯 Let us tell you... 1/

This is a really great, research-based summary of the attention span “shrinking” effect related to technology and discusses how and why this effect often gets overstated, plus some reasons for optimism about reversing its undesirable impacts www.nature.com/articles/d41...

One of the most clarifying passages I've ever read on what "polarization" actually means in the U.S."

I have been proud to work with the Southern Poverty Law Center since 2003 in their efforts to counter anti-trans narratives in academia and media. Check out their latest piece on the “ex-transgender” movement. www.splcenter.org/resources/ha...

Yikes. What are the odds we hit a point where universities and/or academic journals try to pull something like this?

One thing chatting with journalist unions have taught me is that management doesn't care about the quality of the news product. Nor do they actual care about respecting actual journalists, it seems.

New preprint alert 🚨 ! Check out the full thread below 👇

New preprint out -- the first from my postdoc work @caltech.edu -- excited to share this interdisciplinary collaboration that combines Reddit, Online Chat, and fMRI data! Thanks also to the rest of our team @ketikagarg.bsky.social, Bo Zhang (no Bluesky), and @pandascholar.bsky.social!

We have a new preprint that underscores some key claims here: even if one *can* design an agent that gets through a survey fine, it doesn't follow that such agents are undetectable or common. We find that they are far from common! Preprint link in thread👇

Really interesting--p. 7 stood out to me. "Across all three platforms, most teen users say it neither hurts nor helps their mental health...We asked parents how social media overall impacts their teen: About a quarter say they hurt their teen’s mental health, compared with 8% who say they help."

Meta employees will be clicking the “speak to a real person” button repeatedly for 5-10 mins so they can get feedback from their manager instead of the Zuck AI agent 😂😭 www.fastcompany.com/91526258/met...

"Of the known factors driving teenagers’ problems, parental abuses/adversities were associated with two-thirds of teens’ poor mental health, 84% of teens’ opiate abuse, and 89% of teens’ suicide attempts." -- CDC Report mikemales.substack.com/p/our-top-he...

Nice review of key evidence (and what's missing) related to teen social media bans from @orbenamy.bsky.social and the digital mental health group in Cambridge. If you're looking for a trustworthy report, this is a great high-level starting point! www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/d0b4c5...

"𝗪𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗼𝗯𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝗮 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝘆𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗯𝘂𝗹𝗹𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗲-𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗴𝗲-𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝘀 across the platforms in January and February 2026 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱." -Australian eSafety compliance www.esafety.gov.au/sites/defaul...

You'd do well to read this story - and particularly the tone and tenor of the right to replies in brackets throughout www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

"His loss is felt deeply not only by those who knew him here at the University, but also everyone who understands his potential to have contributed to breakthroughs in science that would have positively impacted people around the world." -Dean of Engineering Karen Thole

We've been worrying about UX patterns that train users into dangerous behaviors for a while, but they weren't exploited often. Alas, it looks like it was just because there was lower-hanging fruit. We've been improving auth stories, so now targeted phishing is moving to looking like innocent UX.

Yep, the way it's set up legally in the US, u can't regulate design in a restrictive manner without risking speech--disentangling the two isn't possible. Design isn't totally neutral/unproblematic either...but coming at the tech regulation process this way is dangerous, as Taylor & Mike point out.

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.