"This curriculum is designed to remind you what the internet used to be—and still is. I’ve built it to help you get your digital spark back. After this course, you won’t complain to the algorithm gods anymore, praying for a better feed." offlinecrush.substack.com/p/how-to-use...

As kids learn to do maths operation by hand and only after use a calculator, maybe there is a need for a "barbell strategy". On one side, fully embrace all the AI options, and on the other stick to fundamentals. University may need to focus on the latter. inexactscience.substack.com/p/university...

I link della settimana (#116) open.substack.com/pub/albertoa...

I link della settimana (#115) open.substack.com/pub/albertoa...

While academics and journalists mostly complain about overload, maybe the rest of people just enjoy having access to more information?

Goffman in the digital age www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I link della settimana (#114) open.substack.com/pub/albertoa...

In a - very interesting - documentary about the founding and early years of the Faculty of Sociology in Trento, Renato Curcio (who would later go on to found the Brigate Rosse), then a student, recounts how one of the first student occupations was...

Fully-funded 4-year #PhD in Cultural Evolution! Join my @erc.europa.eu project exploring how compression & compositionality drive cultural innovation: hmc-lab.com/ERCPhDCultur... Apply by Nov 12! Maybe of interest to folks from #COSMOS2025 or @eslr.bsky.social? Please feel free to share! 🙏

I link della settimana (#113) open.substack.com/pub/albertoa...

More null results in relationship between smartphone usage and mood (US adults) www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

I am completely impartial, for a treatment of Dunbar's number and social media you should read the first chapter of "Cultural Evolution in the Digital Age".

Humans are humans on TikTok too.

Call me *associate* professor Acerbi!

Tomorrow I will be in Padova for "Methods and Misconceptions: Refining Methods and Narratives in the Behavioral Sciences" together with Marco Del Giudice.

I link della settimana (#112) open.substack.com/pub/albertoa...

🚨𝗔𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗲𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗵𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗮𝘀𝘁𝘀! www.ehbea2026.com is now live for our 2026 European Human Behaviour & Evolution Association (EHBEA) conference in Leiden (NL🇳🇱) Check for 𝗮𝗯𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻, first 𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 & the [𝗔𝗜]𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸! 🗓️ 14–17 Apr 2026 | CBEN pre-conf 14 Apr 📍Pesthuis #EHBEA2026

“It is precisely because social media has democratised the public sphere that it has contributed to trends liberals (including myself) are so worried about.” 👏 www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/is-social-...

I link della settimana (#111) open.substack.com/pub/albertoa...

Society adapts to technology. Link to Financial Times article: www.ft.com/content/a072...

New preprint! You may have seen Netflix’s Adolescence. It quickly became their most-watched mini-series ever, even prompting roundtable discussions between writers & the Prime Minister. osf.io/preprints/ps...

Here the bsky of the new project I’ve just started working on with @chiara-bonacchi.bsky.social, @zachhorne.bsky.social, and @johnmartindale.bsky.social at the University of Edinburgh! We will investigate, from a cultural evolution perspective, the spread of heritage-based hostility on social media.

Alle 18:30 sarò live qui per un dialogo con il gruppo di lettura di "Tecnopanico" promosso dall'AIB (Associazione Italiana Biblioteche). Tutti benvenuti! www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4a2...

New preprint! "Weapon and Poison: Framing Disinformation in European Commission Speeches, 2016–2024" osf.io/preprints/so...

Updated website with the new Hugo Blox, deploying directly in GitHub, without all the "old" R + blogdown infrastructure. Still need to migrate most of the content, but I did everything in a couple of hours! acerbialberto.com

I link della settimana (#110) open.substack.com/pub/albertoa...

I link della settimana (#109) open.substack.com/pub/albertoa...

This week, it was exciting to host @acerbialberto.com at @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social to launch our @leverhulme.ac.uk-funded *Weaponised Pasts* research project, through three days of teamwork, followed by a kick-off event at @edfuturesinstitute.bsky.social

I link della settimana (#108) open.substack.com/pub/albertoa...

The count down starts for #CESRabat! Follow @ces2026.bsky.social and join us May 11-13 next year for an exciting meeting in Rabat, Morocco. Massive thanks to the #CESRabat organising committee: Sarah Alami (co-chair) Mathieu Charbonneau (co-chair) Zachary Garfield Edmond Seabright

Looking forward to be in Paris for the launch of the CultureLab!

Another great piece showing how some cultural evolution issues speaks core debates in sociology!

Interesting that only a bit more than 10 years ago the idea that internet would *not* have saved the world was controversial enough for a book-length treatment. (Cover of Italian translation of “The net delusion”).

Distributed cognition meets cultural evolution www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

I link della settimana (#107) open.substack.com/pub/albertoa...

Una bella iniziativa dell'Associazione Italiana Biblioteche - AIB. Gruppi online di lettura e discussione con l'autore. A settembre sarà "Tecnopanico" www.aib.it/eventi/bibli...

I link della settimana (#106) open.substack.com/pub/albertoa...

At Brunel I was teaching stats to first-year psychology students in the same building (!) where Alex from Clockwork Orange was "rehabilitated". The joke was writing itself, and I had the feeling nobody was getting it...

I used this to start my first year intro to social sciences lectures, highlighting that intuitions are often wrong, especially when thinking in terms of population, and a bit of playing around with numbers can help (they are sociologists...). It worked so far.

May be a nice little project for cultural analytics students sabrinas.space

We're back! open.substack.com/pub/albertoa...

Great piece reflecting on LLMs as cultural technologies www.programmablemutter.com/p/large-lang...

Glad a more nuanced view of reach and effects of online misinformation is getting mainstream! www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

Good video panel at MUSE Trento: evolution is complicated! www.muse.it

50% of US respondents think that "being abducted" is a "very" or "somewhat" likely outcome of the scenario "Two children, about age 10, are playing at a local park in my town without direct adult supervision"...but the problem is social media! Q503 in theharrispoll.com/wp-content/u...

Finally an interesting attempt to clean up the mess of social learning strategies! I’ll read after holidays :)

Rabat is a beautiful, safe, and cosmopolitan city. Excellent choice for the next @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social and HBES conferences!

New 2 year post-doc position on cultural adaptation in complex environmental management.

Anche Tecnopanico! open.substack.com/pub/guerredi...

EHB commentaries on Baumard and André's "The ecological approach to culture" are growing (see "Commentaries" section at the end). Good. www.sciencedirect.com/journal/evol...