A fun challenge to lead this project throughout my PhD! So grateful to my colleagues for making this happen 🚀

This is how many folks treat Disney Studies—the literal Mickey Mouse degrees—right now. Popular media is one of the most powerful and influential forces on the planet, yet it is so often viewed as unimportant. You can't understand how the world works unless you understand how Mickey Mouse works.

"the colleges that dominate the headlines are not the colleges that most Americans attend their core mission: to serve students from all backgrounds, at a price families can actually afford, prepare graduates for real careers and meaningful lives." www.geneseo.edu/enrollment-m...

BREAKING: For the 11th time, Republicans have blocked Democrats from paying TSA. Republicans have been given ELEVEN chances to send TSA agents their paychecks, but they refuse.

Hey y'all! Very pleased to announce that we'll be hosting Communication Science Futures again in East Lansing later this year. The conference in 2024 was a blast, and we're looking forward to running it back! Keynote speaker: James Pennebaker Submission deadline: June 5th. → commscifutures.com

🚨 New Preprint Alert 🚨 Communication science has no shortage of data. But what do we do with all of it? Experience sampling, sensors, digital trace, location aware observations are growing in popularity and scale.

1/ 🧵PROCESS Model 4 is the wrong tool to test mediation in an experiment. The c’ path turns prediction into description and prevents falsification. New preprint with @chriscarpenter.bsky.social and @beccafraz.bsky.social at osf.io/preprints/ps... explains why.

Columbia student detained today is a day-in-the-life influencer with 100K followers. Her stories right now go from her studying for a Genetics exam in a nicely edited "ten hour study with me at Columbia" video, to a photo of her knees with the caption "dhs illegally arrested me please help"

New preprint with @psmaldino.bsky.social on the evolution of similarity-biased learning: osf.io/preprints/so... This mathematical treatment both simplifies and extends our previous simulation treatment of the subject: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Excited to share our latest work in Acta Psychologica (with @mattgrizz.bsky.social and Emily Moyer-Guse) on the influence of character depth on affective disposition processes (ADT) across five unfolding acts of a story (pre-registered). Results show... (1/2) authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

I'm a Nordic model social democrat because well it's proven to work in several countries with decades of evidence. Maybe we should tax the rich and provide services. Just an idea.

Anyone currently involved in federal immigration enforcement, every officer, every bureaucrat, every lawyer, every judge, is a member of the most evil group of people this country has seen since Reconstruction. Darkness personified, every one. Doing this to children is beyond depraved.

Depressed? Anxious? Lonely? What if mental health doesn’t just result from media use, but shapes how we choose media? In a new preprint, Valerie Klein, @gongxuanjun.bsky.social @aeden.bsky.social and I and I test this using a computational decision-making model: doi.org/10.21203/rs.... 🧵Thread

honestly respect for the ad that’s just like “pokemon are cool.” they are cool

Alex Pretti was a colleague at the VA. We hired him to recruit for our trial. He became an ICU nurse- I lover working with him. He was a good kind person who lived to help and these fuckers executed him. White. Hot. Rage.

The worse content makes us feel, the more likely we are to keep consuming it. Our brains prioritize negative and exciting content, especially when we’re in a bad mood. Curiosity offers a way out by nudging us toward new, more rewarding, choices. lettersandsciencemag.ucdavis.edu/rage-bait-cu...

Are you a doctoral student exploring the social dynamics of the internet and digital technologies? Applications are now open for the Oxford Internet Institute's Summer Doctoral Programme (SDP) 2026! Learn more and apply: www.oii.ox.ac.uk/study/summer...

goddamnit, your email found me.

Postdoc Opportunity at Northwestern University! Check this out. Apply by Jan 16, 2026👉[email protected]

NSF is about to dismantle NCAR at Russell Vought's direction to protect the fossil fuel industry. It's hard to communicate just how much NCAR does, so let's take a look: I've never worked at NCAR, and I've worked with NCAR researchers once ever. What scientific discoveries has NCAR made possible? 👇

Very excited about this project introducing an integrative character-based network framework predicting success of novels and films. Idea and analysis credit to @gongxuanjun.bsky.social, with big thanks for including me, @fhopp.bsky.social @mattgrizz.bsky.social and Anna Wolfe. More info here:

Haidt is "stunned" that ChatGPT asked how it would threaten youth reveals that its plan would be what Haidt has argued in his books. The secret plan! There should be some way to rescind the doctorate of any commentator on digital media who interprets ChatGPT output like this. I am not joking.

Northeastern University is hiring an Assistant Professor in AI Policy and Media. The tenure home would be either Communication Studies or Journalism, with a joint appointment with the policy school. Please apply and be my colleague :) northeastern.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/careers/job/...

Out now in Scientific Reports! Despite high correlations, ChatGPT models failed to replicate human moral judgments. We propose tests beyond correlation to compare LLM data and human data. With @mattgrizz.bsky.social @andyluttrell.bsky.social @chasmonge.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I am super excited to see the #CommSky community at NCA 2025! Stay updated with an NCA feed here: bsky.app/profile/did:... You can be featured by simply including these hashtags in your posts: #NCA25 #NCA2025

📣 Digital Research Community! The new UK Adolescent Health Study will follow 100k young people (8–18yrs) for 10+ years. Please share what digital technology measures you think it should include. Please complete this survey (by 24th November 2025 @ 9AM): cambridge.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

🚨Out in PNAS🚨 Examining news on 7 platforms: 1)Right-leaning platforms=lower quality news 2)Echo-platforms: Right-leaning news gets more engagement on right-leaning platforms, vice-versa for left-leaning 3)Low-quality news gets more engagement EVERYWHERE - even BlueSky! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

POSTDOC POSITION in social psychology at Cornell @cornellpsych.bsky.social! We will begin reviewing apps Dec 1st. Please repost! academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/31185 @spspnews.bsky.social @spspsc.bsky.social @aplssc.bsky.social @spssi.bsky.social @psychscience.bsky.social

Very happy to update the {traktok} #rstats readme. After 1.5 years, you can finally search TikTok again without access to the Research API. It's slow and a bit clunky, but it works! Thanks, @michaelgoodier.bsky.social for the crucial hint!

Excellent job inviting these technologies into our campuses to work closely with vulnerable young people, university administrators and edtech people. BRAVO. apnews.com/article/open...

Two great scholars doing work on moral (@drmeltemyucel.bsky.social) & personality (@tedmond.bsky.social) development & change are recruiting PhD students this year @msupsychology.bsky.social! Your grad office could be across the hall from my office!* *not necessarily a selling point, just a fact

Great discussion with @saramgrady.bsky.social on the value of studying entertainment!

We say we want uplifting media, but our revealed preferences tell another story. We often pick darker, more intense content. This @npr.org piece covers our lab’s research on why, and includes great advice from @aeden.bsky.social on building intentional media habits.

All I want in life is to persuade everyone, when encountering politics & culture, to ask, "why are we talking about this?" I mean that very literally: anything you encounter on your screens reflects a choice. Someone covered that, talked about that, rather than the many other things out there. Why?

SIPS community members worked through the years to develop many resources that help to improve psychological sciences. We gathered them all, so you can find everything you need in one place. buff.ly/QIX07s3

The Moral Psychology Research Group will host an Online Gathering this fall November -- all are welcome! Speakers include Joshua Greene, Meltem Yucel, and Paul Bloom as inaugural recipient of the The Stephen P. Stich Award for Career Achievement in Moral Psychology sites.google.com/view/mprg/on...

Join us for RCGD's public seminar series on the Science of Social Relationships. Don't miss @Jaimiekrems.bsky.social Monday to speak on the science and study of FRIENDSHIP: buff.ly/92KtRNS

I am recruiting PhD students this year! Our research group is holding an info session in a few weeks - details are at blog.communitydata.science/prospective-... , including a sign-up link.

Excited to present our new work reading minds! Ok, not *that* kind of mind reading, but we have created a deep learning method capable of using single neuron recordings from people watching episodes of TV that can predict when they recall specific memories from the episode. 1/6

What happens when digital media, algorithms, and misinformation collide? A new Journal of Media Psychology special issue, co-edited by me, @hjhether.bsky.social, and @soojongkim.bsky.social, features seven articles on information integrity in today’s media ecosystem econtent.hogrefe.com/toc/zmp/37/5

📣 New preprint from the SCIMaP team! Across three studies, we show that communicating the economic impact of NIH funding cuts—especially with interactive quizzes and maps—decreases approval and motivates action to oppose the cuts, across the political spectrum. 🧵 1/8 osf.io/preprints/ps...

Without the flexible scheduling of community college I wouldn’t have been able to complete the first step of my academic career. Great @nytimes.com article about how recent ed challenges affect CC and hurt communities and people who depend on them.

🚨We are recruiting a lab manager who will spend 80% of their effort in my lab and 20% of their effort in @leorhackel.bsky.social's lab. Please share widely! Apply at usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-ange... with: completed questionnaire (socolab.org/lab-manager-application), CV & Cover Letter!

A while ago, we started a #FixItFriday tradition. We keep a running list - large & small, digital & analog, anything broken or annoying - and work on it together. Today's 30-second fix: to remove AI "preview" from search results, here's the setting for Chrome users: www.reddit.com/r/techsuppor...

If you won't believe me, here's Paul musgrave.substack.com/p/at-the-coa...

I'm preparing a public talk on the impact of digital technology on attention, and whether there is any evidence behind 'brain rot' (and help the public understand that researchers need public funds and support to work on this issue!). #cogsci, what message would you want the public to hear on this?

Happy Murderbot renewal day!!! www.theverge.com/news/704047/...

This @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social video is absolutely INCREDIBLE. The numbers he cites, the strategy and results they produced — it’s the future. When have you heard *any* campaign talk about this, ever? (Video split in 2 to fit in Bluesky’s limits)