Works the other way around too. “If I was Jonathan Haidt, how would I destroy the next generation?”

Haidt's Google Scholar profile reveals one (1) peer-reviewed paper on social media use and mental health and one (1) paper on technology use and loneliness since 2015. He is not the lead author on a single paper in the area for which he claims expertise. The word for that is: charlatan.

This encapsulates what’s been making me anxious lately (from www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...)

Is social media dying? How much has Twitter changed as it became X? Which party now dominates the conversation? Using nationally representative ANES data from 2020 & 2024, I map how the U.S. social media landscape has transformed. Here are the key take-aways 🧵 arxiv.org/abs/2510.25417

Anyone aware of resources (blogs, articles, etc) that estimate/simulate power for DiD with staggered adoption estimators (e.g., Callaway and Sant'Anna)? Bat signal @stephenjwild.bsky.social

When it comes to screens, everyone seems to have an opinion - but how much of what we hear is actually true? Episode 7 of Screen Sense is out now, and we take on some of the most common myths and misconceptions around screen time: screensensepodcast.substack.com/p/episode-7-...

Is it a hot take to say: If you have control variables in your analysis, you are doing causal inference, whether you realize it or not

Happy to share my new study, publ. in Social Science Research 🎉 Bottom line: Yes, adolescents use their phones a lot 🤳 But I find no support for the notion that this use displaces reading, homework, hobbies, physical act., sleep... Instead: Changing media preferences 📺 ->📱. doi.org/10.1016/j.ss...

Episode 4 of Screen Sense is out now! This week, we explore why our public conversations about tech often get stuck in fear, and how we might move toward more helpful ways of thinking and talking about screens, wellbeing and family life: screensensepodcast.substack.com/p/episode-4-...

New in JCMC with @bronwynec.bsky.social: People who feel more in control of their social media use tend to use it less and report better well-being. Seeing social media as positive was associated with more use, but not well-being. 👉 doi.org/10.1093/jcmc...

Here’s a screenshot of the “addictive use” trajectories from the JAMA paper cited below. My educated guess from the details of the measure is that none of these lines comes close to bona fide “addictive” use 🧵

Screen Sense: Parenting in a Digital World, the new podcast from @shuhbillskee.bsky.social and I - first episode is now live. We hope you enjoy it. open.substack.com/pub/screense...

Not sure if science has advanced this far yet to answer this question, but here goes: Why the hell do my plastic plates/cups NEVER dry out in the dishwasher?

🎙️Screen Sense - new podcast with me and @shuhbillskee.bsky.social, is launching next week! Two psychologists (and dads) talking honestly about what it means to raise a family in a screen-filled world - with science, real stories and zero guilt. Launching 13th June. screensensepodcast.substack.com

Scientists like to blame poorly communicated results on science journalists. This case shows the double standard: 1. When I exaggerate, it's a joke. When you do, it's 'misinformation'. 2. JvB's own tweets about the project didn't explain the methods, highlighted preliminary vibe check results.

New article by @cathleenogrady.bsky.social on the social media 'consensus' characterises the preprint as a failure of science communication — because many got the impression the consensus was much stronger than it is. www.science.org/content/arti...

As someone who is actually on this paper, this critique (and many others) is absolutely spot-on. I can't speak for other authors, but this process has left me with far more questions than answers. The gap between what the data say and how it's being framed publicly is...notable to say the least.

It's been a disappointing week. www.science.org/content/arti...

Amidst all of this, @jacobtfisher.online & I have a new paper in @jmp-hogrefe.bsky.social! We discuss theoretical, methodological, & practical concerns with the media multitasking (MMT) index & lay out an agenda for better research on MMT 📄 doi.org/10.1027/1864... 📝 OA osf.io/preprints/ps...

Addendum: The graph that is being shared on social media (Figure 2) is from Survey 1 before the Delphi method. The Survey 4 result is in the supplement. I changed that graph a little so a) the claims aren't abbreviated b) people who skipped claims are shown c) claims are ordered by agreement

If you’re going to @psychscience.bsky.social conference this weekend in DC, I’ll be talking about this paper on Sat. at 1pm in a symposium called “The Relationship Between Social Media and Mental Health: It's Complicated, Or Is it?” Hope to see you there! #APS25DC

Who's going to be a APS this weekend? Got stuff you are excited about presenting? Know of stuff you are excited to go see! Let me know, reply here with it, I'll repost it! Let's get some chatter going! Keep science going!

If I am reading this correctly, this version with a rational x-axis provides evidence for a different conclusion than the paper seems to offer: A (slight) majority of experts say that there is any evidence at all for only one of the 26 claims investigated. bsky.app/profile/rube...

New post: I was curious about the consensus statement on social media effect and wondered how the sausage gets made. rubenarslan.github.io/posts/2025-0...

Article by Darren Laur explores the recent false "consensus" paper on social media, how it got "hacked" to support a moral panic, and how it sowed hard feelings rather than clarity: thewhitehatter.ca/blog/youth-t...

Are smartphones and social media harmful to teenagers? The evidence is mixed, but a group of researchers have published a paper attempting to reach a consensus view. The trouble is, a bunch of other researchers disagree with their consensus www.newscientist.com/article/2480...

Yep. And here is Exhibit A:

We’re back to the “hundreds of psychological studies cannot all be wrong, educate yourself”-stage of discourse. I recommend that onlookers to this discourse pick some of the cited studies & see how compelling they find them, wrt causal identification & strength of statistical evidence.>

My prediction based on this thread: This will be a learning moment for psychologists on how to NOT reach consensus. There is a reason other fields use better procedures, and take longer. I will just wait for the 80 author commentary disagreeing with all points of the first group 🍿

I thought about this a little more (and looked at supplement S5). I think it's important to note that the point of a consensus statement is not the details in the supplement. The point is the graph which is being widely shared. But it is interesting to check out what they buried:

I wonder how much of the list of authors represents both sampling bias and differential non-response.

Solid thread by @ruben.the100.ci. Scroll up and down

Take one look at how climate scientists have tried to ensure their measurements taken over time are comparable, to refine measurement of temperature, to cross-verify using related records (tree rings, ice cores etc). What does psychology/psychiatry have?

Nonsense. 97% of climate scientists agree (1) global warming is real & (2) humans are main cause. For Jay’s analogy to apply, 97% of experts would have to agree that (1) there’s a global youth MH pandemic & (2) phones are the main cause. Jay’s study is not even close to that level of consensus

While the 'belief' plot draws attention, the core message of the final, deliberative consensus statements is that evidence linking smartphone and social media use to negative outcomes is limited, mixed, context-dependent, insufficient to support causal claims, and better research is needed.

Coming in at #2 of all downloaded articles, is "Social media and youth mental health: Simple narratives produce biased interpretations" by @cjsewall9.bsky.social and @dougaparry.bsky.social Congrats Craig and Doug! 2/ psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-...

A fun privilege of editing an @apajournals.bsky.social journal is they send you a list of the most downloaded articles each year! Here are some notables. I'll start with new 2024 articles in the top 20 then move to classics. There were 4 2024 articles in the top 20, most are much older. 1/

Like many people I was absolutely appalled by the Times article accusing Dr Amy Orben of bias today. Amy is a paragon of how to conduct robust, open and transparent research. I won’t link to the article b/c it doesn’t deserve the oxygen, but we absolutely need to take the heat out of this debate.

Utterly ridiculous smearing of Amy Orben. Apparently following evidence, rather than just going with what you reckon, gets you accused of bias these days www.thetimes.com/uk/technolog...

It is 2002. I am 18 years old. We are in a once-in-a-generation economic crisis. It is 2008. I am 24 years old. We are in a once-in-a-generation economic crisis. It is 2020. I am 36 years old. We are in a once-in-a-generation economic crisis. It is 2025. I am 41 years old. We are in a—

The entire business model of American R1 universities is not viable without restoration of federal funding, & every individual institution pretending it can solve this problem alone is also not viable. University presidents need to be speaking out, collectively & loudly about this, in DC, right now.

People *should* see the results of this study and conclude that maybe it’s not the phones and we need to focus our interventions on helping families. But the Haidt et all crowd will of course conclude that school bans aren’t going far enough and we need to make it a comprehensive age ban

New study backs up what a lot of us have been saying for a while now: smartphone bans in school aren't a magic fix for everything we're worrying about. It's time to start seriously thinking about how we build better digital literacy skills: www.theguardian.com/education/20...

I have just been sent a shareable link so this article can be accessed for free: www.wsj.com/health/welln...

Digital psychiatry is an exciting field and includes efforts to enhance diagnosis and monitoring of mental illness using passive sensing (eg smartphone sensors). But the literature is rife with small N studies focusing on single diagnoses. That's a huge problem for two reasons... 1/

The terrible fact of life in the U.S. is that families and friends are generally far more dangerous to children and teens than strangers and technology are. newrepublic.com/article/1903...

My reckless speculation is that this was done as an act of protest by insiders at Meta. Perhaps to drive people away from the platforms. Or to alert people to Meta’s intentions to censor/manipulate info in a much more subtle way in the future.

Does anyone else find this suspicious in how heavy-handed/blatantly obvious it is? They could have made it much more subtle, to the point where you don’t realize things are being censored. This is just begging to be noticed.