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Social Media
How tweets may influence substance abuse in youth
While social media provides youth the opportunity to discuss and display substance use-related beliefs and behaviors, little is known about how posting or viewing drug-related content influences the beliefs and behaviors of youth relative to substance use.
Language in tweets offers insight into community-level well-being
In a Q&A, researcher Lyle Ungar discusses why counties that frequently use words like ‘love’ aren’t necessarily happier, plus how techniques from this work led to a real-time COVID-19 wellness map.
Use of conservative and social media linked with COVID-19 misinformation
A study of media use and public knowledge has found people who relied on conservative or social media were more likely to be misinformed about how to prevent COVID-19 and believe conspiracy theories about it.
Polarizing tweets by Russian trolls on vaccination targeted groups in 2016
During the 2016 election cycle, politically polarizing tweets about vaccination included pro- and anti-vaccination messages targeted at people with specific political inclinations by Russian trolls using an assortment of fake persona types, according to a recent study.
Viewership soars for misleading tobacco videos on YouTube
Misleading portrayals of the safety of tobacco use are widespread on YouTube, where viewership of popular pro-tobacco videos has soared over the past half-dozen years, according to research by the Annenberg Public Policy Center.
Do smartphones and social media lead to adolescent suicide?
The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s Daniel Romer argues that the tendency to correlate uptick in suicides and social media is not backed by data. Instead, he argues the economic recession may be to blame.
Tweets from Twitter users could predict loneliness
By identifying similar themes across tweets, researchers are uncovering markers that could be used to predict loneliness, something that could lead to depression, heart disease, and dementia.
The culture of coworking spaces
As Penn sociologist David Grazian discovered through hundreds of hours of fieldwork, despite today’s digital work-anywhere economy, having a physical place to conduct business still matters.
#OldBoysClub: Twitter and gender disparities in health services research
A JAMA Internal Medicine study of Twitter users find that female health services and policy researchers had considerably less reach and influence on the social media platform than their male counterparts.
Brevity is the soul of Twitter
A new study from the Annenberg School for Communication finds that the 280-character limit makes Twitter more civil.
In the News
There is one major element missing from the debate on kids and social media
In an opinion essay, PIK Professor Desmond Upton Patton says that gun violence needs to be part of the conversation about how smartphones and social media impact young people.
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AI fake nudes are booming. It’s ruining real teens’ lives
Doctoral candidate Sophie Maddocks in the Annenberg School for Communication says that AI fake nudes are targeting girls and women who aren’t in the public eye.
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Why I’m not expecting my friends to make social media posts about Israel
A study from the Annenberg School for Communication found that people primarily share information on social media that they feel is meaningful to themselves or to the people they know.
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What social media does to the teen brain
Frances Jensen of the Perelman School of Medicine examines the impact that social media is having on the brains of teenagers, the first “truly digital generation.”
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Trump attacked me. Then Musk did. It wasn’t an accident
In an Op-Ed, Yoel Roth of the Annenberg School for Communication says that his experience of public attacks and harassment while working at Twitter was part of a larger, targeted political campaign to erode online safety and strengthen misinformation.
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Trump uses Facebook to fund presidential run, two years after Meta banned him
Andrew Arenge of the School of Arts & Sciences says that higher social media impressions can be a key factor for bringing in waves of cash for political campaigns.
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