Designing Tomorrow

Reddit in Transition: A Two-Year Examination of Social Media Experiences and Evolution

In the past 2 years, Reddit has grown its user base while also increasing the proportion of users who learn important/useful things & decreasing the…

Jul 17 • 

Emily Xing

, 

Yuning Liu

, 

Ravi Iyer

, and 

Nathanael Fast

9

June 2025

Eight Policy Principles to Guide our Relationship with Digital Technology

Policies have enabled cars and airplanes to be used safely. No such policies exist for social media or AI. Progress is being made to fix this…

Published on After Babel • Jun 6

Congratulations to the 2025 Psychology of Technology Dissertation Award Winners

We are thrilled to now announce this year's award winners and honorable mentions, who were selected from our most competitive pool of applicants ever

Jun 4 • 

Nathanael Fast

, 

Juliana Schroeder

, and 

Ravi Iyer

11

April 2025

Social Media Experiences Across Nearly 2 Years Since Launching the Social Media Index

With new data through January 2025, we find that social media use is decreasing, bad experiences are mostly holding steady, and positive experiences are…

Apr 24 • 

Matt Motyl

15

6

Social Media and Politics from 2023-2025

I examine the political identities, extremity, and polarization of US adults across platforms over a 2-year national survey.

Apr 1 • 

Matt Motyl

7

February 2025

January 2025

November 2024

How Social Media Experiences Changed from March 2023 through May 2024

With new data through May 2024, we find that Reddit is increasingly informing users, while X isn’t across 5 survey waves conducted between 2023 & 2024

Nov 18, 2024 • 

Matt Motyl

7

August 2024

Twitter/X Should Stop Incentivizing Fear Speech in the UK

We know enough about the physics of social media to know that an algorithm that optimizes for reposts and comments will increase the risk of violence.

Aug 6, 2024 • 

Ravi Iyer

9

2

How do Polish adults use and experience social media?

X and Facebook users report highest rates of negative experiences in Poland; YouTube users report the most learning experiences

Aug 5, 2024 • 

Matt Motyl

7

1

July 2024

Do people still have meaningful connections on social media?

We examine how people’s connections with others online may have changed over 1 year marked by an influx of AI chatbots & unconnected content

Jul 29, 2024 • 

Matt Motyl

7

May 2024

How Apple, Google, and Microsoft Can Help Parents Protect Children

The case for device-based age verification

Published on After Babel • May 29, 2024