Brandon C Davidson

🚨New Preprint Announcement🚨 Social Media Reward Sensitivity and Depressive Symptoms Over Time 🧵 Social media platforms are designed to maximise engagement by amplifying social rewards such as “likes”, and there is widespread concern that these digital designs contribute to mental health declines.

🚨 CALL FOR ABSTRACTS 🚨 1/ We invite proposals for posters and symposia for the New Directions in Social Media Research conference at St John’s College, University of Cambridge (7–8 Dec 2026). We especially welcome future-facing research on how the social world is changing in the digital age.

We’ve updated our pre-print on the effects of AI sycophancy with four additional studies (total n = 7,227). Here is a brief summary of our new findings (🧵1/n):

New preprint from the work of my placement and final year of undergrad! 🚨 We investigated the applicability of normative modelling to large-scale, gamified cognitive data, and explored how corresponding extreme deviations from the norm relate to transdiagnostic compulsivity. osf.io/preprints/ps...

🚨 Does social media use show established neurocognitive signatures of addiction? Concerns about social media addiction are widespread, yet whether platforms' design features actually engage the same neurocognitive pathways as established addictions has remained untested. doi.org/10.31234/osf...

📊 Busy week for the DMH group, with growing attention on the IRL trials exploring social media use and young people. Great to see this work reaching wider audiences 🎙️ (46:25) www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... More: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... www.linkedin.com/feed/update/... #DigitalMentalHealth

🎉 Congratulations to Georgia Turner on successfully passing her PhD viva! Her work brought together cognitive neuroscience and social media research using reinforcement learning, network modelling and ML. We’re delighted she’s staying with the Digital Mental Health Group as a Research Associate. 👏

🎉 Congratulations to @georgiaturner.bsky.social for passing her PhD with flying colours today! A meticulous and truly interdisciplinary piece of work. Thank you also to @lorenzspreen.eurosky.social and Paul Fletcher for acting as examiners 🙌

🚨New pre-print🚨 osf.io/preprints/ps... What if the relationship between smartphone use and mental health depends not just on specific harmful or beneficial activities, but also on how users transition between activities?

My first paper, out in PsychReview!! Along with @orbenamy.bsky.social, Nik & @jaeggiadrian.bsky.social, @realadamhunt.bsky.social & I revisit an old theoretical question using concepts from evo psychiatry and anthro: Why do mixed associations exist b/w social media & mental health? A 🧵

🚨 New Preprint 🚨 Some people are at greater risk of experiencing negative mental health outcomes of social media use than others, but why? 🧵 We examined whether individual differences in cognitive processes shape risk and resilience to mental health effects on social media: osf.io/preprints/ps...

🚨Out now in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social 🚨 We explore the use of cognitive theories/models with real-world data for understanding mental health. We review emerging studies and discuss challenges and opportunities of this approach. With @yaelniv.bsky.social and @eriknook.bsky.social Thread ⬇️

Mental and metabolic health are closely linked - but what drives this connection? In our new theory paper, we (w/ @camillanord.bsky.social & @hugofleming.bsky.social g.bsky.social) propose dysregulation of interoceptive energy allostasis as a key mechanism. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧵 1/n

Check out @bcdavidson.bsky.social's preprint (w/ @georgiaturner.bsky.social @orbenamy.bsky.social @livia-tomova.bsky.social and co.) about the (computational) consequences of social isolation in social media use during covid!

Great time in London watching intern @sineadcleary.bsky.social and research assistant Brandon Davidson give a fantastic presentation to the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology - what superstars I get to work with!

I'm hiring 2+ 2.5-year postdocs over the next few months. Job 1: looking for someone with deep expertise in computational modelling (reinforcement learning, agent based modelling) on real-world/complex data (closing: 18 August, starting: October-December), www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/52059/

Absolutely thrilled to have been awarded an 8-year Wellcome Career Development Award to investigate how loneliness affects young people's brains and minds!! Grateful for the support and excited for the road ahead! @wellcometrust.bsky.social www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/29...

🚨New preprint 🚨 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐬: 𝐀 𝐋𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞-𝐒𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐜𝐫𝐨-𝐍𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐲 osf.io/preprints/ps... 🧵 Using a novel micro-narrative method, we collected ~ 900 first-person accounts of social media harms from young people across the UK and US.

My undergraduate project has finally been preprinted! We explore how cognitive development as early as age 3 acts as a mediating pathway for the association of genes with academic achievement into adolescence. Huge thanks to my incredible team of collaborators for their support.

PLEASE SHARE: The second (and final) application cycle for the Improving Research Community Builder Awards is now open! Find out more here: www.orben.group/improving-re... Deadline: 14 January 2025