Father of twins | Husband | Postdoctoral Fellow @PittPsychiatry | Clinical Social Worker | Leveraging tech & computational modeling to predict suicidality
May 25 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
The timing of the rise in U.S. teen mental health problems coincides with huge changes in healthcare & health insurance. I lay out the case in full on my blog (link in bio!). But follow along below for a shortened, X-friendly version 🧵
The gif above shows how the timing of various healthcare-related changes lines up w/ the trends in teen MH problems. The lines show the rate of ER visits for self-harm (solid lines, left-axis) and reported depression (dashed lines, right-axis).
Jan 27, 2022 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Our paper examining the prospective effects b/w digital tech use & psychological distress has been accepted at Clinical Psychological Science!
Overall, we found little to no evidence that fluctuations in digital tech use impacts psych distress.
🧵 1/x psyarxiv.com/ucsh6/
We addressed critical gaps on this topic by 1) using digital trace data, 2) examining effects b/w diff aspects of tech use (smartphone use duration & frequency; SM use) & psych distress (depression, anxiety, social isolation), & 3) testing w/in-person prospective effects.
2/x
Nov 21, 2021 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
Most studies in this area used self-reported SM use, which is notoriously flawed. So there's no way we can claim the evidence is "strong" b/c we can't even be sure we've been accurately measuring SM use. What do these effects look like if you use more accurate measures?
🧵 1/n
Usage loggers (e.g. "Screen Time" app) are a great way to get good data on SM use b/c it doesn't rely on people guesstimating how much time they spend on SM--which is really difficult (& inaccurate) b/c SM use tends to be very frequent/habituated. 2/n nature.com/articles/s4156…
Apr 21, 2020 • 9 tweets • 5 min read
Interesting to read @jean_twenge's critique of @OrbenAmy & @ShuhBillSkee's work (tinyurl.com/y75zg5dt) recently published in Nature. Although Twenge et al touch on the importance of how we measure digital tech use (DTU), I think the issue deserves more attention [1/9]
Twenge et al title their critique “Underestimating digital media harm.” But it’s the base of that first word (ESTIMATE) and how it relates to measurement that has important implications for the findings in this field. Most studies examining the link b/w DTU and well-being…[2/9]
