A blog about human brains and behavior for students of psychology.
Of all the questions you might ask about pornography, “why do people watch it?” isn’t necessarily the first that comes to mind. That part seems relatively self-explanatory. But psychologists like to go beyond the obvious in understanding human behavior –
From Zoom happy hours to remote learning, one thing most of us have discovered this year is that doing something “virtually” isn’t always as good as the real, in-person thing. But does that hold true for therapy? Even before the
Some day soon, the Olympic Games may have video games on the schedule. “But video games aren’t a real sport,” you cry. And yet, besides the obvious analogy between video games and traditional sports in terms of competitive skill, a
Something you never hear anyone say is “children these days don’t watch enough TV.” Indeed, a 2017 report found the average child in the US who is 8 years old or less has more than two hours of screen time
Today, things are going to get a little meta. I’m going to write about a scientific study about writing about scientific studies. The basic question up for investigation is: why do the results of scientific studies on health-related topics so
Social media has facilitated both new ways of connecting with others and new ways of tallying how our lives stack up against theirs. In the twenty-first century, keeping up with the Joneses has become keeping up with the hundreds of
Spend much time on the internet, and you’ll see that online comment sections can easily degenerate into a swirling, toxic stew of humanity’s worst impulses. Which makes them a perfect subject of study for psychologists. A new study in the
I’m not going to bother telling you not to use your phone before bed. Partly because you’ve probably heard that advice before, and partly because it would be hypocritical of me to do so! But I am going to highlight
In my last post, I talked about how children in neighborhoods with faster internet apparently evaluate their lives more negatively. That study is one of several that has explored a possible link between internet use and mental health risk. One
Who wouldn’t want a faster internet connection? Kids who want to feel good about their lives, maybe. A new analysis of data from 6,300 children carried about by researchers at University of Sheffield has come up with the finding that
