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Jay Van Bavel, PhD
@jayvanbavel
Psychology Prof @NYUPsych | Author of @PowerOfUsBook (powerofus.substack.com) | Director of NYU Center for Conflict & Cooper | Keynote Speaker @TheLavinAgency
New York, NY
Joined April 2011
Posts
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    A small fraction of online actors now exerts outsized influence over what the public sees, believes, and argues about. In a new short review paper, we trace how social media influencers can turn fringe claims into viral narratives—often by exploiting a feedback loop between
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    Explaining genetics through gummybears
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    Van Gogh's starry night with the first image taken from the James Webb Telescope
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    I had to teach my Introduction to Psychology class today to 300+ students from my cell phone while I was trapped in my apartment building elevator with my two young kids. This has to go down as my most surreal and stressful teaching experience.
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    We are living through an unprecedented use of the term “unprecedented”
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    Academic twitter illustrated:
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    Questions at academic conferences:
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    “My desire to be well-informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane.”
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    43% of White students at Harvard are legacy, athletes, related to donors or staff. All the universities making social media statements today should end legacy admissions tomorrow.
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    Replying to @jayvanbavel
    Postscript: Why didn't I cancel my class? I don't know. It all seemed weirdly normal in the moment. Each step just seemed to logically follow the prior step. As I type it all out, I am now deeply aware of how absurd this was. I will not be teaching in elevators in the future.
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    One of my favorite lessons from neuroscience: When you start something new, it feels like a struggle and requires your entire focus to figure out. But as you get better, it gets easier and you need far less brain power. Things become automatic and you can dedicate your brain to
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    We recently studied social media & COVID vaccine hesitancy. Joe Rogan's Twitter followers were extremely distrustful of vaccines: only 27% of his followers planned to get vaccinated. Amplifying conspiracies on podcasts & social media has consequences. academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/arti…
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    New research finds that Twitter’s recommendation algorithm amplifies anger, outgroup hostility, and affective polarization arxiv.org/abs/2305.16941 This is a good reason to ignore the recommended Tweets.
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    I like to call this "the new idea problem":