Brief desk

Fast enough for the signal. Slow enough for the evidence.

Short form.
No intellectual shortcuts.

Concise readings of developments with a defensible psychological consequence and an inspectable evidence boundary.

20

6 Oct 2026

2 min

Source-bounded

Too tired to be judged by humans?

Across four experiments, greater social jet lag was linked to stronger preference for AI evaluators, largely through social anxiety — and the effect depended on whether AI was framed as neutral.

social cognition

emotion regulation

sleep arousal

21

6 Oct 2026

2 min

Source-bounded

When the attention economy becomes a child-safety problem

A documentary follows Kristin Bride’s campaign after her son’s death, placing cyberbullying, persuasive platform design and the business model of attention inside the same child-safety argument.

attention

development

social cognition

26

2 Oct 2026

2 min

Source-bounded

Social Media Bans Aren’t Enough to Make Children Safe

Even before France approved legislation banning social media for children under 15 last January, 13-year-old Benjamin was already wondering what life without social media would look like.

identity

36

18 Sep 2026

2 min

Source-bounded

Clinical trials look different on Bluesky and X

An exploratory comparison of more than 14,000 public posts found markedly different communication patterns across the two platforms — a reminder that the medium can shape how medical research reaches people.

social cognition

human factors

identity

37

18 Sep 2026

2 min

Source-bounded

Can machine learning spot student distress in wartime?

A study of 225 university students in Lebanon tested whether machine-learning models could identify depression, anxiety and stress during the 2024 war — with promising internal performance and a clear need for independent validation.

cognition

emotion regulation

stress

human technology interaction

38

16 Sep 2026

2 min

Source-bounded

What age gates can — and cannot — fix about social media

Australia’s under-16 restrictions are reducing account ownership for some young users, but workarounds and privacy trade-offs show why prohibition alone cannot solve the design problem.

attention

development

autonomy

identity

39

20 Aug 2026

6 min

Reported

The inner voice that is no longer only yours

After enough fluent completions, some people notice a stranger’s cadence in thought. That report is phenomenological. Inner-speech science is older, and it does not yet include this residue as a finding.

memory

identity

executive function

43

18 Jul 2026

6 min

Reported

When seeing is no longer enough

As synthetic audio and video fool casual viewers, trust becomes a practised skill — not a default of perception.

perception

social cognition