News
News
Are two heads better than one? Or do too many cooks spoil the broth?
Can we predict whether a team of interacting individuals will outperform a group of individuals working alone? In their new paper “Task complexity moderates group synergy,” Abdullah Almaatouq and Duncan Watts, along with co-authors Mohammed Alsobay and Ming Yin,...
Empirica one of six software tools to be awarded SAGE Concept Grants
SAGE Publishing has issued the following press release announcing the winners of its 2021 Concept Grants. London, UK (August 10, 2021) — Six innovative software tools benefitting the social and behavioral sciences will receive SAGE Publishing’s 2021 SAGE Concept...
YouTube radicalization—or lack thereof—in the spotlight
Homa Hosseinmardi et al.'s most recent paper, “Examining the consumption of radical content on YouTube,” has been featured on Ars Technica. Read their coverage of the article here. The paper was also mentioned in an interview with YouTube’s chief product officer, Neal...
Is the algorithm to blame? Research on YouTube radicalization says not quite
The past two election cycles have drawn new attention to the internet’s impact on democracy. With political polarization on the rise and trust in traditional sources of authority on the decline, concerns have mounted over the distribution of false, hyperpartisan, and...
Facebook shows that even “big data” can hide big bias
With private companies increasingly controlling the production and consumption of information on their platforms, their data on user habits has grown especially valuable to researchers. However, these data rarely provide a complete picture of media consumption, since...
Nature: Special issue explores computational social science
Nature's special issue on computational social science is now available in digital format. The issue features the perspective piece “Integrating explanation and prediction in computational social science,” co-authored by Lab Director Duncan Watts. Read the full issue...
Expert advisory committee defines agenda for experimental, social, and behavioral science
The 1st Annual Meeting of the Expert Advisory Committee on Scaling Up Experimental, Social, and Behavioral Science was held on June 30th. Lab Director Duncan Watts, Abdullah Almaatouq, Mark Whiting, Linnea Gandhi, and James Houghton presented an overview of CSS Lab’s...
Can computational social scientists predict social science phenomena?
Over the past fifteen years, a technological revolution has deepened the intersection between the computational and social sciences. The rise of the internet has created new classes of data for social scientists to analyze—data which, because of its novelty compared...
Something’s in the Water: A broader view of misinformation
Baird Howland reflects upon his ongoing research on news consumption and misinformation in “Something's in the Water,” published in The Commonplace. He notes that the picture emerging from his research contradicts the conventional wisdom of Americans drowning in...
Upcoming: NetSci Computational Social Science Panel
On July 2nd, 10-12 EST, Nature editors Mary Elizabeth Sutherland and Federico Levi will host a virtual round table on Computational Social Science as part of the Networks 2021 conference. The speakers, including CSSLab Director Duncan Watts, have contributed to an...