Earlier this year, I realised that there was no Wikipedia page for ‘research culture’. I was surprised by the omission, but I probably shouldn’t have been. English Wikipedia’s coverage is huge, but it isn’t perfect. So, I set out to write a page that would provide some bare bones for people to build on. On […] … learn more→

The Trump administration’s aggressive deportation policies have heightened stress among the country’s approximately 14 million immigrants who are living in the U.S. without legal authorization. The sharp rise in dramatic arrests and deportations of immigrants over the past year has received widespread media attention. A less publicized issue is that many young, undocumented immigrants are also finding it harder to apply to and stay in college. As someone who researches […] … learn more→

The digital revolution has become a vast, unplanned experiment – and children are its most exposed participants. As ADHD diagnoses rise around the world, a key question has emerged: could the growing use of digital devices be playing a role? To explore this, we studied more than 8,000 children, from when they were around ten until they […] … learn more→

● Research findings on the effects of brain rot are still inconsistent and their significance is questionable. ● Brain rot could be a reflection of changes in human thinking. ● The impact of social media on cognition and mental health tends to be small and unstable. Brain rot is a metaphor to describe the negative impact of consuming too much […] … learn more→

So you know what researcher positioning is and why it matters. Now comes the practical question: how do you actually write about it in your thesis? This is where many doctoral researchers get a bit stuck. You know you need to address your positionality, but it can feel pretty darn awkward writing about yourself in what’s […] … learn more→

What does it look like to have an “athletic body?” What does artificial intelligence think it looks like to have one? A recent study we conducted at the University of Toronto analyzed appearance-related traits of AI-generated images of male and female athletes and non-athletes. We found that we’re being fed exaggerated — and likely impossible — body standards. Even […] … learn more→

Remember when Twitter used to be good? I reckon it peaked somewhere around the first COVID lockdowns. In those days, there was a running gag on the site where everyone would refer to it as a “hellscape”. And it did invite some of the worst that humanity has to offer. Opinions, as the old joke […] … learn more→

What do we look for when choosing a video game for our children, nephews, or grandchildren? Probably that it’s not violent, that it’s age-appropriate, and that it encourages creativity. However, we rarely stop to consider a key question: who can young children interact with while they play? Many video games allow direct communication with other […] … learn more→

Every time we click a star to rate a restaurant, leave a comment on a shopping site, or “like” a video, we leave a digital footprint. Individually, this may seem insignificant, a simple little sign of preference, a micro-opinion among many others. But collectively, these footprints form a vast social landscape, a cloud of visible […] … learn more→

Higher education is under stress. The highest-profile threat has been the Trump administration’s efforts to cut funding to several universities, including Harvard, Columbia and Northwestern. Research universities heavily depend on federal money to conduct research and carry out other areas of work. For example, after tuition, federal money allocated for research made up 40% of the total revenue for two major […] … learn more→