Social Technology Use and Life Satisfaction in a Five-Wave Panel Study of US Adults

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Kushlev, K., Moon, K., Motyl, M., Fast, N., Schroeder, J., (2026). Social technology use and life satisfaction in a five-wave panel study of US adults. [Nature Human Behavior Link]

  • Short Summary: Using five waves of panel data from 1,966 U.S. adults tracking use of ten common social technologies over time, this study finds little credible evidence that using any of them predicts later changes in life satisfaction, or vice versa (one modest exception: rising life satisfaction predicted more video calling in some groups). Comparing across people rather than within them, texting frequency was linked to higher life satisfaction while YouTube and TikTok use was linked to lower life satisfaction — suggesting who uses which platforms matters more than any real effect of the platforms themselves on wellbeing.

  • Materials, Data, and Analysis code

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Do Narcissists Find the “I” in Team? How Narcissism in Teams Affects Individual Performance [PDF]→

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Herndon, A. E., Sulaiman, S., Stein, D. H., Schroeder, J., & Chatman, J. (2026). Do narcissists find the “I” in team? How narcissism in teams affects individual performance. [Academy of Management Discoveries Link]

  • Short Summary: In a study of 475 MBA program executives organized into 105 study groups, this paper finds that people perform better on individually graded, group-dependent tasks when their own trait narcissism is closer to their group's average narcissism level. The results challenge the assumption that narcissists uniformly harm their teams, suggesting instead that narcissists (and non-narcissists alike) thrive when surrounded by similarly-natured teammates due to shared working norms and culture fit.

  • Materials, Data, and Analysis codes

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From Social Media to Empathic Artificial Intelligence: Applying Past Lessons to Future Technologies [PDF]→

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Rodriguez, M., Motyl, M., & Schroeder, J. (2026). From social media to empathic artificial intelligence: Applying past lessons to future technologies. In Cameron, C. D., & Perry, A. (Eds.) Empathy and Artificial Intelligence: Challenges, Advances, and Ethical Considerations. Cambridge University Press.

  • Short Summary: This chapter synthesizes two decades of research on social media to extract lessons for new forms of social technology like GenAI. It recommends future research on social technology consider three sources of heterogeneity — 1) the type and features of the technology, 2) how it is used, and 3) who is using it — to better understand how tech will affect social life.

  • This chapter leverages the Neely Social Media Index and Neely Technology Indices. Interested readers can see the links for more information. 

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Spoken Disagreement Is More Constructive Than Written Disagreement [PDF]→

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Bevis, B., Schroeder, J., & Yeomans, M. (2026). Spoken disagreement is more constructive than written disagreement. [Nature Communications Link]

  • Short Summary: Spoken conversations with a disagreeing counterpart lead to greater understanding, lower conflict, more favorable impressions of one’s counterpart, and greater attitude alignment than written conversations (6 experiments).

  • Materials, Data, Analysis Code, and Preregistrations

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Gaps in Large Language Model Awareness, Usage, and Perceptions in the United States: Evidence from a Nationally Representative Longitudinal Survey [PDF]→

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Angrisani, M., Casanova, M., Fast, N. J., Narang, J., & Schroeder, J. (2026). Gaps in large language model awareness, usage, and perceptions in the United States: Evidence from a nationally representative longitudinal survey. [PNAS Nexus Link]

  • Short Summary: Across two survey waves spanning one year with more than 12,000 nationally representative U.S. adults, we observed marked gaps in LLM usage: groups more likely to use LLMs included men, younger adults, those with college education and higher incomes, individuals in more analytical occupations (e.g., STEM), Democratic-leaning respondents, and those with above-median cognitive ability, internet literacy, and openness to experience. These usage gaps are not declining over time; some are getting larger.

  • Data available on the Understanding America Survey website: https://uasdata.usc.edu/index.php (datasets UAS 574 and UAS 607)

  • Analysis code

  • Appendix

  • Updated figures with third wave of data (2023, 2024, and 2025 waves)

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