Led by Steve Rathje, Nejla Asimovic, Tiago Ventura, Hannah Karsting, Sarah Mughal, Christopher Barrie, Claire Robertson, Matthew DeVerna, Joshua Tucker, and Jay Van Bavel
Background
More than half of the world’s population uses social media. While most research on social media has been conducted in the US and UK, emerging evidence suggests that social media might have very different effects on countries outside the US (Asimovic et al., 2021; Ghai et al., 2023; Lorenz-Spreen et al., 2022; Bor et al., 2026). With social media’s massive global usage, it is crucial to examine the causal effects of social media on important psychological outcomes, such as polarization and well-being.
Methods
We are conducting a global field experiment across 23 countries (projected n > 8,000) to test the causal effect of social media on polarization, intergroup attitudes and well-being around the world. Similar to prior “global studies” conducted with the Center for Conflict and Cooperation, such as the International Collaboration on Social and Moral Psychology: Covid-19 and the International Collaboration to Understand Climate Action, we are collaborating with a large team of researchers from countries around the globe to conduct a cross-cultural field experiment.
In this global field experiment, participants will be incentivized to temporarily reduce their social media screen-time for two weeks. We will then examine how reducing social media usage impacts their news knowledge, exposure to online hostility, intergroup attitudes, well-being, and a number of related outcomes. The methods of the study will be modeled after prior social media deactivation studies (e.g, Asimovic et. al, 2021; Alcott et. al, 2020). We will also explore how the effects of social media reduction vary across world regions, focusing on three theoretically-informed country-level moderators: income level, inequality, and democratic strength. This large-scale, high-powered field experiment, and the global dataset resulting from it, will offer rare causal evidence to inform ongoing debates about the impact of social media and how it varies around the world.
Global Collaborators
We have assembled a team of more than 200 researchers from around the world who are helping us conduct this global field experiment (countries featured shown map below). Pilot experiments were conducted in three countries (n = 894) in 2024-2025, which helped us refine our methodology and analysis plan. Full data collection started in January 2026 and is expected to be completed in September 2026.
The Registered Report Format
This experiment is being conducted as a Registered Report. The Registered Report format means that pre-registered analyses are peer reviewed and a paper is provisionally accepted to a journal before any data collection takes place. This format is meant to minimize publication bias and to ensure that peer review focuses on the research questions and methodology rather than the results. This paper has received a Stage 1 In-Principle Acceptance as a Registered Report from the journal Nature (see more here) which means that our analysis, methods, and paper draft have undergone peer review and the paper has been provisionally accepted. Data collection from the 23 countries will occur throughout 2026. After data collection is completed, the paper will undergo Stage 2 re-review at Nature. Stage 2 re-review focuses on factors such as whether the authors adhered to their Stage 1 protocol and whether their interpretations of the results are sound, rather than on the significance or direction of the findings.
Preprint
Our Stage 1 Registered Report is available as a pre-print here. You may cite it as:
Rathje, S.*, Asimovic, N.*, Ventura, T.*, Mughal, S., Karsting, H., Robertson, C. E., Barrie, C, The Global Social Media Experiment Team, Tucker, J. A., & Van Bavel, J. J. (Stage 1 In Principle Acceptance of Registered Report). Testing the causal impact of social media usage around the globe. Nature.
*co-first authors
Funding
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation, the Templeton World Charity Foundation, an NSF postdoctoral Fellowship, an AXA postdoctoral fellowship, and a “seed grant” from New York University.
The Global Social Media Experiment 