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Brandon C Davidson

@bcdavidson.bsky.social

Research Assistant @ MRC-CBU Digital Mental Health Group, University of Cambridge | bd440@cam.ac.uk | he/him

Brandon C Davidson @bcdavidson.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Longitudinally, using random intercept cross-lagged panel models, users whose posting behaviour is more influenced by ‘likes’ show increases in depressive symptoms one year later.

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Brandon C Davidson @bcdavidson.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Cross-sectionally, individuals who update their posting behaviour more in response to changes in ‘likes’ report worse mental health. In addition, users with a lower subjective cost to posting report worse mental health cross-sectionally.

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Brandon C Davidson @bcdavidson.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

In a preregistered study of 535 US Twitter users, we found that people learn more from social rewards during periods of high isolation. That is, when isolated, they weigh 'Likes' more heavily in deciding how often to post.

Figure showing a significant difference between 'habit weight' in high and low social isolation. Habit weight is a component of the RL model that weights a model-free RL posting policy and a habitual posting policy.

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