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Great to see my op-ed out in LBC today, which builds on our new @ippr.org report, What is the Left For?, also out today. A short thread 🧵 Op-ed 👉 [https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/price-caps-neoliberalism-growth-opinion-5HjdfDx_2/] Report 👉 [https://www.ippr.org/articles/what-is-the-left-for]

We’ve published our pamphlet today, ‘What is the left for?’ We’ve treated people like consumers rather than citizens for too long and watched governments promote individualism over collectivism. We think the left should be for a deeper and more mutual relationship between people and the state.

We're sleepwalking into a real democratic legitimacy problem. Falling turnout means we keep returning governments fewer and fewer of us actually voted for. Compulsory voting is the way out — and it's good to see it's getting some traction. Great thread explaining why from my colleague Nick

1/ Great reporting in The Times on the emerging momentum behind support for compulsory voting, which @ippr.org called for a couple of weeks ago: www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Jane Gingrich and I have written an essay for @ippr.org on a fundamental problem, that an age that demands more of the state also suffers from multiple state legitimation crises www.ippr.org/articles/the...

Full report here here: www.ippr.org/articles/the...

Great to see my @ippr.org report (with @harryqp.bsky.social & @sofiahewson.bsky.social) cited by @guardianheather.bsky.social here: www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Wrote a piece about how social media isn’t social and why the BBC can save us!

Social media is no longer social. Most of it is passive viewing of videos and pictures from people we've never met. But we're still studying social media like it's 2010. We've entered the post-social media era — and research needs to catch up. osf.io/preprints/so... preprint w/ Richard Rogers

Thanks, Robin! Re Bluesky, people reported that it had the lowest proportion of ads.

Over half of what we see on social media is posts from influencers, ads, brands and recommended content. Content from people we know makes up only 18% of what we see. These platforms personalise our feeds and promote one-sided relationships with influencers over social ones. We can demand better.

Friday news! We're launching the advisory panel for @ippr.org's Decade of National Renewal today. An incredible group of thinkers to keep us in line as we do some creative thinking about what the left should stand for in an increasingly uncertain world. Find out more 👉 www.ippr.org/research-and...

Social media is not like tobacco: not all use is bad for us. We should regulate SM companies to prevent harm to children but we should avoid more broadly framing all use as addictive. We might miss how platform design shapes our online lives more quietly.

Nov 25 research by Anderson and Wood shows that people often overestimate social media addiction and that media over-labelling frequent use as addiction can lead people to feel less control over their use and self-blame (and not blame platforms).

Media focus on addiction can make social media an individual problem, and pathologise normal use. Classifying people can also shape behaviour and self-image (looping effect). If we describe ourselves as social media addicts, could that affect how much control we have?

Social media platforms are undeniably designed to be sticky - to keep people on them. They’re not neutral and they shape what we’re interested in and care about. But they’re not necessarily addictive for most people.

This is understandable - we’ve seen so much social, cultural and technological change over the last twenty years - from 2% of people in the world having social media to 70% - + smartphones, AI etc.

This is the Sisyphean cycle of technology panics (Amy Orben). Social media is now framed in similar ways - ‘digital heroin’. The media mostly frames it as addictive and Google Trends data shows rising interest in searches about social media addiction.

We’ve always worried about addictive new tech and children. In 1868, Francis Paget wrote that sensational novels were like opium; in 1941, doctor Mary Preston found that half of the children she researched were addicted to radio and TV crime dramas and consumed them ‘like an alcoholic does drink’.