Alberto Acerbi

@acerbialberto.com

2.8K followers 1.1K following 750 posts

I am an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Research at the University of Trento (Italy): cognitive anthropology / cultural evolution / digital media / cultural analytics
More info in the pinned post. .. more

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Sociology 30%

Political science 19%

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Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · Mar 23

Tecnopanico: www.mulino.it/isbn/9788815...

Cultural evolution in the digital age: bit.ly/2McstmR

Individual-based models of cultural evolution. A step-by-step guide using R: bit.ly/3MQBjT4 (free: acerbialberto.com/IBM-cultevo)

Substack (italiano): bit.ly/3lDERMq

web: acerbialberto.com

A. ACERBI, Technopanic. New Media, Reasonable Caution, Unfounded Fear

The spread of fake news, the power of conspiracy theories, the influence of algorithms on our choices and behaviour, the impact of social media on youth’s mental health, and other similar phenomena al...

www.mulino.it

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 4h

Ps: this does not mean, of course, to replace them with a naive optimistic approach, but that overly negative narratives do not hit the target. I wrote a book about that :)
www.amazon.it/Tecnopanico-...

Tecnopanico. Media digitali, tra ragionevoli cautele e paure ingiustificate

Tecnopanico. Media digitali, tra ragionevoli cautele e paure ingiustificate : Acerbi, Alberto: Amazon.it: Books

www.amazon.it

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 4h

Tracking how alarmist narratives are moving seamlessly from social media to AI (and often from the exact same groups) is an interesting exercise, albeit slightly depressing.

Reposted by Rebecca Sear

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 23h

Workshop "Scientific Progress via Model Transfer? The Case of Cultural Evolution" in Hannover 9-10 April 2026
Deadline for abstract submission: 15 December
www.model-transfer.uni-hannover.de/en/news-and-...

Workshop: Scientific Progress via Model Transfer – MODEL TRANSFER: Model Transfer and its Challenges in Science: The Case of Economics – Leibniz Universität Hannover

www.model-transfer.uni-hannover.de

Reposted by Joanna Bryson

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 1d

Good stuff.

Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

Works the other way around too.

“If I was Jonathan Haidt, how would I destroy the next generation?”

Reposted by Joanna Bryson, Dorothy Bishop, Andrew K Przybylski , and 2 more Joanna Bryson, Dorothy Bishop, Andrew K Przybylski, Alberto Acerbi, Johannes Breuer

Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

Works the other way around too.

“If I was Jonathan Haidt, how would I destroy the next generation?”

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 3d

If we keep on talking about social media *addiction*, then people will think they are addicted (even if they are not), and this causes negative effects 👏

Ian Axel Anderson @aanixel.bsky.social · 5d

Excited to see these studies (finally) published in Scientific Reports! 🚨

S1: More social media users perceived themselves as addicted than met clinical addiction criteria.

S2: Increasing perceived addiction hurt perceived control over use and increased self-blame for overuse.

Thread below... 🧵

This plot shows the number of users in the Study 1 sample that self-described as 'addicted' to Instagram versus those who were 'at risk' of clinical addiction. The ratios for the addiction symptom scale are 9:371 and for the perceived addiction 69: 311, suggesting a much greater proportion of users self-perceive as addicted than are actually addicted to Instagram

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 3d

Young Australians seem to have quite reasonable views about social media, who would have thought?
apo.org.au/node/332901

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 5d

I link della settimana (#119)
open.substack.com/pub/albertoa...

I link della settimana (#119)

(i) Un altro articolo su come il mondo stia diventando più stupido.

open.substack.com

Reposted by Andrew K Przybylski, Ian Hussey, Alberto Acerbi

Ian Axel Anderson @aanixel.bsky.social · 5d

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 6d

"Reranking partisan animosity in algorithmic social media feeds alters affective polarization" www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Reranking partisan animosity in algorithmic social media feeds alters affective polarization

Today, social media platforms hold the sole power to study the effects of feed-ranking algorithms. We developed a platform-independent method that reranks participants’ feeds in real time and used thi...

www.science.org

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 6d

The Australian ban on social media for under 16 could actually be an excellent quasi-experiment.

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 12d

So, maybe not the phones?
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

‘A Recipe for Idiocracy’

What happens when even college students can’t do math anymore?

www.theatlantic.com

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 12d

I link della settimana (#118)
open.substack.com/pub/albertoa...

I link della settimana (#118)

(i) Una storia della crescita della destra americana sui social media.

open.substack.com

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 16d

Join us in Torino for the second Italian Conference on Computational Social Science, CS2Italy, 19-21 May 2026!

Abstract submission deadline: January 15, 2026

cs2italy.org

CS2Italy

The Microsoft CMT service was used for managing the peer-reviewing process for this conference. This service was provided for free by Microsoft and they bore all expenses, including costs for Azure cl...

cs2italy.org

Reposted by David Lazer, Hugo Mercier, Paul E. Smaldino , and 2 more David Lazer, Hugo Mercier, Paul E. Smaldino, Alex Mesoudi, Alberto Acerbi

Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · 17d

Postdoc position in individual-level incentives, social
learning, and payoff-biased imitation shape group-level accuracy in complex prediction and decision-making tasks in Konstanz

files.newsletter2go.com/l3slzozn/s_i...

files.newsletter2go.com

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 17d

I'll be probably missing EHBEA, CES, and HBES because my teaching is concentrated March to May. Not cool.

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 19d

As I am working on this alone, I need you to cheer me up!

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 19d

I link della settimana (#117)
open.substack.com/pub/albertoa...

I link della settimana (#117)

(i) Un esponente della generazione ansiosa dice che la sua generazione non è ansiosa.

open.substack.com

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 19d

Advertisement from Facebook. A special gift for your anthropologist friend.

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 23d

"not only misinformation but also its coverage contribute to epistemic uncertainty by eroding confidence in credible sources of knowledge, and warrant further inquiry into the potential harms of news media’s attention to misinformation."
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

(Media Attention to) Misinformation Can Undermine Trust in Scientists - Political Behavior

Could news coverage of misinformation be harmful? Across two studies on U.S. citizens, we examine whether news coverage of misinformation generates misperceptions and decreases levels of trust in info...

link.springer.com

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 25d

"This curriculum is designed to remind you what the internet used to be—and still is. I’ve built it to help you get your digital spark back. After this course, you won’t complain to the algorithm gods anymore, praying for a better feed."
offlinecrush.substack.com/p/how-to-use...

how to use the internet again: a curriculum

a five-unit crash course in wandering, breaking, and building online

offlinecrush.substack.com

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 25d

As kids learn to do maths operation by hand and only after use a calculator, maybe there is a need for a "barbell strategy". On one side, fully embrace all the AI options, and on the other stick to fundamentals. University may need to focus on the latter. inexactscience.substack.com/p/university...

University education as we know it is over

Take-home assignments are dead, "one prompt away" is one prompt too far, and what we should do next

inexactscience.substack.com

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 26d

I link della settimana (#116)
open.substack.com/pub/albertoa...

I link della settimana (#116)

(i) Uno speciale di Wired sull’IA.

open.substack.com

Reposted by Dave O’Brien, Paul E. Smaldino, Alberto Acerbi , and 3 more Dave O’Brien, Paul E. Smaldino, Alberto Acerbi, Sebastian Karcher, Brian Keegan, Evan Roberts

Ted Underwood @tedunderwood.com · 27d

Our School of Information Sciences is running four searches, and we can hire more than four candidates. Here’s the first link, for a job that might appeal to people working in history of information, history of science, or digital humanities. +

Assistant/Associate/Full Professor in Information, Culture & Society - School of Information Science

Duties & Responsibilities

illinois.csod.com

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · Nov 1

I link della settimana (#115)
open.substack.com/pub/albertoa...

I link della settimana (#115)

(i) Giornalisti e accademici sono perennemente preoccupati dell’overload informazionale, ma pensate che strano se alle persone piacesse avere accesso a più informazioni!

open.substack.com

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · Oct 31

While academics and journalists mostly complain about overload, maybe the rest of people just enjoy having access to more information?

rasmuskleis.bsky.social @rasmuskleis.bsky.social · Oct 31

What if people appreciate having an abundance of content and communication, more than they feel overloaded by it?

@annisch.bsky.social et al decided to have a look. Their results? "We found that appreciation for abundance was about twice as common as overload".

Paper: journalqd.org/article/view...