Emily Edited

You’ve probably heard it a thousand times: “Social media is hijacking your dopamine system!” It’s become one of those facts everyone knows. Except… it’s not quite accurate.

Every few months, another headline screams about how social media is destroying a generation.

Every time a teenager does something risky or impulsive, someone inevitably says “their prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed yet.” While technically true, this framing misses something important: the adolescent brain isn’t deficient—it’s optimized for a specific developmental phase.

Fear of Missing Out—FOMO—has become synonymous with the social media age. But here’s something that might surprise you: FOMO isn’t actually new.

When most people hear “peer pressure,” they picture a scene from an after-school special: a group of cool kids explicitly pressuring someone to smoke, drink, or do something dangerous.

Open science has become an integral part of my research practice. In this post, I share why I believe in making research more transparent, accessible, and reproducible.

After years of academic training, I’ve noticed something ironic: we spend years learning to discover knowledge, and almost no time learning to share it effectively with the people who might actually use it.

Parents ask me about screen time limits constantly. “How many hours is too many?” “Should I set a timer?” “Is two hours okay or should it be one?”

I often hear adults dismiss teenagers’ online friendships as somehow less valid than “real” friendships.

We spend years in school learning math, history, and science. But the skill that affects almost every aspect of our lives—managing our emotions—is often left to figure out on our own.

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” It’s a nice quote, but telling people to stop comparing themselves to others is like telling them to stop breathing.

That little red badge. The buzz in your pocket. The preview flashing on your screen.