Tanay Katiyar
adigitaltanay.bsky.social
Tanay Katiyar
@adigitaltanay.bsky.social
📖 PhD @ University of Cambridge
🔬 Social Media / Mental Health / Anthropology / Evolutionary
Psychiatry / Cognitive Science
🎙️ Co-parenting the @cognitations.bsky.social
podcast
Pinned
My first paper, out in PsychReview!!

Along with @orbenamy.bsky.social, Nik & @jaeggiadrian.bsky.social, @realadamhunt.bsky.social & I revisit an old theoretical question using concepts from evo psychiatry and anthro:

Why do mixed associations exist b/w social media & mental health?

A 🧵
Reposted by Tanay Katiyar
This is one of the rare papers that completely changed my thinking about the field I work in. Have a read!
My first paper, out in PsychReview!!

Along with @orbenamy.bsky.social, Nik & @jaeggiadrian.bsky.social, @realadamhunt.bsky.social & I revisit an old theoretical question using concepts from evo psychiatry and anthro:

Why do mixed associations exist b/w social media & mental health?

A 🧵
November 4, 2025 at 9:42 AM
My first paper, out in PsychReview!!

Along with @orbenamy.bsky.social, Nik & @jaeggiadrian.bsky.social, @realadamhunt.bsky.social & I revisit an old theoretical question using concepts from evo psychiatry and anthro:

Why do mixed associations exist b/w social media & mental health?

A 🧵
November 4, 2025 at 8:04 AM
Reposted by Tanay Katiyar
UPDATE! 🎉

Cognitations has been awarded a Workshop Event Grant by @ehbea.bsky.social

This amazing grant will help us record new episodes with leading international experts in evolution, anthro & cog sci. Stay tuned in to hear from @manvir.bsky.social, @dansperber.bsky.social & many more!!!
October 21, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Reading cross-cultural perspectives on mental health just makes you rethink some of the ('universalistic') assumptions of Western psychotherapy.
October 19, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Reposted by Tanay Katiyar
🚨 New Preprint 🚨

Some people are at greater risk of experiencing negative mental health outcomes of social media use than others, but why?

🧵

We examined whether individual differences in cognitive processes shape risk and resilience to mental health effects on social media: osf.io/preprints/ps...
October 17, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Reposted by Tanay Katiyar
🚨 New Preprint 🚨

Prolonged Isolation is associated with an increased behavioural sensitivity to ‘Likes’ on social media.

🧵

Social media rewards are inherently social—but does posting change during social isolation, when in-person social rewards are limited?

It turns out, yes!
September 16, 2025 at 11:19 AM
Reposted by Tanay Katiyar
@durhampsych.bsky.social current has 5 (FIVE!!) PhD studentships being advertised!

3 to work with me on children as agents of cultural evolution

2 to work with @drboothroyd.bsky.social on examining school-based body image interventions.

Please share and apply!

www.durham.ac.uk/departments/...
Fees and Funding - Durham University
www.durham.ac.uk
September 11, 2025 at 9:12 AM
Many of us have heard how existing mental health narratives can have some unintended consequences.

But what if there’s a better alternative story? A new preprint strongly suggests that evolutionary psychiatry might offer one—without making us strangers to ourselves.
🎉New pre-print!🎉

“Our findings represent the most robust evidence to date that evolutionary psychiatry offers normalising causal stories with various positive effects, in this case by casting anxiety as a calibrated defence system that can overshoot in contemporary contexts."
September 10, 2025 at 4:56 PM
On Prolific, "we estimate that about 34% of online study participants use LLMs to answer open-ended questions atleast some of the time..."

Seems like a very timely paper for behavioural scientists using online samples: osf.io/preprints/so... ;

We really need more papers on this issue
August 29, 2025 at 9:46 AM
Reposted by Tanay Katiyar
This summer, August 31st, we are hosting an evolutionary psychiatry debate in Cambridge. Experts discussing whether depression is functional and whether evolutionary perspectives are more important in research or the clinic. Audience participation possible. Join us! www.femh.uk/activities/e...
Evolutionary Psychiatry Debate Day, August 31st, Cambridge — Foundation for Evolution and Mental Health
The Evolutionary Psychiatry Debate Day, on August 31st at the University of Cambridge, and organised via the newly established Foundation for Evolution and Mental Health, will be this summer’s…
www.femh.uk
July 16, 2025 at 10:30 AM
Reposted by Tanay Katiyar
🎙️ EP #17

Most of us struggle w/ work-life balance. Long before the existence of long commutes and busy calendars, our ancestors lived as hunter-gatherers (HGs). Do HGs have more free time? @adigitaltanay.bsky.social discusses this & much more with Mark Dyble

tinyurl.com/y6hd8ur5

(1/2)
EP #17 | The Anthropology of Leisure Time | Mark Dyble
Cognitations · Episode
tinyurl.com
June 27, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Elated to be involved in this project where @amiraskeggs.bsky.social introduces a novel method to (basically) conduct ethnography at scale.

This method might have interesting implications for conducting quantitative ethnography in other disciplines. Do check her work out!!
🚨New preprint 🚨

𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐬: 𝐀 𝐋𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞-𝐒𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐜𝐫𝐨-𝐍𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐲

osf.io/preprints/ps...

🧵

Using a novel micro-narrative method, we collected ~ 900 first-person accounts of social media harms from young people across the UK and US.
June 24, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Reposted by Tanay Katiyar
🎙️ EP #16

Two people can hear different things when listening to the same sound (see 🧵): how does our auditory system really work? Cindy & @mariusmercier.bsky.social discuss this and much more with Daniel Pressnitzer

shorturl.at/w6Y0w
EP #16 | What do Auditory Illusions Reveal about the Brain? | Daniel Pressnitzer
Cognitations · Episode
shorturl.at
May 30, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Reposted by Tanay Katiyar
🔷New in Biological Psychiatry🔷

**Old Strategies, New Environments: Reinforcement Learning on Social Media**

In this Review, we argue that the computational framework of Reinforcement Learning can help us understand social media behaviour:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
May 22, 2025 at 9:53 AM
Does anyone know good review papers that summarise the various methodological difficulties involved in conducting good psychiatric epidemiology? And what sort of inferences can we make, knowing these difficulties (e.g. diagnostic criteria changes)?

@eikofried.bsky.social
@awaisaftab.bsky.social
May 19, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Reposted by Tanay Katiyar
New Perspective out in @nathumbehav.nature.com today with co-author @orbenamy.bsky.social!

We propose a new framework for designing 𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗺𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 that support well-being, grounded in self-determination theory 🧵

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Social media interventions to improve well-being - Nature Human Behaviour
In this Perspective, the authors review current interventions on social media use among adolescents and propose a new theoretical model based on self-determination theory to guide the effective design...
www.nature.com
May 15, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Reposted by Tanay Katiyar
After 3 years in the making, our Registered Report is out in @nathumbehav.nature.com!

We analyse nationally representative UK data from 3,340 adolescents (aged 11–19) to examine how social media use differs between those with and without mental health conditions. 🧵

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Social media use in adolescents with and without mental health conditions - Nature Human Behaviour
Using a nationally representative UK sample of adolescents with clinical-level mental health symptoms, this Registered Report examined differences in social media use. The results suggest that adolesc...
www.nature.com
May 6, 2025 at 7:35 AM
While studying psychiatry/mental health, one is often taught about the popularity of the DSM. #TIL that various editions of the DSM also act as 'significant' revenue streams for the American Psychiatric Association!!

Source: lareviewofbooks.org/article/scie...
May 5, 2025 at 7:59 PM
Reposted by Tanay Katiyar
🎙️ EP #15

How can methods from cognitive science provide new ways of investigating social media’s mental health effects? Does it offer new policy insights? @adigitaltanay.bsky.social discusses this and much more with @lukasgunschera.bsky.social & @georgiaturner.bsky.social

tinyurl.com/4ayf4x5s

🧵
EP #15 | Social Media and Mental Health: The Cognitive Turn | Georgia Turner & Lukas Gunschera
Cognitations · Episode
tinyurl.com
May 2, 2025 at 8:20 PM
Reposted by Tanay Katiyar
Ever wondered if the mind really is modular? Ego disorders suggest so! In this new paper, psychiatrist Gheorghe Ilie and I argue that dysfunctions of the unitary self reveal the work of distinct modules, perceived by patients as distinct voices, often in conflict
www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy...
Frontiers | The modular mind and psychiatry: toward clinical integration with a focus on self-disorders
www.frontiersin.org
April 25, 2025 at 9:58 AM
Reposted by Tanay Katiyar
"What goes on four feet in the morning, two feet at midday, and three feet in the evening?"

This riddle is thousands of years old, but why does it stick with us?

In our new paper, we argue that the feeling of insight might explain the lasting success of some cultural products: tinyurl.com/4j756h9a
April 22, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Reposted by Tanay Katiyar
This @cognitations.bsky.social podcast has made my bank holiday cleaning considerably less tedious: Daniel Nettle being interviewed about what human behavioural ecology is and how it can help inform policy, including around poverty

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/c...
EP #11 | Human Behavioral Ecology: Putting Depression & Poverty In Context | Daniel Nettle
Podcast Episode · Cognitations · 19/07/2024 · 1h 13m
podcasts.apple.com
April 21, 2025 at 4:18 PM
Reposted by Tanay Katiyar
Intriguing. Includes impressively up-to-date review of relevant literature on autism.
April 15, 2025 at 6:44 PM
Reposted by Tanay Katiyar
New Paper! I'm truly excited to share @natematias.bsky.social and my new Policy Forum in Science published yesterday.

We evaluate science's ability to address technological harms, and offer recommendations for what could be done to improve on the status quo: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Fixing the science of digital technology harms
Technology development outpaces scientific assessment of impacts
www.science.org
April 11, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Reposted by Tanay Katiyar
My PhD student @adigitaltanay.bsky.social released an episode of his podcast Cognitations interviewing ... me. One of the toughest interviewers I've had! You can listen to it here: open.spotify.com/episode/6L7q...

He will feature some other team members next, so do give the podcast a follow 🤳
EP #14 | How can Social Media Affect Mental Health? | Amy Orben
Cognitations · Episode
open.spotify.com
March 31, 2025 at 10:40 AM