Roland Toth

I've used Lavaan almost every (work)day for 15 years, but this open source labour of love has never received proper institutional support. I'm delighted to be a small part of an 1.5M OpenScienceNL award, led by Jorgensen, to completely revamp and futureproof Lavaan www.openscience.nl/en/news/45-p...

Looking forward to random slopes and more than two levels in MSEM at last :D

These results imply that researchers should consider assessing quality indicators alongside quantity when measuring mobile media use, unless they are specifically interested in exposure time. The discussion provides suggestions on how to make use of quality indicators in practice.

Mixed-Effects Structural Equation Modeling showed that both indicators of quality were more strongly related to mobile vigilance than duration was. This was not due to the perception of control, which was employed as a control variable.

Using three waves of a longitudinal survey of a representative sample of 1,525 Spanish emerging adults, we examined if duration (screen time) and gratification and situation variety predict mobile vigilance – a cognitive and behavioral connection to the smartphone indicating its relevance in life.

🚨 Publication alert (CHBR): Together with colleagues from the University of Navarra, I investigated what role the quality of mobile media use (gratification and situation variety) plays when measured alongside screen time. Result: quality may be more important than quantity.
doi.org/10.1016/j.ch...

Time to share some news I've been sitting on: starting in January, I will lead a @dfg.de Emmy Noether Group at @weizenbauminstitut.bsky.social! We will investigate how local public spheres are constituted under conditions of digitalization & globalization.

www.weizenbaum-institut.de/en/research/...

In the paper, we actually compared effects on instant messaging and social media app use for this reason. Social media use was slightly more affected, as it is probably still perceived as less acceptable than instant messaging, which has become a norm.

Don‘t let your ethics committee find out :D

How do AR beauty filters shape identity – and who gets excluded?

A new WI Methods Lab spotlight by Diana Ignatovich explores research on how algorithmic design reinforces dominant norms and biases.

Read more: ➡️ t1p.de/w3g4z

Thanks! Yes, at least according to our results based on data where both event log access and short surveys were employed. If nothing else, it is recommended to collect event log data for more than 5 days and check whether there are systematic changes in use before, just to be on the safe side.

Although the effects were weak to moderate, future research should carefully consider using data before these thresholds when using these methods, especially when they are combined.

Answer: Yes, they do, the results show that providing event log access leads to reductions in smartphone use frequency and duration for five to six days. In contrast, answering short survey prompts increased both for two to three hours.

🚨 Preprint alert: Do 1) smartphone event log data access and 2) the Experience Sampling Method cause reactivity effects in studies? @dougaparry.bsky.social, @klingelhoefer.bsky.social, and I investigated this very question using data from 815 German Android users.

doi.org/10.31235/osf...

How often is too often in ESM research?
🚨New study out!
We compared 6 beeps/day vs. 12 beeps in 2 h bursts.
Both work, but burst designs show more fatigue + attrition — still useful if high temporal precision matters.
App onboarding, though? Big bias alert. 📱

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

🚨 Publication alert (JQD:DM): @dougaparry.bsky.social , @mjemmer.bsky.social , and I investigated the daily times, gratifications, and locations of, and activities alongside smartphone and app use in Germany using a combination of surveys, MESM, logging, and data donations 📱. doi.org/10.51685/jqd...

GitHub - thieled/easieRnmt: R wrapper around the EasyNMT python library, providing "Easy to use, state-of-the-art Neural Machine Translation for 100+ languages" locally. R wrapper around the EasyNMT python library, providing "Easy to use, state-of-the-art Neural Machine Translation for 100+ languages" locally. - thieled/easieRnmt

Are you an R-user looking for a ✨reproducible and free✨ solution to use #machine-translation in your #text-as-data project? Try out my new #rstats package #easieRnmt that wraps around the EasyNMT py-library for local machine tranlsation: github.com/thieled/easi...

Weizenbaum Journal of the Digital Society Accepted into Scopus The Weizenbaum Journal of the Digital Society (WJDS), launched in 2021, has been accepted for inclusion in Scopus and will receive its first CiteScore in 2026. This marks an important step in the jour...

We are very pleased that our young Weizenbaum Journal of the Digital Society has been included in #Scopus and will receive its first CiteScore next year: www.weizenbaum-institut.de/en/news/deta...

Possible futures all at once: time frame and time lag in short-term longitudinal media effects research on well-being Abstract. When assessing media effects, we seldom consider how they change over time. Especially with the prevalence of smartphone use as short-lived, frag

To investigate media effects, do we have to think more clearly about time ⌚? Our new publication in the 🎉*Journal of Communication*🎉 investigates how our conceptualizations of time can affect our conclusions: doi.org/10.1093/joc/... (1/6)

🚨 Wave 6 (2024) of the Weizenbaum Panel is now available in the Weizenbaum Panel Data Explorer. Check it out if you‘re interested in Germans‘ media use, political participation, civic norms, and more! panel.weizenbaum-institut.de/en/findings/...

Better late than never

Pure luck, I found snacks offered on a table next to a session I attended and snuck them in… like a chipmunk

Actual footage of me eating a tiny snack instead of lunch in-between sessions at #ICA25

Presenting new #ICA25 fellows, our very own Scott Campbell and Lynn Schofield Clark! Congratulations!

No plans for 3pm yet at #ica25? Join us in our @icamobile.bsky.social session featuring great presentations and a discussion on mobile methods and their lack of standardization in research!

@rzhprfshr.bsky.social
Yifei Lu
@dscheykopp.bsky.social
@joebayer.bsky.social

#ICA25 Denver is officially underway! 🎉

Mobile Comm kicks off tomorrow with sessions at 12PM & 3PM — don’t miss talks by @aliciagilbert.bsky.social, @annafreytag.bsky.social, @aliciaernst.bsky.social, @annastockmann.bsky.social, @dougaparry.bsky.social & more! 📱💬

This paper is supposed to help researchers handle raw Android log data in a systematic manner and facilitate access to this rich source of information 🔑. Feel free to use and share it. Feedback is very welcome!

The supp. material includes a working rendition in R code, an example data set with raw Android log data, and the data set that results from applying the code to it. There are also lists that helps identify background processes and app names 📋 - with a script to retrieve them.

This primer first elaborates on the potential of and difficulties when handling raw Android log data 📊. Then, the process of extracting glances, sessions, and episodes of use is described in a hands-on guideline with pseudo-code to follow along 👩‍💻.

🚨 Publication alert: Android log data are increasingly used in research, so @dougaparry.bsky.social and I have developed the first step-by-step tutorial on how to actually extract behavioral metrics from them. Read it now in Computational Communication Research: doi.org/10.5117/CCR2...

🚀 The GESIS AppKit is live! 🚀

Three years ago we started the project of providing "an App" for Social Scientists @gesis.org . Today, it is much more than that. It is a management system for mobile, intensive-longitudinal studies. Interested?

✅ Register here: www.gesis.org/gesis-appkit...