GEIS-affiliated professors Rajeshwari Majumdar and Tiago Ventura, along with co-authors Shelley Liu, Carolina A. Torreblanca, and Joshua A. Tucker, received the Best Paper in Political Behavior Award at the Midwest Political Science Association for their study, Reducing Social Media Usage During Elections: Evidence from a Multi-Country WhatsApp Deactivation Experiment.
OSF Link: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/zrsqw_v1
This paper studies what happens when people slightly reduce their engagement with images and video on WhatsApp—the world’s most widely used messaging app—during election periods in Brazil, India, and South Africa. Through large-scale experiments, the paper shows that even modest limits (like avoiding forwarded images/videos or capping use at 10 minutes a day) significantly reduce people’s exposure to misinformation, toxic political content, and online hostility. However, these benefits come with a trade-off: People also become less informed about real news. Importantly, participants reported feeling happier and spending more time on offline activities like hobbies and socializing. This research highlights that simply spending less time on social media can meaningfully improve the quality of information you encounter and your overall well-being—but it won’t automatically fix political divisions, underscoring the need to balance digital consumption rather than eliminate it entirely.
