Niklas Johannes

Niklas Johannes

Behavioral Scientist

Kroo

About me

Hello there. I’m an academic-turned-user-researcher at Kroo. Before working in FinTech, I studied the effects of video games, social media, and smartphones on well-being and performance. These days, I lead both qualitative (usability tests, ethnographic interviews, focus groups) and quantitative research (surveys, A/B testing) at Kroo.

Interests
  • Digital technology
  • Well-being
  • Performance
  • Stats and data science
Education
  • PhD Behavioral Sciences, 2020

    Radboud University

  • MSc Communication (Research Master), 2015

    University of Amsterdam

  • BA Media and Communication with Minor in German Literature, 2013

    University of Mannheim

Experience

 
 
 
 
 
Lead Researcher
Dec 2022 – Present London, United Kindgom

Responsibilities include:

  • Leading qualitative and quantitative research in collaboration with teams across the company
  • Deliver product insights through data science and analytics
  • Responsible for establishing research operations at a start-up
 
 
 
 
 
Senior User Researcher
Dec 2022 – Dec 2023 London, United Kindgom
 
 
 
 
 
Postdoc
Jun 2020 – Dec 2022 Oxford, United Kindgom

Responsibilities include:

  • Coordinate and manage the day to day of large scale research collaborations with leading gaming industry partners, such as Nintendo, SONY, and Microsoft
  • Program large-scale surveys (a total >5 million invites) and combine the results with in-game logging data (i.e., time spent on task, time spent played)
  • Thesis mentoring
 
 
 
 
 
Postdoc
Oct 2019 – May 2020 Glasgow, United Kindgom

Responsibilities include:

  • Investigated ways to promote plant-based foods as an alternative to meat-based products
  • Wrote an R shiny app to easily code and visualize data analysis
 
 
 
 
 
PhD researcher
Sep 2015 – Aug 2019 Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Responsibilities include:

  • Investigated the influence of smartphone use on wellbeing and performance
  • Managed all research activities associated with the 4 year long project from initial proposal to completion
  • Ran and programmed various experiments, surveys, and field studies that included smartphone logging and experience sampling
  • Teaching and thesis mentoring

Recent Publications

(2022). A global experiment on motivating social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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(2022). Time spent playing two online shooters has no measurable effect on aggressive affect. Collabra: Psychology.

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(2022). No effect of different types of media on well-being. Scientific Reports.

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(2021). How should we investigate variation in the relation between social media and well-being?.

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(2021). Time spent playing video games is unlikely to impact well-being.

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