Niklas Johannes

Niklas Johannes

Behavioral scientist

University of Oxford

About me

Hello there. I’m a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute. Here, I’m part of the research program Adolescent Well-Being in the Digital Age, where I study (surprise!) the effects of technology use on well-being and performance.

Technology and its effects have long been a focus of my work. During my PhD, I focused on the effects of always being connected via our phones on attention and cognitive control. These days, I’ve shifted that focus to video games and how play impacts people’s mental health. I rely on large-scale (behavioral) data analysis, experiments, experience sampling, and surveys.

Interests
  • Digital technology
  • Well-being
  • Performance
  • Meta-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

 
 
 
 
 
Postdoc
Jun 2020 – Present 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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