Learning and Work hybride seminars, herfst/winter 2026

27 oktober, TS49, ruimte 0.003
Olivier Marie (Erasmus School of Economics)
The Mental Health Cost of Cheap Mobile Data with Robin Verbeek (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Abstract: Rates of anxiety among adolescents and young adults have climbed across high-income countries over the past decade, coinciding with the spread of smartphones and constant mobile internet. Whether cheap, always-available mobile connectivity is a cause rather than a correlate has remained unresolved for lack of credible causal evidence at scale. Using sharp and plausibly exogenous falls in mobile-data prices across 49 high-income countries between 2013 and 2019, we show that cheaper mobile internet increases anxiety, almost entirely among young men. A first price drop of at least 20% raises mobile-data subscriptions and increases the prevalence of anxiety among males aged 15 to 24 by about one per cent, with no detectable effect for females, older people, depression, or a placebo condition whose recorded rise reflects diagnostic change. The increase is concentrated where young people are most engaged in organized sport, a protective offline activity; this engagement gap statistically accounts for why only young men are affected; and treated countries forgo the rise in youth sport participation seen elsewhere, young men twice as much as young women. Our findings identify always-on mobile access as a distinct driver of youth anxiety and the displacement of protective sport as an important channel.

3 november 
Guillem Foucault (TSE)

17 november
n.t.b.

1 december
Albrecht Glitz (University of Barcelona)

15 december
Sandra McNally (University of Surrey)

Voorgaande seminars

20 oktober
Mengwei Lin (University of Barcelona & IEB) 
Museums Around: Cultural Infrastructure and Educational Outcomes

6 oktober
Anna Bindler (DIW Berlin)
Revealed Trust in Police

22 september
Harald Pfeifer (BIBB, ROA) - Geannuleerd

8 september
Marc Witte (VU)
Wage Information and Applicant Selection

25 augustus
Bohdana Kurylo (ROA)
Subject-Specific Rank and the Educational Tracking of Migrant Students