1. The Efficacy of Smartphone-Based Mental Health Interventions for Depressive Symptoms: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials by Firth et al (2017) in World Psychiatry. This meta-analysis indicates of 18 eligible RCTs (covering 22 smartphone apps) indicates that depression apps are a good way for people to self-manage their depressive symptoms, in particular when these are less severe. Interestingly, apps with feedback elements such as user statistics fare especially well. These findings are also supported by the meta-analysis of Linardon et al. (2019).
  2. Mind-Body Dualism and Health Revisited: How Belief in Dualism Shapes Health Behavior by Burgmer and Forstmann (2018). The paper explores how a belief in mind-body dualism affects health-related behaviors. The authors find that people with that belief take worse care of their body. In the last few pages they touch on an interesting question: How other metaphysical beliefs (such as determinism or free-will) may affect (and perhaps oppose) the effects of mind-body dualism.
  3. Decentralizing Journals and Peer Review DAOs by Nikhil Krishnan at Out Of Pocket. Journals today manage coordination and reputation, but they charge an insane amount to do so. DAOs pose an interesting alternative, as they can cover recognition, grants, transparency, and interoperable peer review contributions.
  4. The Myth of Oscar Wilde’s Martyrdom  by Clare Bucknell for The New Yorker. The complexities of Wilde’s character create a challenge for his biographers — evident in the multitude of dimensions they picked to portray who he was. But Wilde himself was conscious and intrigued by this complexity, and how he could turn it into story and myth.
  5. Building Confidence in a Decision at the Netflix Technology Blog. Product decisions tend to be made with time and data limitations — and even with the most perfect A/B test, there will still remain some doubts whether the results capture the truth. Here’s how Netflix decides if the results of an A/B test are compelling.
  6. Sequencing Whole Genomes Helps Diagnose Far More Rare Diseases, Study Shows by Andrew Joseph for Stat News. A pilot study from the 100,000 Genomes Project led to diagnoses for 25% of the participants with rare genetic conditions.  According to the scientists, many of them would not have been diagnosed by different methods. This indicates that to identify complex conditions, sequencing a person’s whole genome is required.
  7. Gaby’s Web3 Reading List by Gaby Goldberg. Web 3.0 is the next major iteration of the Internet, which promises to shift control away from the centralized corporations that today dominate the web. The space moves quickly, and Gaby’s list is a good place for those looking to keep up.
  8. What is Product Management? by Lenny Rachitsky. Lenny is unarguably one of the opinion leaders in the product space. In this edition of his news letter, he tackles the (still rather) vague concept of what it means to work in product management.
  9. Effects of Exercise on Symptoms of Anxiety in Primary Care Patients: A Randomized Controlled Trial by Henriksson et al. (2021). CBT and medication are standard treatment approaches for anxiety. This paper supports the notion that exercise is a valid tool to treat anxiety — although quite surprisingly they didn’t find major differences depending on the intensity of the exercise.
  10. The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi. Re-discovering one of my favourite scif-fis. What I’ve always loved about Rajaniemi’s work is how he seamlessly waves new technologies into his stories — rather than explaining them directly, he lets the reader discover what they are by the way the characters use these tools.