R. Gordon Rinderknecht

I am an associate behavioral scientist at RAND. I completed my postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, in the Department of Digital and Computational Demography, and I received my PhD in sociology from the University of Maryland in 2020.

Research

My academic research primarily focuses on the experience of social isolation, loneliness, and its intersections with technology. I am also highly interested in the opportunities and challenges associated with online data collection. My work has been funded by the National Science Foundation and published in Sociological Methodology, Social Problems, a chapter I co-led in the Research Handbook on Digital Sociology, and elsewhere.

My work at RAND extends my academic focus through an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant to study the non-monetary burdens of caregiving, including social isolation. My interests in technology are reflected in my research on malign foreign influence. My other work focuses on personnel issues in the United States military, especially as they relate to family policy, servicemember well-being, and veteran support. This work is currently funded by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Air Force Personnel Center, and was previously funded by the Heinz Endowments.

Non-Academic Publications

R. Gordon Rinderknecht. 2024. "There's less social media transparency and, likely, more disinformation." The Hill, opinion. https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4881927-disinformation-social-media-transparency/

Selected Academic Publications

R. Gordon Rinderknecht, Long Doan, and Liana Sayer. 2025. “The Daily Lives of Crowdsourced U.S. Respondents: A Time Use Comparison of MTurk, Prolific, and ATUS.” Sociological Methodology, 1-35. doi: 10.1177/00811750241312226

R. Gordon Rinderknecht, Long Doan, and Liana Sayer. 2023. “Loneliness Loves Company, Some More Than Others: Tie Strength, Form of Engagement, and Their Relation to Loneliness.” Social Problems, 70(2), 378–395. doi: 10.1093/socpro/spab049

Ridhi Kashyap*, R. Gordon Rinderknecht*, et al. 2023. “Digital and Computational Demography.” Pp. 48-86 in Research Handbook on Digital Sociology. doi: 10.31235/osf.io/7bvpt (* indicates equal authorship)

R. Gordon Rinderknecht, Long Doan, and Liana Sayer. 2023. “Secondary Activities: Their Proximity to Primary Activities and Their Importance for Understanding Reports of Preparing and Consuming Meals.” Survey Methods: Insights from the Field, 1-12. doi: 10.13094/SMIF-2023-00014

R. Gordon Rinderknecht, Long Doan, and Liana Sayer. 2022. “MyTimeUse: An Online Implementation of the Day-Reconstruction Method.” Journal of Time Use Research, 1-50. doi: 10.32797/jtur-2022-3

R. Gordon Rinderknecht. 2019. “Effects of Participant Displeasure on the Social-Psychological Study of Power on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.” SAGE Open 9, 1-13. doi: 10.1177/2158244019876268

Software Development

My programming background includes complex data processing and the creation of platforms for experimental and time use research. My primary focus is the development of mytimeuse.com, an online platform for collecting experiential and time diary data. (See here for more information.) I developed the platform using JavaScript (w/ Angular 4) and Python (w/ Flask-RESTful and SQLAlchemy).

Last Updated: 1/30/2025