The aim of this work is to obtain new inequalities for the variable symmetric division deg index $SDD_α(G) = \sum_{uv \in E(G)} (d_u^α/d_v^α+d_v^α/d_u^α)$, and to characterize graphs extremal with respect to them. Here, $uv$ denotes the edge of the graph $G$ connecting the vertices $u$ and $v$, $d_u$ is the degree of the vertex $u$, and $α\in \mathbb{R}$. Some of these inequalities generalize and improve previous results for the symmetric division deg index. In addition, we computationally apply the $SDD_α(G)$ index on random graphs and show that the ratio $\left\langle SDD_α(G) \right\rangle/n$ ($n$ being the order of the graph) depends only on the average degree $\left\langle d \right\rangle$.