Category Archives: Research

Posts referencing market research

Facebook Depression?

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In an online survey, the Center on Media and Child Health correlated the use of Facebook among college students, their feelings of envy and depression.

The study included 736 college students (68% female) enrolled in introductory journalism courses. Their mean age was 19 years,

The study found that heavy Facebook users were significantly more likely to experience symptoms of depression. Apparently, envy was the mediating factor. Users who did not feel envy when using Facebook were less likely to experience depression.

Ironically, a separate study by the Pew Foundation found that more than 80% of people on social networking sites exaggerate their profiles or outright lie.

My take: Perhaps if the budding journalists were aware of that, many would be less depressed. The congenitally honest seem to put themselves not only at a disadvantage, but at higher risk as well.

Signs of Cyberbullying in Children

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The Center on Media and Child Health publishes an electronic newsletter called Media Health Matters. The October 2014 edition contained tips to help parents  understand when their children could be being cyberbullied. The phenomenon itself has received much attention in mainstream media. However the tips for spotting cyberbullying have not been.

Children are often reluctant to tell parents that they have been cyberbullied because they fear reprisals or criticism.  Here are some tips offered by the Center that may help start a dialog. Look out for these warning signs, says the Center:

  • Becoming upset or sad after using the internet or mobile phone
  • Avoiding talking about computer or cell phone use.
  • Withdrawing from family, friends, and activities that they typically enjoy
  • A sudden or gradual drop in grades
  • Not wanting to go to school or specific activities, especially when peer groups are involved
  • Changes in behavior, attitude, sleep, appetite or showing signs of depression or anxiety.

For more information, read their entire article on Cyberbullying.

Social Networking in the Workplace

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FIRED-FOR-FACEBOOK

Used with the permission of online-paralegal-programs.com

A lady named Aria Cahill called this infographic to my attention. “You posted what?!” I find the graphics to be a pretty compelling way to tell a story. Her client is online-paralegal-programs.com. This graphic educates people about the dangers of social networking at work, specifically posting information about one’s employer or manager that may be derogatory. As an employer myself, I can tell you that I work around the clock to provide opportunities to employees and provide the most positive work environment I can. Inevitably, though, people sometimes become disenchanted for one reason or another. When they take their gripes online instead of discussing them with me, it feels as though I’m being stabbed in the back. It “colors” my relationship with the employee. It especially hurts when they do it on company time, using company computers.

This poster discusses how many people use social networks at work; the percent of people who say they’re dissatisfied with their jobs; how people are unloading their gripes online; and how the gripes affect their relationships with employers.

The last section, “Not fired – Note even hired!” talks about how employers check online postings before hiring people now. Personally, when I see someone who has a history of criticizing others online, it causes me to wonder whether they will criticize our clients publicly and cost us business. If I’m forced to make a close call between two candidates for a position, that could make me decide against one and for another.

Infographics like this are very thought-provoking. They underscore some of the unintended consequences of Internet usage … namely, how people can shoot themselves in the foot. My thanks to the people at online-paralegal-programs.com for allowing me to reproduce it.

 

Heavy television viewing among teens increases risk of depression later in life

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Teenagers who watch a large amount of television are significantly more likely to become depressed later in life according to a longitudinal study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

The 2009 study titled Association Between Media Use in Adolescence and Depression in Young Adulthood was conducted by Brian A. Primack, MD, EdM, MS, Brandi Swanier, BA, Anna M. Georgiopoulos, MD, Stephanie R. Land, PhD, and Michael J. Fine, MD, MSc

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Objective and Methodology

These researchers sought to assess the association between media exposure in adolescence and depression in young adulthood. They used a nationally representative sample – the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health) – to investigate the relationship between electronic media exposure in 4142 adolescents who were not depressed at baseline and development of depression seven years later. Initially, the teens were asked how many hours they had spent watching television each week. They reported an average of 2.3 hours. Seven years later (at an average age of 21.8), participants were screened again. More than 300, 7.4 percent had developed symptoms consistent with depression.

Findings: More TV Increases Risk of Depression

“Those reporting more television use had significantly greater odds of developing depression for each additional hour of daily television use. In addition, those reporting more total media exposure had significantly greater odds of developing depression for each additional hour of daily use.”

While the researchers did not find a consistent relationship between development of depressive symptoms and exposure to pre-recorded video, computer games, or radio, they did find a statistically significant correlation at the 95% confidence level with television.

Interestingly, they also found that men were more likely than women to develop depression given the same total media exposure.

How Television May Cause Depression

Results suggest that media exposure may influence development of depression through a variety of factors. Some are related to the medium itself, others to content.

Relating to the medium itself, the researchers theorize that:

  • Time spent passively watching television could displace more positive interaction with family and friends
  • The audio and video could energize the senses in ways that contribute to poor sleep.
  • Excessive viewing could interfere with development of good thinking skills, and potentially contribute to cognitive distortions.

Regarding potential links related to content, the researchers point to facts such as:

  • Large amounts of advertising which may present adolescents with unattainable images
  • Role models that exhibit high degrees of risk taking behaviors
  • Stereotypical characters that may affect self-image
  • Anxiety-provoking shows.

Why is this so crucial? The authors point to other studies that show:

  • Depression is the leading cause of nonfatal disability worldwide.1
  • Because onset of depression is common in adolescence and young adulthood,2, 3 it coincides with a pivotal period of physical and psychological development.
  • Depression can lead to poorer psychosocial functioning, lower life and career satisfaction, more interpersonal difficulty, greater need for social support, other related psychiatric conditions such as anxiety, and increased risk of suicide.4, 5

My Take

It should be noted that since this study was conducted four years ago, television viewing among teens has increased. Many now use it as a background medium while multitasking. Through multitasking, teens are now exposed to an average of 10.5 hours of media content per day – up TWO HOURS per day from an average of 8.5 hours when these researchers conducted their study.

To be sure, not all of those 10.5 hours are spent on television, but the trend is alarming – especially when you conider that internet addiction (IA) is also becoming a problem among teens and that IA has also been linked to depression. (See previous post.) This could help explain, in part, a 400% increase in the use of antidepressants reported by the CDC.

In my next post, I’ll explore the relationship between multitasking and depression.

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  1. Lopez AD, Mathers CD, Ezzati M, Jamison DT, Murray CJ. Global and regional burden of disease and risk factors, 2001: systematic analysis of population health data. Lancet. 2006;367(9524):1747–1757. [PubMed]
  2. Blazer DG, Kessler RC, McGonagle KA, Swartz MS. The prevalence and distribution of major depression in a national community sample: the National Comorbidity Survey. Am J Psychiatry. 1994;151(7):979–986. [PubMed]
  3. Commission on Adolescent Depression and Bipolar Disorder . Depression and bipolar disorder. In: Evans DL, Foa EB, Gur RE, et al., editors. Treating and Preventing Adolescent Mental Health Disorders: What We Know and What We Don’t Know: A Research Agenda for Improving the Mental Health of Our Youth. Oxford University Press; New York, NY: 2005.
  4. Paradis AD, Reinherz HZ, Giaconia RM, Fitzmaurice G. Major depression in the transition to adulthood: the impact of active and past depression on young adult functioning. J Nerv Ment Dis. 2006;194(5):318–323. [PubMed]
  5. Reinherz HZ, Giaconia RM, Hauf AM, Wasserman MS, Silverman AB. Major depression in the transition to adulthood: risks and impairments. J Abnorm Psychol. 1999;108(3):500–510. [PubMed]

Internet addiction and depression

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Is there a link between internet addiction and depression? I have often observed that Internet addicts seem less sociable than others – more focused on electronic interaction than physical interaction. I wonder if electronic interaction is somehow less satisfying emotionally and if that could contribute to depression.

The need for personal connection is one of our deepest needs. But connecting online lacks many of the elements that make physical interaction so satisfying. You can’t see people smile, shake their hands, or hug them. And you can’t smell the cookies they baked for you. Electronic interaction lacks many of the positive aspects of physical interaction. It is better than nothing, but a poor surrogate for the real thing. The electronic interaction, while good in itself, underscores physical disconnectedness.

Recently, I came across articles on two trend studies that brought this issue into focus.

  • The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics reported a 400% increase in the use of anti-depressant drugs in the period between 1988-94 and 2005-08.
  • The Pew Foundation reported exponential growth in Internet social networking during the latter period. See chart below.

Social networking site use by age group

So I looked for research to see if these two things were, in fact, related.

In 2010, the journal Psychopathology published a study called, “The Relationship between Excessive Internet Use and Depression: A Questionnaire-Based Study of 1,319 Young People and Adults” by C. M. Morrison and H. Gore from the University of Leeds in the UK.

The authors studied the link between Internet addiction (AI) and depression among 1,319 respondents. They found a close relationship between AI tendencies and depression, such that IA respondents were more depressed. Among their conclusions:

Those who regard themselves as dependent on the Internet report high levels of depressive symptoms. Those who show symptoms of IA are likely to engage proportionately more than the normal population in sites that serve as a replacement for real-life socialising.

“The internet now plays a huge part in modern life, but its benefits are accompanied by a darker side,” said lead author of the report Dr. Catriona Morrison. “There is a small subset of the population who find it hard to control how much time they spend online, to the point where it interferes with their daily activities.”

“Our research indicates that excessive internet use is associated with depression, but what we don’t know is which comes first – are depressed people drawn to the internet or does the internet cause depression? What is clear, is that for a small subset of people, excessive use of the internet could be a warning signal for depressive tendencies.”

In 2007, Psychopathology published another study called “Depression and Internet Addiction in Adolescents” by J.H. Ha, S.Y. Kim, S.C. Bae, H. Kim, M. Sim, and I.K. Lyoo, and S.C. Cho.

This group studied 452 Korean adolescents. First, they evaluated subjects for their severity of Internet addiction. Second, they investigated correlations between Internet addiction and depression, alcohol dependence and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. They also found that Internet addiction was significantly associated with depressive symptoms and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Their data suggests the need to evaluate underlying depression in the treatment of Internet-addicted adolescents.

This year, Psyopathology also published another study on the subject. It was a survey of previously published academic research called, “The Association between Pathological Internet Use and Comorbid Psychopathology: A Systematic Review.” The authors of this study were: V. Carli, T. Durkee, D. Wasserman, G. Hadlaczky, R. Despalins, E. Kramarz, C. Wasserman, M. Sarchiapone, C.W. Hoven, R Brunner and M. Kaess.

They evaluated all of the studies about pathological Internet use (PIU) on MEDLINE, PsycARTICLES, PsychINFO, Global Health, and Web of Science. They found relationships to depression, anxiety, symptoms of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and hostility/aggression.

The majority of research was conducted in Asia. Of the twenty articles they reviewed, 75% reported significant correlations of PIU with depression, 57% with anxiety, 100% with symptoms of ADHD, 60% with obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and 66% with hostility/aggression. The strongest correlations were observed between PIU and depression; the weakest was hostility/aggression.

 My Take

Could it be that lonely, depressed people self-medicate by socializing on the Internet to make themselves feel less lonely? In the end, do they only makes themselves more depressed by isolating themselves from family, friends and support networks?

The advertising industry trade journal Ad Age reports that:

Time spent with computers has tripled over the past decade among kids age 8 to 18. The bulk of this group’s time is spent on social media, followed by games, video sites and instant messaging. The average kid packs a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content into a daily seven and a half hours of media exposure.

Facebook may be a great way to stay in touch with friends, but it’s not quite the same thing as a hug. An email to your brother or sister isn’t quite the same thing as having dinner with him or her. An online role playing game with someone in another state isn’t quite the same thing as a pickup game of basketball down at the local playground. Or playing catch with your dad. Or baking with your mom and watching the smiles as an apple pie comes out of the oven.

An electronic social life is at best a surrogate experience for personal connection. Just like the personal handwritten letters that people used to write, electronic interaction often results in bittersweet feelings: sweet because you’re connecting, bitter because you’re still apart.

This can lead to emotional burn out for Internet addicts. They find themselves going online more and more to get the same sense of connection they once felt. But the emotional mailbox is empty. The increased time they spend online simply underscores their separation from family and friends. Kind of depressing, huh? The answer may not be in pills. It may be in logging onto life.

The Internet and National Referendums

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For nearly 40 years, the Gallup organization has been polling Americans about various political reforms. This morning, Gallup released another poll that showed 68% of Americans favor a national referendum on an issue if enough voters sign a petition to request a vote on it. Three Americans favored this proposal for every one who was against it. (See below.)

Many U.S. states allow voters to decide key issues directly rather than have elected representatives decide all issues. Sadly, the notion has yet to gain traction on a national level even though Internet technology would make national referendums both practical and easy.

I can envision a site called USreferendums.gov that would allow voters to sign petitions. Voter registration boards in each state could issue unique user IDs and passwords for the site to keep zealots from logging on multiple times under different names.

Any petition that got the support of, let’s say, 10% of each state’s registered voters, could be put on the next federal election ballot.

Referendums could reduce the influence of lobbyists.

In this way, we might pass legislation that represents the public’s interest rather than special interests. After several mass murders late last year, bills were introduced to ban assault rifles and high capacity ammo clips. Another proposal called for more thorough background checks on gun purchasers. Both had overwhelming public support. And both went down in flames. A national referendum on these issues would have had a much different outcome.

So here we are, Bubba. We let psychos buy assault rifles to kill children. But we don’t give citizens the right to vote on proposals that could save them. What’s wrong with this picture? Perhaps its time for a national referendum on national referendums.

To be clear, I’m not proposing that we cut legislators out of the loop. Someone still needs to formulate legislation.

The biggest issue I see: How do we determine which petitions get put on USreferendums.gov?

Regarding this last point, I modestly suggest that when public opinion polls differ from legislative outcomes by a wide margin, it’s time for a public referendum. This would keep everybody honest, make government more responsive, and still allow legislators to handle the vast majority of work.

The Internet can now provide the same kind of check-and-balance, watchdog function over government that the professional press does. There’s an opportunity here to make democracy more democratic. We should take it. In my opinion, we should begin a series of national referendums on important issues when Congress fails to represent wishes of the public.

Facebook and Self-Esteem

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Viewing your own profile on Facebook can boost self-esteem, but also decrease your desire to perform according to a new study published in the June, 2013, issue of the journal Media Psychology by a University of Wisconsin professor Catalina Toma.

The study is entitled “Feeling Better But Doing Worse: Effects of Facebook Self-Presentation on Implicit Self-Esteem and Cognitive Task Performance.”

Toma found that the self-edited profiles people post on Facebook present idealized versions of themselves that provide a significant boost to self-esteem after looking at them for just five minutes.

Toma measured how quickly participants associated positive or negative adjectives with words such as me, my, I and myself. “If you have high self-esteem, then you can very quickly associate words related to yourself with positive evaluations but have a difficult time associating words related to yourself with negative evaluations,” Toma said. “But if you have low self-esteem, the opposite is true.”

Additionally, Toma investigated whether exposure to one’s own Facebook profile affects behavior. “We wanted to know if there are any additional psychological effects that stem from viewing your own self-enhancing profile,” she said. “Does engaging with your own Facebook profile affect behavior?”

Self-Satisfaction Decreases Motivation to Perform Well

The behavior examined in the study was performance in a serial subtraction task, assessing how quickly and accurately participants could count down from a large number by intervals of seven. Toma found that the self-esteem boost that came from looking at their profiles ultimately diminished participants’ performance in the follow-up task by decreasing their motivation to perform well.

After people spent time on their own profile they attempted fewer answers during the allotted time than people in a control group, but their error rate was not any worse.

“Performing well in a task can boost feelings of self-worth,” Toma says. “However, if you already feel good about yourself because you looked at your Facebook profile, there is no psychological need to increase your self-worth by doing well in a laboratory task.”

Viewing Others’ Profiles May Deflate Self-Esteem

Toma cautions, however, that “This does not show that Facebook use negatively affects college students’ grades.”  Previous research has actually shown that looking at the Facebook profiles of others could have some ego-deflating effects. In a study presented last year at the meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, people with lots of Facebook friends experienced a drop in self-esteem after viewing their friends’ status updates.

My Take

This research is a valuable contribution to self-affirmation theory. This theory states that people are motivated to maintain a feeling of self-worth, especially when their self-image is threatened.

Many highly motivated people are often driven by performance anxiety, the feeling that someone might be gaining on them. A few calm moments of reassurance from time to time can be healthy. Gazing at one’s accomplishments can be a good reminder of how hard work paid off.

However, excessive basking in the fading glory of yellowing press clippings can also keep one from moving forward. The more we live in the past, the less time we have to focus on the future.

Will news consumption preferences change media crisis coverage?

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In 2004, Stuart Fischoff, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychology, California State University, Los Angeles, published a poignant essay entitled Media Crisis Coverage: To Serve and to Scare. It was published in the Journal of Media Psychology.

Professor Fishoff examines what he calls the “dysfunctional partnership between the media and the public in our increasingly media-centric lives.”  He describes the intimate, adrenaline-fueled dance between viewers and producers of television crisis coverage and observes:

“The thin line between gut-wrenching, vital information and a news-sponsored horror show begins its fade to oblivion.”

In 2001, days after 9/11, a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project titled How Americans Used the Internet After the Terror Attack found that 81% of all Americans said they got most of their information from TV; only 3% of Internet users got most of their information about the attacks from the Internet.”

In his essay Media Crisis Coverage, Fischoff observed:

“During a crisis, many viewers, particularly those with 24-hour cable news shows, seek out the constant drumbeat of news coverage to stay informed and reduce the stress that accompanies uncertainty.  But watching hours of crisis coverage footage can often have the opposite effect.  Visual images go directly to the most primitive parts of our psyche, pushing all the fear buttons.  Anxiety is elevated.  People watch in order to calm themselves.  The more they watch, the more they want to watch because the more anxious they feel.  And the cycle continues.”

To reduce the psychological trauma and anxiety of being drawn into news/horror shows, Fischoff made a number of recommendations. One had to do with the size of the screen that viewers used to watch crisis coverage.

“Shrink the size of the image,” said Fischoff.  “Here is another example of when size matters: According to Detenber (1996), size is important to emotional response. It is important to babies in perceiving others, and to adults when watching a movie in a theater. Image size positively affects the arousal and dominance dimensions of emotional responses. Size is a primitive heuristic (in animals, for example, who is prey and who is predator, or who is too powerful to safely take on) that influences a range of judgments. Films seen as large images on a screen elicit stronger feelings of arousal than the same films when viewed on small screens disbursing small images.”

After reading this essay, I began to wonder about two things:

  • Will the trend toward getting news from the Internet, especially via smartphones and tablets, reduce the traumatic stress that people feel when viewing crisis coverage? Their screens are much smaller than televisions’ (70″ LED screens seem to be the current norm for new TVs).
  • In times of real crises, such as 9/11, will people revert back to getting news from TV because of the “quality” of coverage it presents?

Fast forward ten years. By 2011, Pew found that “The internet now trails only television among American adults as a destination for news, and the trend line shows the gap closing.” The report also found that in December 2010, 41% of Americans cited the internet as the place where they got “most of their news about national and international issues,” up 17% from a year earlier.

Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project

 My Take

Current Internet news coverage fundamentally differs from television news coverage. It tends to be more text than video focused, although this is beginning to change with increases in bandwidth. The comparative lack of video and sound remove much of the visceral “you-are-there” impact of crisis coverage. And if digital coverage becomes too repetitive, i.e., with endless reruns of the Twin Towers falling, viewers can easily switch “channels” or topics. The Internet offers millions of URL’s to choose from.

I suspect that the shift to digital news consumption will have a psychologically mitigating effect on consumers. I also suspect, for television producers, the real horror show will be their bottom line.

The Dark Side of Cell Phones: Traffic Accidents

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shutterstock_54292804What discussion of media impacts of life would be complete without looking at the relationship between cell phones and traffic accidents.  Cell phones were originally seen as on-the-road safety devices. Ironically, today The National Safety Council, CDC, U.S. Department of Transportation and World Health Organization  recognize them as one of the leading causes of traffic accidents.

The National Safety Council estimates that at least 23 percent of all traffic crashes – or at least 1.3 million crashes – involve cell phone use per year. An estimated 1.2 million crashes each year involve drivers using cell phones for conversations and at least 100,000 additional crashes can be related to drivers who are texting. Cell phone conversations are involved in 12 times as many crashes as texting.

Researchers observing more than 1,700 drivers found that three out of every four drivers using a cell phone committed a traffic violation according to the National Safety Council. At any given daylight moment, they say that 9 percent of drivers are talking on phones (handheld and hands-free).

The National Safety Council report also indicates that talking on a cell phone while driving makes you four times more likely to crash, and texting while driving increases your chances of a crash by up to 8 to 23 times.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) claims that an average of 15 people are killed each day and more than 1,200 people are injured in crashes that were reported to involve a distracted drive. The CDC recognizes three main types of distraction:

  • Visual—taking your eyes off the road;
  • Manual—taking your hands off the wheel; and
  • Cognitive—taking your mind off what you are doing.

Distracted driving activities include (but are not limited to) things like using a cell phone and texting. The CDC says texting while driving is especially dangerous because it combines all three types of distraction. Younger, inexperienced drivers under the age of 20 may be at highest risk because they have the highest proportion of distraction-related fatal crashes.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes distracted driving as a serious and growing problem. With more and more people owning mobile phones, and the rapid introduction of new “in-vehicle” communication systems, they claim this problem is likely to escalate globally in the coming years.

WHO says drivers using mobile phones increase their accident risk by increasing their reaction times, inadvertently following too closely and swerving into adjacent traffic. They also claim that there is no conclusive evidence to show that hands-free phoning is any safer than hand-held phoning, because of the cognitive distraction involved with both types of phones.

The problem of distracted driving has become so serious that the U.S. Department of Transportation has set up a program to end it. See D!straction.gov to get the facts, get involved and see what the government recommends.

Impact of Media on Child Health

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I have long felt that in the Information Age, media are like the air we breath and the water we drink – necessary for life, but sometimes toxic and often unhealthy. Browsing this morning, I found this group: The Center for Media and Child Health (CMCH).

videogameAt Children’s Hospital Boston, the Harvard Medical School, and the Harvard School of Public Health, this group is dedicated to understanding and responding to the effects of media on the physical, mental, and social health of children through research, translation, and education.

They have found that young people spend more time using media—TV, movies, music, computers, Internet, cell phones, magazines, and video games—than engaging in any other single activity except sleep. Their site is a treasure trove of scientific research related to these topics.

According to the Center for Media and Child Health:

The media that children use and create are integral to their growing sense of themselves, of the world, and of how they should interact with it. These pervasive, persuasive influences have been linked to both negative health outcomes, such as smoking, obesity, sexual risk behaviors, eating disorders and poor body image, anxiety, and violence, and to positive outcomes, such as civil participation, positive social behavior, tolerance, school readiness, knowledge acquisition, and positive self-image. For any given child, which effects occur depends largely on the media’s content, the child’s age, the context in which the child uses media, the amount of media the child uses, and whether that use is active and critical.”

 

To create positive rather than negative outcomes, they propose five Five Cs, which I summarize below:

  • Control time
    Limit media use to an amount appropriate for your child’s age.
  • Filter Content
    All media educate. Some teach healthy lessons, others harmful.
  • Influence Context.
    Where, when, how, why, and with whom kids use media can enrich or harm them.
  • Teach Critical thinking
    It’s essential for healthy development.
  • Create media mastery
    Show kids how to think about media they use, instead of passively consuming it.

My Take

To kids, media represent a way to explore the world, stay connected, share experiences, identify with groups, and show off. They’re a badge of belonging. They’re a gateway to information, entertainment and temptation.

Research shows that kids consume up to seven hours per day of media (ten and a half hours if you factor in multitasking). Nothing will influence the type of adults that kids become more than you and the media they consume. The wise parent will teach kids to use media time wisely. I read that in a fortune cookie, so I know it must be true.