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Posts Tagged ‘research’

A new study gives potentially important information about social media use and why addiction to websites like Facebook is on the rise worldwide. According to Dr. Cecilie Schou Andreassen of the University of Bergen in Norway, social media addiction is a distinct type of Internet addiction that has grown significantly over the past several years. Andreassen’s research provides a first-ever look at the demographics of the average addicted Facebook user. According to Andreassen, Facebook addiction is much more common with younger users and women, both of whom respond to the social atmosphere of the website compared to real-life interactions. Her research also shows that socially insecure users are more likely to develop an addiction, as the website offers them a way to interact with their peers with less of a risk of perceived judgments. In contrast, organized people are less at risk for addiction and tend to use social networking websites as a tool to improve their professional lives rather than a complete source for socializing. Andreassen’s group also attempted to define warning signs for Facebook addiction. The team’s research notes that addicts will feel a persistent need to check their Facebook profiles and may become uncomfortable or restless when denied the opportunity. Facebook addiction also progresses over time. Addicts check the site more frequently and may start ignoring their responsibilities and avoiding real-life social situations in favor of social media. Severe Facebook addicts will notice their addiction negatively affecting their jobs and school coursework. Andreassen surveyed 423 students to create the new Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale. Higher-scoring individuals have more severe symptoms or more symptoms than lower-scoring individuals. Andreassen hopes that the scale will provide psychologists and social media researchers with a logical way to assess social media addiction in individuals, ideally allowing for better research and more effective treatment options for addicts. Members of her research group have also worked to develop other research instruments, including scales that measure work addiction. However, the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale is the one of the first instruments specifically designed to measure social media addiction rather than Internet addiction, which is more generally defined.

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Facebook Addiction Symptoms are Found by New Study

In this research report, learn about: Why more customers want e-signatures The changes in technology that increase the speed of processing transactions How to save money by going paperless You will gain insight on why tech- and web-savvy customers are influencing businesses to adopt e-signatures for a better customer experience. Request Free!

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Forrester Research Reports Customers are Driving E-Signature Adoption

According to the January 2012 Omni-Channel Retail Experience report, leading retail and consumer markets organizations are making the move to align the brand, align their product offerings, and align their marketing messages to achieve a uniform customer experience across all channels. While these organizations are focused on how to align the experience across channels, there is still a significant gap facing consumers. This gap goes beyond the alignment and integration of business processes and technologies; it comes down to a fundamental disconnect on the part of organizations to fully understand the importance of a connected experience. Between February and March 2012, Aberdeen investigated the state of the omni-channel customer experience for 80 consumer markets organizations. This Research Report will examine how Best-in-Class companies are bridging the channel gap to provide a consistent and reliable customer experience regardless of channel. Request Free!

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Best-in-Class Strategies to Overcome the Disconnected Customer Experience

Tragic stories, like Titanic, help us appreciate our own relationships. Human existence being what it is, it would seem logical that people would seek out happy stories to help them escape from life’s harsh realities. Yet people who experience the everyday tragedies, disappointments and losses that all human beings experience actively seek out movies, television shows and books that depict tragedy. It now appears that the reason people take pleasure in watching tragedies is that tragedies actually make them feel happier. A new research study from Ohio State University has found that when people watch tragic movies they tend to dwell upon their own relationships with loved ones. The act of thinking about their own relationships makes them feel happier. As a result, watching heart-wrenching things happen to a fictional character actually makes people focus on what is good in their own lives, leading to increased feelings of happiness and, perhaps, gratitude. According to Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, associate professor of communication at OSU and lead author of the study, her findings may help to explain why certain tragic themes appear over and over again throughout history. She points out that tragedies often center around the theme of undying love. Viewers identify with the tragic figures in such stories and reflect upon their own loved ones, feeling renewed appreciation and thankfulness for them. Knobloch-Westerwick found that viewers who thought the most about their own close relationships during a movie felt the most happiness. Movie-watchers who compared their own lives favorably to the lives of the tragic figures in the movies did not have a sense of increased happiness. Although philosophers have debated for millennia about the reasons behind the popularity of tragedies, Knobloch-Westerwick said that there had been little scientific research into the topic prior to her study. The results of her research were published in the journal Communication Research. Knobloch-Westerwick and her colleagues asked 361 college students questions designed to measure their levels of happiness. Then the participants were shown a Hollywood movie about lovers who are forced apart, only to die separately as casualties of war. After the movie ended, the students’ happiness levels were once again measured. They were also asked to describe their feelings before the movie began, at intervals during the movie and after the movie ended. At the end of the movie, participants were asked to rate their enjoyment of the movie then to write about the reflections the movie inspired in them. Specifically, they were asked how the movie affected their reflections upon themselves, their lives, their goals and the people in their lives. The participants’ responses helped to explain why people like watching movies that generate feelings of sadness within them, according to Knobloch-Westerwick. Those participants who felt the most sadness during the movies were the most likely to write about their own close relationships. As a result, these viewers felt happy and rated their movie-watching experience as more enjoyable than those who did not feel as sad during the movie. The investigators found no evidence that viewers who compared their own lives favorably to the lives of the movie’s characters felt any better as a result. People who reported feeling gratitude for their own relatively more fortunate lives did not receive the increase in happiness received by those who thought of the people they loved. According to Knobloch-Westerwick, thinking about themselves, even if they were feeling gratitude, did not make participants feel happier. At first glance, it might seem puzzling that people would have to enter a state of sadness in order to appreciate the good in their own relationships. However, Knobloch-Westerwick points out that research has shown that negative moods tend to make people think more, since they often signal the need to pay attention to what might be going wrong in a person’s life. Previous research has shown that depressed people actually see things more realistically than non-depressed people do. This phenomenon, often called depressive realism, allows the individual experiencing it to see more clearly their own limitations and to erase any illusions that they are loved because they are exceptionally deserving of love. As a result, the random nature of love and the awareness that a slightly different set of circumstances might have prevented key relationships from ever forming may make an individual feel more thankful for the people in their lives. Earlier studies have also demonstrated that relationships are the most important sources of happiness in most people’s lives. It should come as no surprise that looking at those relationships without the interference of obfuscating self-delusions would result in feelings of joy and happiness. “But negative emotions, like sadness, make you think more critically about your situation. So seeing a tragic movie about star-crossed lovers may make you sad, but that will cause you to think more about your own close relationships and appreciate them more,” Knobloch-Westerwick wrote. “Tragedies bring to mind close relationships, which makes us happy.”

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The Key to Happiness is Tragedy? [Study]

Written by Dr. Michelle Mazur This guy is lost. Your audience shouldn’t be. Have you ever been hiking and the trail suddenly disappears? All of the sudden, you don’t know where you are going. You are lost! You have to struggle to find the trail to push forward or you have to turn back. Have you ever sat through a presentation where you are utterly lost? You have no idea where the speaker is going. No idea where he has been and you are struggling to make sense of it all. Like hiking, when speaking the last thing you want is to get lost. Luckily by following some good hiking advice, your speech can keep the audience engaged and on the same happy trail as you. Be prepared Before venturing out on a hiking outing, you need to be prepared – food, water, proper clothes, and good boots. Before giving a presentation, you need to take the time to thoroughly prepare and rehearse your speech. Do your research. Craft a speech and then practice the speech. Not sure how to approach practicing a speech – check out 8 Steps to Practicing a Presentation for practical practice tips. Decide how to pack your speech backpack You’ve prepped for your hike – now you have to decide how to pack your backpack. For speakers, this means deciding on the structure of your speech. Deciding on what structure to use depends on your topic. For example, recounting a historical event – it’s best to use chronological order. Exploring two opposing viewpoints try a compare and contrast approach. Always bring a map Just a like hiker needs to know where they are going; your audience wants to know where they are following you. Provide them with a road map. Be sure in the introduction to preview your main points. Watch the transition to new terrain When I hike, I spend a lot of time looking at my feet. I’m always watching out for where the terrain might change. If only there were signposts that let me know when my smooth trail turns rocky. In presenting, there should always be signposts throughout the speech. When you transition from one point to the next, tell your audience. It can be something as simple as “My second point is” or you can summarize your previous point before introducing the next. Whatever your approach, you should take great care in how you transition to new terrain. End strong A few years ago after a long hike, I was off the trail, walking back to the car, fell, down and hurt myself. Why? Because I wasn’t paying attention to the end of the hike! I didn’t end strong. Speakers often make the mistake of just saying “thank you” or “that’s all I’ve got” before scurrying back to their seats. End your presentation strong. Summarize your main points. Leave your audience with a statement that you want them to remember! By being prepared, packing your speech backpack, having a map, watching your transitions and ending strong, you won’t lose your audience! More importantly, you won’t lose yourself out on the hiking trail. Do you have any tips on not losing your audience when you speak? Share ideas below. I’d love to hear them.

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How NOT to Lose your Audience in your Presentation

Rebecca Laws, a PhD student of environmental sciences at Boston University School of Public Health, discusses her research into cases of chronic kidney disease among sugar cane workers in Nicaragua.

Excerpt from:
Rebecca Laws – 2011 BUSPH Dean’s Report.mov