Psychology

More Facebook friends = more stress, poll finds

The whole point of Facebook is to keep up with your friends, right? You might think that adding friends means having more fun, but a small Scottish study says it's adding to our stress.

A report by the University of Edinburgh Business School has found that increasing friends -- specifically different groups of friends -- increases the potential for stress.

It's hardly earth-shattering news, but including parents or employers as Facebook friends resulted in the greatest increase in anxiety, according to the report.

"Stress arises when a user presents a version of [herself or himself] on Facebook that is unacceptable to some of their online 'friends,' such as posts displaying behavior such as swearing, recklessness, drinking, and smoking," the university said in a release.

"The more social circles a person is linked to online the more likely social media will be a source of stress." … Read more

Muse brainwave-reading headband: Mind control for all

As a child, I used to concentrate really hard on things like pencils and pebbles, trying to get them to budge with the sheer power of my mind. It never worked, but technology is getting us a little closer to the mind control dream. The Muse brainwave-sensing headband from Interaxon is a step in the right direction.

The Muse uses two sensors on the forehead and two behind the ears. You wear it positioned kind of like a pair of glasses. It measures your brainwaves and sends the information to a smartphone or tablet. Viewing that data in real time can show you if your mind is wandering, if you're relaxed, or if you're in a state of intense concentration.… Read more

How Facebook investors fooled themselves

When disasters happen, everyone wants an explanation.

This is partly so that it can't happen again and partly in order to find something or someone to blame.

I am relieved, therefore, that we finally have a culprit for the slight debacle that was the Facebook IPO.

No, it isn't Facebook's CFO, nor some rapacious banker, seated upon a velvet Bentley driver's seat. Instead, the cause of this tragedy was Availability Bias.

Should you not have heard of this phenomenon, or syndrome or complex it's the idea that if people find something important, they believe that … Read more

Can a smartphone sense depression?

New smartphone technology is in the works that should be able to tell whether a person is depressed.

The idea behind Mobilyze--under development by researchers at Northwestern University--is to create a virtual therapist to monitor a person's activity over several days and then make a mood assessment.

"We're trying to develop individual algorithms for each user that can determine specific states," lead researcher and psychologist David Mohr said in an interview on WBBM radio in Chicago.

These algorithms would include people's location, activity, social context, what they're doing, and their mood, in order … Read more

Research: Web porn stops men from performing

Men in their 20s have a lot to worry about.

Will they ever get a job? Will they ever keep that job for more than a few months? Will they ever have enough money to pay their student loans and still be able to spend $100 a week on pot? Will they ever put their pants on the right way round at the first attempt?

Now it seems that something they do for recreation, in order to take their mind off their worries, is having increasingly worrying effects.

My hard-core reading of Psychology Today caused me to come across a … Read more

MoodKit: Can an app improve your mood?

Sometimes we all get so wrapped up in our physical health (see: Four killer iPhone apps that help you lose weight), we forget about our mental health. But take it from a guy who can get mighty moody, it's no less important.

MoodKit is a new app packed with tools designed to improve not just your mood, but also your overall well-being. It's available now for $4.99.

Developed by a pair of clinical psychologists, MoodKit employs acknowledged cognitive-therapy techniques. It's designed to be used on its own or as part of a professional treatment plan.

The … Read more

Research: Facebook makes your head bigger

How do you feel about yourself? A little indifferent? A touch fed up with the creases on either side of your mouth? Drinking a little more than usual because the boy at the next work station got a raise and you didn't?

Please lie down here and let me make you feel better. Please pull out your iPhone. Now log on to Facebook.

There, feeling better already, huh?

This new method of curing the insecure was brought to me by the wise researchers at Cornell University. Jeffrey Hancock, associate professor of communication, and Amy Gonzales (Ph.D., 2010) decided … Read more

Study shows some suffer from 'Facebook envy'

Is Facebook making you sad? While most people log on to find out what's going on, a new study reveals that peering into the lives of your peers is making people look at themselves, and some aren't happy with what they see.

"Early Show" technology expert Katie Linendoll noted that, over the last five years, social-networking sites like Facebook have become the place we share our lives publicly with family and friends. The more than 500 million user profiles feature images and updates of people enjoying the best moments of their lives.

However, a new study … Read more

CES: What the gadgets on display say about you

LAS VEGAS--Psychiatry and fortune-telling should merge even quicker than Google and Twitter. Or Yahoo and anyone.

With this obvious societal need in mind, I have navigated the halls of the Consumer Electronics Show here in order to obtain a picture of who you are about to become, based on your current psychology.

I am trying to give the benefit of dubiousness to the companies displaying their wares here. I am assuming that they don't just create these TVs, in-car audio systems, flowery iPad cases, and mind-altering flying toys without considering the people who will be enjoying them.

So here … Read more