behavior

Two recently published studies out of Seattle Children's Research Institute indicate that certain levels of media usage can lead to depression in college students as well as disrupt sleep patterns in preschool children.

Not exactly earth-shattering.

Perhaps more surprisingly, the researchers found in the first study that out of the 224 college students who took the Internet Addiction Test, only 9 of them (4 percent) scored in the "occasional problem" or "addicted" range.

To put what sounds like a small number in perspective, the researchers say that Internet over-usage is now more prevalent than asthma.… Read more

On today's show, why horny Amish guys shouldn't sext while driving their horse and buggies and why somewhere in the world, Martin Short is currently clenching his butt cheeks. Yep, it's a Donald Bell show. Also, ISPs are adopting graduated responses to piracy and Apple gets a patent that may or may not be broad depending on how you define "N."

Brad Bushman, a communication and psychology professor at Ohio State University, has conducted many studies demonstrating the negative effects violent video games can have on teens and young people.

He wasn't investigating the possible effects of "relaxing" games because, he says, "Until recently...such games didn't exist. Most video games try to rev people up rather than calm them down."

But the researcher says a growing genre of relaxing games has enabled him to investigate whether, just as violent games can lead to aggressive behavior, nonviolent games can promote positive behaviors.

Bushman and doctoral … Read more

Social networking is more popular in Latin America, the Middle East, and China than in the U.S., Japan, and other Internet-saturated markets.

That is just one of the findings of the "Digital Life" study released today by British research firm TNS. Polling nearly 50,000 people across 46 countries, the survey was designed to gauge changes in online behavior globally.

The study found that online users in certain rapid-growth regions are now spending more time on social-networking sites than on e-mail. Consumers in Latin America, the Middle East, and China put in 5.2 hours each week … Read more

It is fascinating the ways in which the world of computing can be made easier, thus creating opportunity for new complexities--usually in the form of new computing technologies. It's happened with programming languages, software architectures, computer networks, data center design, and systems virtualization. However, nothing has raised the bar on that concept like IT automation.

You may have been expecting to hear the term "cloud computing," but cloud is just an outcome of good automation. It's an operations model--a business model to some--that was only made possible by a standardization of the core elements of … Read more

Understanding the economics of cloud computing is critical to driving the right operations decisions for IT organizations of all sizes.

Some months ago Joe Weinman, vice president of corporate strategy at AT&T, posted a primer of sorts explaining the mathematics of computing utilities. When should an IT organization choose a public cloud computing or storage utility? Should you select dedicated systems for your application, or perhaps a hybrid cloud envionment, combining public clouds with internal cloud computing resources? Weinman's post has formulas that can help answer these questions and more.

Last week, Weinman followed up that post … Read more

Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) appears to be just as effective in treating panic disorder and mild to moderate depression when it is done online as it is in a more traditional, group-based setting, according to a doctoral thesis to be presented next week at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

"Internet-based CBT is also more cost-effective than group therapy," says Jan Bergström, a clinical psychologist at the Anxiety Disorders Unit of the Psychiatry Northwest division of the Stockholm County Council. "The results therefore support the introduction of Internet treatment into regular psychiatry."

Bergström'… Read more

Want to get digital-policy regulator types fired up? Start talking about behavioral ad targeting, the business of serving up digital ads that are fine-tuned to a user's Web surfing habits, and you're sure to get all kinds of wildly varied opinions about privacy and sensitive data.

But a new study from a group called the Network Advertising Initiative, or NAI, claims that behavioral targeting is more than twice as effective as non-targeted ads, and the inventory from behavioral ads is worth double that of their non-targeted brethren. The study found that 6.8 percent of people who click … Read more

My mom always told me “Make your passion your profession, and you’ll be a happy man.” She was right, and I am glad I followed her advice. Yet I appear to be part of a minority. In an article about growing disenchantment at work (“Hating What You Do”), this week’s Economist cites a survey conducted by the Center for Work-Life Policy, an American consultancy. It found that between June 2007 and December 2008 the proportion of workers who professed loyalty to their employers slumped from 95% to 39%, and the number voicing trust in them fell from 79% … Read more