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Are All of Your Photo Memories Actually Making You Forget?
Slate: We’ve all done it; we’ve all taken a zillion pictures on that beach vacation or at a wedding. And why not? It’s easier than ever with a camera burning a hole in our pockets at all times. Not to mention, it’s not just easier to take the well-timed photo, it’s easier than ever to share our Instagrammed lives. But is all that memory-making actually making you forget? A new study in the journal Psychological Science says it's quite possible. The study, which set out to find out how taking photographs impacts our memory, used undergraduate students as subjects. The students were led on a tour around a museum and instructed to photograph certain objects and simply observe others.
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What the Language You Speak Says About You
Pacific Standard: Bad at planning for the future? You might be able to blame your language. Differences in the way various languages talk about the present and future could help explain why Germans urge free-spending Greeks to adopt their fiscal discipline, and why Americans are baffled by China’s low consumption and high savings rates, according to research published in the American Economic Review in April Keith Chen, a behavioral economist at the University of California-Los Angeles, researches intertemporal decision-making, or how people make choices when the consequences of those choices are spread out over time. Do you spend your money on a fancy sports car, or save up for retirement?
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Study: Teens Who Drink Alone More Likely to Develop Drinking Problems in Adulthood
Pittsburgh's NPR Station: The legal drinking age in the U.S. is 21, but as many people who’ve gone through high school and who are familiar with pop culture know, kids finds ways around that all the time. A new study from researchers at the University of Pittsburgh finds that teens that do their drinking alone may be at greater risk for alcohol problems later in life. “Most adolescents who drink alcohol do so in social settings,” said lead author Kasey Creswell.
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Women Hate Sexy Ads, Unless They’re for Something Expensive
TIME: Women are turned off by sexually explicit images in advertisements. Unless, that is, the item being advertised is very precious. And valuable. And rare. Like, maybe, a once a year type gift. At least, that’s the findings of a new study by an international group of marketing professors. Kathleen D. Vohs, Jaideep Sengupta and Darren W. Dahl used made-up advertisements for watches to test a theory in sexual economics that women want sex to be seen as something special, or at least not cheap. Sexual economic theory is “probably the least romantic theory about sex you’ll ever have learned,” says Vohs, who’s a researcher at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.
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Dealing With Burnout, Which Doesn’t Always Stem From Overwork
The New York Times: IT’S the end of the year, and lots of us are feeling a little overwhelmed. Tired, unfocused and ready to take a nice break with our families (or away from our families in some cases). We may be feeling garden-variety stress. Or more ominously, we may be burned out. Although most of us tend to use those phrases interchangeably, researchers say stress is to burnout as feeling a little blue is to clinical depression — a much more serious and long-term problem that doesn’t get the attention it should, but can affect all aspects of our lives and workplace. Burnout is not just when you need a vacation to recharge.
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Want to Remember Your Museum Visit? Don’t Take Pictures
LiveScience: When it comes to looking at art and artifacts, new research may encourage habitual shutterbugs to put away their cameras. A study suggests museum-goers are less likely to remember objects they photograph than objects they simply observe. However, taking a zoomed-in photo of a specific part of a painting, mosaic or statue could help preserve memory of the entire piece, the researchers found. Psychology researcher Linda Henkel, of Fairfield University in Connecticut, said her study was inspired by real-life observations, from seeing concert-goers compulsively document performances to watching tourists hardly pause to take in natural wonders. Read the whole story: LiveScience
