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Is cursing really such a big deal any more?
The Globe and Mail: Recently, on the sitcom Modern Family, a subplot concerned little Lily letting loose the mother of swear words to the consternation of one of her dads, and the giggles of the other. The child actress playing the kid said “fudge,” which was bleeped, but this didn’t stop something called the No Cussing Club (not known for its rockin’ parties) from requesting that ABC kill the episode. The Parents Television Council joined in lock step, and a spokesperson complained: “The more we see and hear this kind of language on television, the more acceptable and common it will become in the real world.” Who blames television for anything any more?
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Facebook: Is this any place for the not-so-self-assured to make friends?
Los Angeles Times: Facebook, the social networking giant that connects 845 million people to one another, may be a jolly gabfest for the self-assured. But for those who suffer from low self-esteem, it appears to be a rather nasty trap, luring such people into self-disclosures that prompt many a Facebook friend to agree with their low opinion of themselves.
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Language as a Window into Human Nature
Steven Pinker shows us how the mind turns the finite building blocks of language into infinite meanings. Watch here
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Psicologia: Facebook insidia per chi ha scarsa autostima
Yahoo Italia: Facebook è per molti, ma non per tutti. Il social network dei record, infatti, è controindicato per le persone con scarsa autostima. Secondo uno studio pubblicato su 'Psychological Science', infatti, questo tipo di cybernauti finisce per bombardare gli amici online con messaggi negativi sulla propria vita, rendendosi sgradevole senza rendersene conto. "Pensavamo che Facebook potesse essere un posto fantastico per le persone, uno spazio per rafforzare le relazioni", spiega Amanda Forest dell'University of Waterloo, coautrice della ricerca insieme a Joanne Woo. Anche perché "chi soffre di scarsa autostima spesso è a disagio nelle relazioni faccia a faccia", spiega.
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Irreconcilable differences links
Boston Globe: Additional reading (and listening) on the "irreconcilable differences" of politics, football, and Tweet seats, for those who are interested. This article in the Chronicle of Higher Education explores the research of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Haidt (pronounced like "height") made his name arguing that intuition, not reason, drives moral judgments. People are more like lawyers building a case for their gut feelings than judges reasoning toward truth. How much of moral thinking is innate? Haidt sees morality as a "social construction" that varies by time and place.
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Your Negative Status Updates Rub People the Wrong Way, Apparently
TIME: Those who use social media as a way to get an ego boost from friends and family (you know who you are), be warned: a new study has found that those with low self-esteem can actually make themselves less likable to others based on what they post to Facebook. The study — co-written by University of Waterloo grad student Amanda Forest and her advisor Joanne Wood – is soon to be published in the Association for Psychological Science’s journal Psychological Science. The study monitored the Facebook status updates of those who admitted to having low self-esteem and who believed that the site was a safe space where they could connect with others and share information.
