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Why We Can’t Look Away From Our Screens
The New York Times: In a new book, “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked,” the social psychologist Adam Alter warns that many of us — youngsters, teenagers, adults — are addicted to modern digital products. Not figuratively, but literally addicted. Dr. Alter, 36, is an associate professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University who researches psychology and marketing. We spoke for two hours last week at the offices of The New York Times. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity and brevity. Read the whole story: The New York Times
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Why You (And Everyone You Know) Felt Compelled to Share That BuzzFeed Quiz on Facebook
Fortune: Scrolling through the average Facebook feed is often a baffling experience. Why, for instance, did that aunt’s friend decide now was a good time repost an article about Pizzagate? And why, for a hot second a couple years ago, did it seem as if every single friend from college was posting the inexplicably popular BuzzFeed quiz, “What Country Do You Actually Belong In?” While a pair of new studies doesn’t provide answers to these exact questions, they do examine and analyze what goes on in our brains when we decide to share content.
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A 48-Hour Sexual ‘Afterglow’ Helps to Bond Partners Over Time
A study of newlywed couples indicates that partners experience a sexual ‘afterglow’ that lasts for up to two days and is linked with relationship quality over the long term.
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A Behavioral Economist Tries to Fix Email
The Atlantic: Can anything be done to make people happier with their jobs? What can prevent people from overeating? Will people like beer with balsamic vinegar in it just because they’ve been told it contains a “secret ingredient”? These are some of the questions that Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke University, has studied in his research over the years, which spans in scope from the weighty to the quotidian.
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Teenagers Do Dumb Things, but There Are Ways to Limit Recklessness
The New York Times: By now parents are familiar with the worrisome finding that the thrill-seeking centers of the adolescent brain can readily outmatch the teenage brain’s emerging rational control systems. I count myself among the adults who find this neurological account of adolescent recklessness to be both clarifying and confounding. It helpfully explains why really thoughtful teenagers sometimes do really dumb things. But experience tells us that some teenagers are much more impulsive than others, so it’s hard to imagine that all adolescents are equally at the mercy of their own gawky brains. New research sheds light on the question of teenagers and self-control.
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Why it’s so Hard to Remember People’s Names
Research shows that the ability to learn and remember proper names, particularly people’s names, is notoriously more difficult relative to other types of words.
