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Twitter is harder to resist than cigarettes and alcohol, study finds
The Guardian: Tweeting or checking emails may be harder to resist than cigarettes and alcohol, according to researchers who tried to measure how well people could resist their desires. They even claim that while sleep and sex may be stronger urges, people are more likely to give in to longings or cravings to use social and other media. A team headed by Wilhelm Hofmann of Chicago University's Booth Business School say their experiment, using BlackBerrys, to gauge the willpower of 205 people aged between 18 and 85 in and around the German city of Würtzburg is the first to monitor such responses "in the wild" outside a laboratory. Read the full story: The Guardian
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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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Old and on the Road: Can We Train Elderly Drivers To Be Safer?
Mr. Magoo, a cartoon regular of early TV, was notorious for his hazardous driving. He was a retiree, befuddled and extremely nearsighted, yet he continued to drive despite these obvious failings. In the opening sequence to his long-running show, he has run-ins with a railroad train, a haystack and several barn animals, a roller coaster, a fire hydrant, a mud hole and a high voltage line—all while honking his horn and shouting “Road hog!” Looking back, it seems like a cruel stereotype of the elderly, especially elderly drivers. But like all stereotypes, the Mr. Magoo caricature had a bit of truth to it.
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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.
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It’s Not Me, It’s You
The New York Times: WHEN Jeryl Brunner, a writer in Manhattan, was in her 20s, she had a friend who was just the sort of acquaintance people scoop up in their social net when they are young and trying to carve out a life in a new city. The friend was fun, outgoing and stylish, and always up for a night of dancing at Area, or a weekend jaunt to a Neiman Marcus outlet in New Jersey. But as Ms. Brunner neared 40, the reasons for their spending time together became less clear. “It’s almost like we were in different movies,” said Ms. Brunner, now 46. “We didn’t connect on this fundamental view of what was important. I don’t obsess about material things.
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Quiet, Please: Unleashing ‘The Power Of Introverts’
NPR: From Gandhi to Joe DiMaggio to Mother Teresa to Bill Gates, introverts have done a lot of good work in the world. But being quiet, introverted or shy was sometimes looked at as a problem to overcome. In the 1940s and '50s the message to most Americans was: Don't be shy. And in today's era of reality television, Twitter and widespread self-promotion, it seems that cultural mandate is in overdrive. Read the whole story: NPR
