Psych & Soc

How Facebook and Twitter Are Helping the Homeless - Technology. Homeless people have Facebook friends, too.

According to a new study from University of Dayton sociologist and criminologist Art Jipson, homeless people are increasingly connected to each other and to non-homeless people through social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter, accessed through cell phones. Jipson found, through interviews with a relatively small sample of homeless people in the Dayton area, that the homeless are using the sites for their social networking aspects, but also for day-to-day practicalities: finding places to sleep, sources of food and access to services.

Given the relative cheapness of pay-as-you-go cell phones (especially compared with housing costs), it's not surprising to find that an increasing amount of homeless people are using cell phones to access the internet. A study by USC researcher Eric Rice released in December found that 62 percent of homeless youth have cell phones. Top image: Tom K! The Reason "Why Every Social Media Manager Should Be Under 25" Struck Such A Nerve. Digital Strategy: 4 Psychology Tips to Improve Brand Messaging. What is good brand messaging?

Sitting in brainstorms I often hear terms such as voice, tone, style, none of which are incorrect - when we build our digital strategy campaigns and / or social media plans, each of the three has a part to play and certainly cannot be wrong. But should we be doing more, can the message be made stronger? For my part I believe the answer is yes; in digital and especially in social we need to embrace the fact that our audiences are people and brand messages need to be tailored to them. Whilst this is stating the obvious, the methods and challenges of tailoring message are manifold, but if we are going to get creative in improving message, I believe a route that deserves investigation is psychology. The importance of message. Tapping the Ocean of Twitter Information. Twitter, like many products, is made more relevant and powerful the more users it has and the more active those users become.

With over 500 million members sending over 340 million tweets a day, Twitter has become, for many, the go-to destination for news, trends and opinion. While some simply watch as the Twitter machine grows, others choose to mine the information from those hundreds of millions of tweets to gather valuable data that they can use to gauge and predict. On Tuesday, the Twitter analytics tool Topsy announced a pro version of their product for brand to better analyze search terms, hashtags and trends over time.

Facebook Influence Can Help You Get Into An L.A. Nightclub For Free. Facebook Psychology [Infographic] How exactly is Facebook and Internet addiction affecting our minds?

Or is it something you've even thought about? Chances are it hasn't even crossed your mind that constantly checking for new notifications or spending hours a day on the Internet is actually an addiction in the making. Every time you receive a notification on Facebook it could mean a new professional, social, or even sexual opportunity. Once you answer the little red box signaling a notification, it results in a hit of dopamine. The same dopamine that recharges our addictive compulsion and is similar to people who have addictions to abusive substances such as heroin, meth, or crack.

On average, most people are spending around 8.5 hours looking at a computer screen. Facebook Better Get Mobile Quick. 102M People Accessed Solely From Mobile In June, Up 23% Since March. There’s a staggering new statistic in Facebook’s 10-Q SEC document today: 102 million people accessed Facebook solely from mobile in June, a massive 23% increase over the 83 million mobile-only users in March. 18.7% of its 543 million monthly mobile users don’t even visit its desktop site.

Pinterest, Tumblr and the Trouble With ‘Curation’ The Tablet Takeover Is Ahead Of Schedule. Back in July, market researchers NPD predicted that global tablet sales would leap above traditional laptop sales by the year 2016--a bold assertion, given that the laptop's been with us for decades and tablets are fresh on the scene.

To achieve this growth, NPD guessed 121 million tablets would be sold in 2012. More recently Gartner's figures showed how much of a stranglehold Apple has over the existing market. Popularity of Tablets Rising With Kids [STUDY] Are your kids eager to get their hands on a tablet device?

Your kids may love their video games, but a recent survey shows the popularity of tablets is surging faster than video game consoles. Although families love gadgets of all types — the survey also showed that households with kids ages 4-14 own an average of 10 different devices, with kids using an average of five of those devices. This new survey released by market research company, The NPD Group titled Kids and Consumer Electronics: 2012 Edition, shows new trends and stats for families and their mobile devices.

Video game console usage rates for children ages 4-14 are still higher than tablets, but this past year saw a strong increase in tablet usage among that age group: with a 13% increase in usage rate in 2012 vs. only 3% in 2011. How to Remain Human In a Technology Flattened World. The way we work, shop, meet and collaborate has changed forever.

We now possess the technology that makes the need to meet face to face in the traditional business sense a thing of the past. How Women Lead Differently, And Why It Matters. I think it's time women have a candid conversation about power.

It's a conversation that will impact men and needs to include them. Together, we've reached a population of 7 billion; in another 38 years, we'll rise to 9 billion. Women make up 52 percent of the global whole and control $20 trillion in annual consumer spending. The Racial Divide on ... Sneakers - Emily Chertoff. What the history of footwear reveals about a cultural divide -- and the appropriation of African American style.

Everybody wears them sometimes: to run, to bum around the house, to move furniture. Some people wear them as a fashion statement. Others have been killed for them. There have been murders over Air Jordans in black communities for years -- yes, Air Jordans in particular. Sneaker-related violence is so infamous among African Americans that in December 2011, when Nike introduced an update to that model, a widespread hoax on the Internet had it that an 18-year-old named Tyreek Amir Jacobs was murdered while shopping for a pair.

Only 9% of Wikipedia Editors Are Women [INFOGRAPHIC] While studies show that men and women use Wikipedia evenly, 91% of the collaborative encyclopedia's editors are male. Can Data Help Us Close the Technology Gender Gap? Projects that expand women's access to technology and improve quality of life empower women around the world. Yet despite the progress that's been made, about 300 million women are still part of the "mobile gender gap," a figure that's calculated based on women's access to mobile technology in a given location compared with their male counterparts. The roadblock to further progress in fixing that gap is that there's just not enough data about women, which is problematic because information is crucial to informing smart public policy.

"In a range of policy areas, it's critically important to have good data, because good data means good policy," U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues Melanne Verveer told Mashable. Verveer believes that the mobile gender gap is one area of women's issues in particular which could benefit — and has benefitted — from extensive gender-specific research. Woman set to officiate NFL game for first time. Why the Amish Population Is Exploding - Neighborhoods. The Wisdom of Crowds. Fascinating Chart Shows How Rich And Poor Are Spending Money. A Hidden Casualty of the Housing Crisis: Public Schools - Housing. There are many casualties of the horrible housing market, from underwater families to weak car sales.

Here's another one: our public school system. This month, the number of government workers in the United States continued its long decline. But on the local level, something interesting has changed. Foreclosures Have Caused a Lot of Problems – Crime Isn't One of Them - Neighborhoods. The Case For Keeping Libraries Alive. It’s an increasingly common refrain in developed countries: libraries are no longer necessary because we can access all the books and information we could possibly need on the Internet.

America's Leading Creative Class Counties - Jobs & Economy. Yesterday, I charted America’s leading creative class states. Why Great Ideas Get Rejected. Three Personality Types That Can Harm Your Business. Tie My Shoes, Please: How Persuasion Works : Shots - Health Blog.