social media

Hurricane Matthew may be one of the most powerful storms to threaten the U.S. Atlantic coast in more than a decade. It has already left more than 280 dead in its wake across the Caribbean. In this day and age, how can we limit the damage caused by such natural disasters? How …

We know the effects of social media, especially Facebook, on teens and how it has an effect on their mental well-being. There is scientific evidence that suggests these platforms have an effect on our social-esteem, biology and overall psyche. Now, public health researchers report that teens who have negative experiences on …

Your online presence is often measured by a set of parameters, like the number of connections or ‘followers’. Everyone wants to be followed so that their voices, so to speak, can be heard by many. In the pursuit to gain more followers on social media, many often resort to methods …

Yes, cat videos rule the Internet. There’s no doubt about it. It is estimated that about 2 million cat videos were uploaded uploaded on YouTube in 2014 alone and they’ve got almost 26 billion views!  What makes people watch cat videos? According to a study by an Indiana University Media School researcher, …

There are over 300 million Twitter users and nearly 100 million of them are active on the platform every day. That’s a huge number. And, with such numbers it’s not hard to see why Twitter is increasingly becoming the place for understanding the public discourse. One of the key factors …

My mum discovered WhatsApp only last year. Now, she uses it more than I do. She’s already into Instagram, Pinterest and most social media platforms. She approaches the Internet in the same spirit as a toddler would play with his/her new toy. She finds it liberating and an incredibly useful …

We’ve all been at the receiving end of trolling. Thanks to the Internet, we have been able to uncover one more side to the human psyche. The medium has magnified, to a large extent, the capabilities of the human mind to manipulate others, in order to seek comfort. Understanding the human …

In one of the chapters, cyberpsychologist Mary Aiken quotes clinical psychologist Michael Seto. “We are living through the largest unregulated social experiment of all time — a generation of youth who have been exposed to extreme content online.” This quote is powerful, deep and makes us think of the kind of …

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. To a trained eye, every selfie is worth a lot of information. The body posture, the clothing, the make up, the expressions. They all help in revealing personality-related cues. The specialty of a selfie is that is allows the user to manipulate …

Males users of popular dating app Tinder appear to have lower levels of self-esteem and more negative perception of body image than those who don’t use the app, a study has found. The study was presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association. In the study, 1,044 women and 273 …