Pacific Standard May-June 2013 Cover

Marijuana Buffers Pain of Social Exclusion

marijuana-blunt

Why smoke marijuana? Users would probably reply that numbed-out bliss is its own reward. But if smoothing out the harsh edges of reality is your goal, what bruises are you attempting to avoid? Newly published research suggests that, at least for some, the answer is: The intense discomfort of social exclusion. “Marijuana has been used to treat physical pain,” reports a research team led by University of Kentucky psychologist Timothy Deckman, “and the current findings suggest it may also reduce emotional pain." Given the drug's long-term health effects, “This may reflect a poor ... Read More

Homer’s Facebook Suggests Iliad is True

Greek Mythology

The great mythological tales exist in a netherworld between fact and fiction. Passed down orally from one generation to another, they tend to follow a similar outline (as Joseph Campbell pointed out), and impart some basic truths about human nature. But are the often-fantastic tales they tell essentially true, or the products of mankind’s ancient imagination? A pair of Irish researchers conducted a sophisticated statistical analysis of three canonical texts, and concluded they give plausibly realistic portraits of their respective societies—once you remove certain obviously ... Read More

Facebook: Saving Lives, One Kidney at a Time

Kidneys in transparent body

Web-based social networks have little in common with hospital operating rooms. One exists on an ephemeral realm of bits and bytes, while the other lives in the very real world of blood and tissue. That incongruity helps explain why Facebook’s recent announcement that it will encourage its members to become organ donors captured people’s imagination. And according to psychologists who study how we manage reminders of our mortality, it suggests Mark Zuckerberg’s online creation may be a particularly promising platform to tackle a major medical problem. “I think it’ll work ... Read More

Is Facebook Stunting Your Child’s Growth?

ps-emotional-intelligence

I waved as I walked past Sara’s room: I’m a resident supervisor, a “Dorm Dad,” in a coed dorm at Stanford University. Sara told me she was texting Billy, her “sort of” boyfriend. I had just seen Billy sitting in the lounge down the hall, and told her so. “I know,” she said. “It’s more efficient to text him.” I smiled. The computer screen behind her was filled with Facebook pages, chat windows, YouTube videos, and a smattering of homework assignments. Efficiency? I’ve never seen a group of people better at wasting time than college freshmen. Not long before this, I ... Read More

Bitter About Your Life? Blame Facebook

Has life treated you unfairly? Do you have a nagging suspicion that other people, are, on balance, happier than you are? You might want to get off of Facebook. A newly published study suggests the phenomenally popular social networking site may be skewing the way users perceive their lives. It finds those carefully selected photos of cheerful, contented people cumulatively convey a self-esteem-shattering message: Our lives are fantastic! What’s wrong with you? At least, that’s the conclusion of Utah Valley University sociologist Hui-Tzu Grace Chou, who conducted a study of 425 ... Read More

Facebook Profile Pics Predict Future Happiness

You can learn all sorts of information by perusing a person’s Facebook page. But newly published research suggests you can ascertain a key fact about that individual – how satisfied they are with their life – without reading a word. Just check out their profile picture, and gauge the intensity of their smile. True, the profile pic may be a few years old. But a paper just published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science suggests the visual information remains not only valid, but predictive of the future. In two studies, university students who displayed a ... Read More

Are Facebook, Twitter Fostering Civic Engagement?

Since the first days of the Arab Spring, social media has been celebrated for its role in helping to foment democracy in countries that don't yet have it. An intriguing though less dramatic question back home is this: Can using Facebook or using Twitter also be used to strengthen democracy and civic engagement in countries like the U.S. that do have it? The answer isn't so obvious. Political operatives and White House insiders have touted the power of Facebook, Twitter and Google to engage the public in election season and the governing decisions that follow. But contrarian voices have ... Read More

Study Links Facebook Use with Narcissism

Who uses Facebook? The simple answer is a whole lot of people: The online social network has more than 600 million members. But what sets them apart from those who use the Internet but have chosen not to play in Mark Zuckerberg’s virtual playground? New research from Australia provides some less than flattering answers. “Facebook users tend to be more extroverted and narcissistic, but less conscientious and socially lonely, than non-users,” Tracii Ryan and Sophia Xenos of RMIT University in Melbourne write in the journal Computers in Human Behavior. Instead of falling in love ... Read More

The Arab Spring’s Cascading Effects

Egypt Influence Network

Over the last few months, social unrest has cascaded across the major urban centers of North Africa and the Middle East. Journalists and communications media are often part of such moments of upheaval. Yet this recent wave of unrest is unlike other discrete periods of rapid political change. Through digital media, the stories of success in Tunisia and Egypt have spread over social networks to many other authoritarian regimes. Digital media has not only caused a cascade of civil disobedience to spread among populations living under the most unflappable dictators, it has made for unique new ... Read More

Why Facebook Wants You to Have More Friends

We are often bombarded by friend recommendations on Facebook. The geniuses behind online networks care about the health of our "social networks." There is an intuitive reason behind them pushing friend suggestions: The incentive to contribute/participate in an online social network increases with the size of the network, and that ultimately translates into revenue. Online social networks are built on user-generated content. Without this content, these networks are the equivalent of dying blogs (or MySpace). That said, Facebook faces the (potentially impossible) task of keeping its users ... Read More