Archive for February, 2011

February 19th, 2011

Feeling stressed out? It could be Facebook. Psychologists from Edinburgh Napier University surveyed 200 students on their use of Facebook, and found that a for a significant number of users the negative effect of the social network outweighed the benefits of staying in touch with friends and family.

“The results threw up a number of paradoxes,” said Dr Kathy Charles, who led the study. “For instance, although there is great pressure to be on Facebook there is also considerable ambivalence amongst users about its benefits.”

“Our data also suggests that there is a significant minority of users who experience considerable Facebook-related anxiety, with only very modest or tenuous rewards. And we found it was actually those with the most contacts, those who had invested the most time in the site, who were the ones most likely to be stressed.”

Highlights of the study include:

  • 12 percent of respondents said that Facebook made them feel anxious.  Of these, respondents had an average of 117 ‘friends’ each.  The remaining 88% of respondents, who said that Facebook did not make them feel anxious, had an average of 75 ‘friends’ each.
  • 63 percent delayed replying to friend requests
  • 32 percent said rejecting friend requests led to feelings of guilt and discomfort
  • 10 percent admitted disliking receiving friend requests

“An overwhelming majority of respondents reported that the best thing about Facebook was ‘keeping in touch’, often without any further explanation,” said Dr Charles. “But many also told us they were anxious about withdrawing from the site for fear of missing important social information or offending contacts.

“Like gambling, Facebook keeps users in a neurotic limbo, not knowing whether they should hang on in there just in case they miss out on something good.”

Psychologists from Edinburgh Napier University surveyed 200 students on their use of Facebook, and found that a for a significant number of users the negative effect of the social network outweighed the benefits of staying in touch with friends and family.

“The results threw up a number of paradoxes,” said Dr Kathy Charles, who led the study. “For instance, although there is great pressure to be on Facebook there is also considerable ambivalence amongst users about its benefits.”

“Our data also suggests that there is a significant minority of users who experience considerable Facebook-related anxiety, with only very modest or tenuous rewards.And we found it was actually those with the most contacts, those who had invested the most time in the site, who were the ones most likely to be stressed.”

Highlights of the study include:

*12 percent of respondents said that Facebook made them feel anxious.  Of these, respondents had an average of 117 ‘friends’ each.  The remaining 88% of respondents, who said that Facebook did not make them feel anxious, had an average of 75 ‘friends’ each.

*63 percent delayed replying to friend requests

*32 percent said rejecting friend requests led to feelings of guilt and discomfort

*10 percent admitted disliking receiving friend requests

“An overwhelming majority of respondents reported that the best thing about Facebook was ‘keeping in touch’, often without any further explanation,” said Dr Charles. “But many also told us they were anxious about withdrawing from the site for fear of missing important social information or offending contacts.

“Like gambling, Facebook keeps users in a neurotic limbo, not knowing whether they should hang on in there just in case they miss out on something good.”

February 6th, 2011

Google officially confirmed they’ve taken their collective eyes off the ball this past week with their difficult-to-understand complaint about competitor Bing’s search practices. Apparently Bing is using (legitimately it seems) click stream data to influence their search results and produce Google-like search results in some cases.

Bing: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Google: I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here.
Employee of Google’s: [hands Google money] Your winnings, sir.
Google: Oh, thank you, very much. Everybody out at once!

It’s hard to believe that a company with Google’s dominant market share would be upset about anything. Life should be good! Their much publicized so-called sting operation suggests they’re worried about Bing. It’s either that or they’ve got some engineers with a lot of extra time on their hands.

Memo to Google: You’re in the innovation business. Quit worrying about what Bing is doing (unless it’s illegal) and keep working on providing better search results. Your company’s good but not invincible. And in our opinion with the increasing local emphasis to your search results you might consider giving using a choice. Local or national! If Google doesn’t then there’s an opening for a new competitor. Markets divide over time. Search is no exception.