Are There Any Consequences Associated With Using Facebook?

We have all heard at one point or another that Facebook can have a negative impact on our lives. I know for myself, I feel both envious and sad when I see my friends posting pictures on Facebook, from their night out or, while on a vacation somewhere that I could never afford to go on. So I decided to do some research to find out how and why Facebook can have such an effect on me. Shockingly, despite the increase popularity of Facebook, there isn't a lot of research that have looked at the emotional impact it can have on us. However, recently in a three-part study, Sagioglou & Greitemeyer (2014), set out to investigate the consequences of using Facebook and the effect it has on our emotional well-being.

Study 1.
In the first study, the researchers wanted to know whether our time spent actively using Facebook (this means chatting and/or browsing through pictures and not just logged in) is related to our emotional state afterward. The participants were recruited by clicking a link on Facebook that redirected them to a survey about their current mood. The first study found that the more time participants spent on Facebook, the lower their current mood was. Interestingly, the authors found that general Facebook and Internet use did not affect the participants' mood, which means that you would have to be actively engaged on Facebook for it to have an effect.

What causes the change in our mood immediately following active Facebook use?

                                                       Study 2.
In the second study, the researchers wanted to know why it is that Facebook can have such an impact on us. They conducted an experiment to see whether its active Facebook use that lowers our mood, or the person’s bad mood that causes their Facebook usage. The researchers predicted that the change in mood was because we felt like we hadn’t done anything meaningful and had wasted our time. They also wanted to make sure that it was Facebook itself and not any other online activity causing the decrease in mood, so they compared active Facebook use with a general internet browsing group and a no activity group. 

Like in the first study, a link was posted on Facebook redirecting participants to the study, and after opening the link, the participants were assigned to one of the three groups. The participants who were assigned to the Facebook group were then asked to actively use Facebook for 20 minutes, then return back to complete the survey. The participants in the browsing group were asked to spend 20 minutes actively browsing the Internet but not to use any social networks (i.e. no Facebook). Whereas, the participants in the no activity group did not receive any instruction, but were immediately forwarded to the survey. After all three groups had completed the survey, their results showed that the participants in the Facebook group reported having spent the past 20 minutes doing something less meaningful than both of the two control groups. Additionally, like in the first study, the participants who were active on Facebook, also reported having a less positive mood than the participants in the two control groups.

So to sum it up, Facebook is seen as less meaningful, less useful, and more of a waste of time, which then lowers our mood. If you look at the image above, it seems that Mark Zuckerberg, the Creator of Facebook, agrees that Facebook makes you feel like you have wasted your time.

If this is the case, why do we continue to use Facebook if we end up wasting our time and feeling worse than we did before we logged in?

Study 3
In the third study, the authors suggested that the reason we continue to use Facebook might be due to us misjudging Facebook to have positive effects. This misjudging then prevents us from reducing the amount of time we spend on Facebook, thereby decreasing our mood. So in the third study, participants were provided with a link to a survey asking one question: “what would you say, how do you feel after being active on Facebook for 20 minutes?” Interestingly, the results showed that our continued use of Facebook is due to something called an "affective forecasting error". What this means is that the reason we continue to use Facebook is because we expect to feel better after spending some time on it, when in fact, we end up feeling worse than we did beforehand.

You might ask, what causes this "affective forecasting error" to keep occurring? 
That still remains unclear, but, the authors suggest that it might be due to a few reasons:

1. We have a need to belong. We like to socialize, gossip and share our lives with one another, and Facebook allows us to do just that. 

2. We choose to remember the rare moments we felt more positive after using Facebook, instead of the many times we felt negative. Like the saying goes, it’s the rare moments that we remember most.

What next?
What I learned from the studies is that we need to be more mindful of our use of social networking sites, such as Facebook. Although Facebook has many advantages (e.g. the opportunity to "connect and share with the people in our lives", as the Facebook homepage states), there are serious disadvantages associated with using it such as, envy, negative mood, reduced life satisfaction and psychological needs. There is still a lot we don't know about the effects social networking sites can have on us. The authors suggest that more studies need to look at the motivational reasons for Facebook use, by researching precisely what it is that people hope to gain from using social networking sites. Additionally, more research is needed to explore the long-term effects of using Facebook. With the growing popularity of other sites like twitter and Instagram, more research is needed to investigate the impact it can have on not just our emotional well-being, but our overall well-being.

References

Sagioglou, C., & Greitemeyer, T. (2014). Facebook's emotional consequences: Why facebook causes a decrease in mood and why people still use it. Computers in Human Behavior, 35, 359-363. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.03.003

Out of Sight, Out of Mind.

In the movie Limitless, the protagonist (actor Bradley Cooper) is able to increase the capacity at which he uses his brain after consuming a ‘smart pill’. This pill quite literally changes his life. He goes from being a struggling writer to a successful stock broker in a matter of weeks. The bad news is, no such pill actually exists. *cue loud sigh*. The good news, however, is that there exists a technique you can practice which may help improve your attention and productivity.

What is this magical technique I speak of? Before sitting down to work on a task, remove all possible distractions from your immediate environment (and yes, this most definitely includes your cellphone). Now you might be thinking… “This doesn’t apply to me, because I can actually concentrate quite well even with my cellphone in the room”. However, there is now evidence to suggest that even having your cell phone in sight may be negatively impacting your attention and productivity. 

Researchers Thornton, Faires, Robbins and Rollins (2014) from the University of Sourthern Maine in Portland set out to examine this phenomenon. Specifically, they investigated how the presence of a cellphone affects one’s performance on both simple and difficult tasks. University students were recruited for the purpose of this study and were assigned to either the ‘cellphone’ condition or the ‘no cellphone’ condition. Participants in both conditions were asked to complete four tasks: a simple math task, a complex math task, a simple tracing task, and a complex tracing task. Prior to completing the tasks, participants in the cellphone condition were asked to leave their cellphone on top of the desk at which they were completing the study. They were told to continue completing the tasks even if/when their cellphone went off. In order to ensure participants in this condition were not aware of the purpose of the study, the experimenter explained to them that they needed their cellphone in order to complete a questionnaire at the end of the study. (However no questionnaire actually existed). Participants in both conditions scored the same on the two simple tasks, however they scored differently on the two complex tasks, such that participants in the cellphone condition did more poorly on both complex tasks than participants in the no cellphone condition. 

One possible explanation the researchers of this study provide for these results is the following: For many, a cellphone serves as the primary form of communication and interaction with others. Therefore when they see their cellphone,  they are immediately reminded of these interactions and the defining role they play in their lives. As a result, individuals may feel conflicted between wanting to attend to others (via their cellphone) and wanting to concentrate on the task at hand.

Although the saying "out of sight, out of mind" may not be applicable to all situations, it most definitely applies to this one. The findings reported here prove that keeping your cellphone out of sight when working on a complex task, such as studying for a math exam, results in you doing better on the task than if you had left your cellphone beside you. So the next time you are cramming for that algebra exam, why not try this technique out. Who knows...it might just work. Oh and trust me, your friends will not end their friendship with you because you took too long to answer their texts when you were busy studying.  

Thornton, B., Faires, A., Robbins, M., & Rollins, E. (2014). The mere presence of a cell phone may be distracting: Implications for attention and task performance. Social Psychology, 45(6), 479.

Check Out My Selfie!

            Most of us spend some time on social media. Some of us spend A LOT of time on social networking sites, either posting about our own lives or gaining some insight into others. Whether we are connecting with old friends or meeting new ones, social networking has infiltrated our lives to a greater degree than ever before. We are involved in looking up people we recently met, viewing the pictures they post, and are continuously updated about others lives. Sometimes we want to find out what our friends are up to, or we are "creeping" people we do not even know. "Creeping," you know, stumbling upon somebody's profile and viewing all the pictures they posted, even if we never met them. Who's really going to find out, right?

           The realm of social media online, interconnects individuals and continuously updates us on the details of other's lives. Individuals create profiles where they post things that may consist of the meal they just ate, the fact they just attended the gym, or maybe the fact they just broke up with a loved one. Social media provides insight into people's lives like never before. How accurate are social media profiles in actually depicting lives? What type of people post pictures about the meal they just had? Why are some people telling everyone what they are doing on a momentary basis? Why do we still engage with social media if all we learn about is the nitty gritty of our friends lives? The people who are constantly posting pictures of themselves, their bodies, and what they are doing, are similar in some ways. It's not just annoying, it may be a bit troubling. 

Two researchers at Ohio State University (Rooney & Fox, 2004) wanted to answer some questions about the similarities of the type of people engaged in certain behaviors on social networking sites. In this case, they were particularly interested in the behavior of men in the U.S from the ages 18 – 40. A sample of 1000 men completed an online survey that investigated their use of social media and the behaviors they engage in. They actually found some unsettling results.

Through an extensive series of questions, the researchers found that males who concentrated on their physical appearance as opposed to their competence, spent more time on social networking. Also, individuals who were more narcissistic reported spending more time on social networking sites. Males who were more narcissistic and objectified their bodies, testified to more time spent on social networking; the same men also edited and posted more photos of themselves. The researchers also found that those males who were rated higher on psychopathy  posted more pictures as well. Importantly, those more narcissistic were more likely to edit photos they posted as compared to the more narcissistic males, presumably because they were more impulsive. So overall, narcissism, psychopathy, time spend on social networking, amount of pictures posted, were all related to he number of selfies (picture of oneself, taken by oneself) posted. Further, psychopathy, manipulative tendencies, narcissism, and self objectification were all related to time spend on social media. 

 Im sure you have experienced this on some of the networks you use; pages and pages of pictures of oneself! Some people just feel the world revolves around them and want all the attention. Some feel that social networking sites provide an audience for them to express the workings of their lives. Maybe when you are on Facebook next time, stay away from those who think they are at the centre of the universe. 

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• Fox, J., & Rooney, M. C. (2015). The dark triad and trait self-objectification as predictors of men’s use and self-presentation behaviors on social networking sites. Personality and Individual Differences, 76, 161-165. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2014.12.017

A Good Buzz and Energy, Where Can You Go Wrong?

Before you continue reading, ask yourself: Have I consumed alcohol and energy drinks simultaneously?  If you said yes, congrats, you are a part of a large sector of our generation. Stop smiling. Don't take pride in that. Keep reading, because I am going to tell you why you should abstain from this dangerous mix. 

Jager bombs have become a part of the typical drinking culture for the millennials.  There has been a great deal of research done in the last few decades of the harms of alcohol consumption and also on the risks of drinking energy drinks, but this development begs for more attention on the combination of the two.  According to the Canadian Alcohol and Drug Use Monitory Survey, young adults, ages 18-24, consume caffeinated alcoholic drinks four to five times more than the other age groups surveyed, ages 15-17 and 24+, combined (Brache, Thomas, & Stockwell, 2012). Many of us have heard from a lecturing mother or an informed friend that mixing alcohol with energy drinks is dangerous, but based on the continuing popularity of these drinks, it is clear that these words of wisdom are being disregarded by many of my peers. 

Unfortunately, it is once again time to admit that your mother was right.  There are four main reasons that people are drawn to mixing energy drinks and alcohol: intoxication reduction, social, energy or endurance, and pleasure seeking or hedonism (Droste et al., 2014).  The most prevalent of these is the motivation of

pleasure seeking, which I will focus on for this piece.  There are a number of immediate risks associated with consuming alcohol and energy drinks together instead of only alcohol: increased time spent drinking, decreased perception of personal intoxication thus leading to more alcohol consumed, increased aggression while intoxicated, and an increased likelihood of harm.  In the study done by Droste and colleagues (2014), it was determined that the risk of injury increases by up to 117% when combining alcohol and energy drinks in comparison to alcohol consumption alone.   However, the bad news doesn't stop there; those who consume alcohol and energy drinks are more likely to experience long term consequences such as alcohol dependency.

So what do we do? Well, for starters, stop drinking these lethal combinations!  Additionally, as a society, we should urge energy drink companies and alcohol retailers (ie the LCBO) to notify the consumers about the risks of this combination in their media.  Furthermore, we need to inform people about the very real issues that stem from mixing alcohol and energy drinks.  What may be seen as something insignificant that parents nag about is actually developing into a serious area of concern for our generation, and now that you have read this, you can’t even plead ignorance to the issue. 

References  

Brache, K., Thomas, G., and Stockwell, T. (2012). Caffeinated alcoholic beverages in Canada: Prevalence of use, risks and recommended policy responses. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.

Droste, N., Tonner, L., Zinkiewicz, L., Pennay, A., Lubman, D., and Miller, P. (2014) Combined alcohol and energy drink use: Motivations as predictors of consumption patterns, risk of alcohol dependence, and experience of injury and aggression. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 38, 2087-2095. doi: 10.1111/acer.12438.

How Can It Feel So Good, Yet Be So Wrong

Stress, let’s face it, we all experience it whether it’s on a daily basis, it’s still there.  We have events that occur in our lives that make us stressed; whether this is due to a recent break-up, an upcoming exam, a business meeting, etc.  Stress does a lot of damage to our bodies, and has been found to be a factor towards the development of hypertension and cardiovascular disease, such as heart disease.  To top it all off, stress does not make us feel good about our lives and leads to a lot of negative emotions and thoughts.  There are so many different ways to become stressed, but what can one do to reduce and alleviate this horrible feeling?

Personally, and for many people I know, I use music as a way to de-stress-ify myself.  All I feel I need to do is plug in my headphones and play my happy song, “You Make My Dreams Come True” by Hall and Oates (1980), and then I feel worry free. But do I really feel better?

A recent study from the Netherlands by Radstaak, Geurts, Brosschot, and Kompier (2014) is interested in that very question.  Their study focused on the two aspects of stress, high bodily arousal (e.g., blood pressure and heart rate) and impaired mood, and how preferred music impacts the recovery of these parts of stress.  Since music is typically seen as a good distractor by redirecting our thoughts, it was predicted that music would be a successful diversion strategy to reduce stress.  Not surprisingly, after being put through a mental math task while being harassed, the participants were successfully stressed.  Following the task, people were either asked to listen to their preferred relaxing or happy song, while others were asked to listen to an audio tape or sit in silence.  SURPRISE, those who listened to their own relaxing or happy music felt more positive emotions after the stressful math, compared to those listening to the audiotape or sitting in silence.  However, those who listened to their relaxing or happy music had delayed bodily recovery from the stressful event.  It was found that those who were listening to music might have felt better, but they had delayed blood pressure recovery.

A debate rises from this study, if you are feeling stressed should you listen to music and feel emotionally better while simultaneously not benefitting your body? Or, should you sit and listen to your own thoughts while your body has the time to recover? 

This is not to say you should stop listening to music; rather, more of a suggestion to contemplate avoiding listening to music following stress. Although listening to music after a stressful event or time can make us feel better and help us regain our positive mood sooner, this research suggests that it may be better for your body if you just grin and bear the negative mood.  As for many things in life, just because it feels good, does not mean it is good for you. 

Olivia Wassing

Radstaak, M., Geurts, S. A. E., Brosschot, J. F., & Kompier, M. A. J. (2014). Music and psychophysiological recovery from stress.Psychosomatic Medicine, 76(7), 529-537. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0000000000000094

Real Eyes, Realize

Have you ever been on a date and wondered where it’s going? There is often a lot of pressure on a first day to figure out how the other person feels about you. Are they into you? Do they find you attractive? Will you guys connect? At times these thoughts can race through one’s head and add more stress to the date. Instead of enjoying your time together, you may end up ruining the experience altogether. People often wonder if there are any signs that your date is into you. Some people swear they can tell by how much their date laughs at their jokes, whether or not their date displays physical contact, and even by how talkative their partner is. Interestingly, how your date looks at you may put your mind at ease.

According to research, where someone looks at you may determine how they feel about you. Wondering how this works? Well researchers Mylene Bolmont, John T. Cacioppo, and Stephanie Cacioppo might be able to help you! According to their research, whether someone feels love or lust depends on where they look.

In the study, participants were presented with photos of couples as well as individuals of the opposite sex and were told to judge whether they were interested in romantic love or sexual desire. Initially, all participants focused on the face as its human nature to scroll to that area of the body. What happened next determined how the participant felt about the person in the photo, as each participant in the study had their eye movements analyzed to see where the gaze shifted.  

Results revealed that when an individual’s eye focus remained on the face, their mind was maintained on love. This can be a good sign if you are looking for someone to form a relationship with, and at this point of the date you should analyze the individual and see how you feel about them.

Meanwhile, when an individual’s eye focus shifted off the face and explored the body, their mind was maintained on sexual desire. This on the other hand can indicate that the date is nothing more than just a quick fling. Unless you are looking for a casual hookup, this date may end up disappointing you. 

It is important to mention that all the photos were rated similar in nature on basis of attraction, and none portrayed any explicit material. Additionally, there was no difference found between genders in the study, so both men and women can use this method to assess their date. Remember though, actively staring at your date may creep them out and have them leave, so steal a quick glance throughout the night whenever they look at you. So next time you go on a date, focus on your partners eyes. Are they looking for love, or do they simply want to see you two knock boots?

John Nowak

Bolmont, M., Cacioppo, J. T., & Cacioppo, S. (2014). Love is in the gaze: An eye-tracking study of love and sexual desire. Psychological Science, 25, 1748-1756. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797614539706

Is What You're Doing Before Bed Affecting Your Sleep?

Have you ever been sitting at home, at night, thinking of things you could do to make yourself tired enough to sleep?  During these moments, have you ever thought to yourself: “Oh, I know!  I’ll hit the gym! I’ll workout really hard before I go to bed, to make myself super tired!  This will surely make me fall asleep immediately when I get home!”  If you’re like me, (or even like many other people that I’ve talked to), this thought has probably crossed your mind.  Ultimately, though, despite the fact that it is late and we want to go to bed, our go-to solution—making ourselves tired at the gym—fails time and time again.  Finally, I decided, “Enough is enough! There must be a reason for this!”  I turned to the literature for answers.

Research conducted in Japan turned out to be very helpful. Two researchers, Shiro Oda and Kazuki Shirakawa, conducted a study with twelve male university students.  All men spent 4-7 days in either a research center or an apartment.  Everything in their environment for those 4-7 days was monitored, controlled and the same for everyone—temperature, lights, wake-time, sleep-time, activities they did during the day (all seated activities that required minimal energy, if any; e.g., reading), what they ate (same menu, same nutritional breakdown; no caffeine, alcohol), and when they ate.  The only element in the environment that the researchers allowed to differ was the level of exercise that the students got that day.  All students experienced days where they had to either not exercise at all, exercise with moderate intensity, or exercise with high intensity.  When it was an “exercise day,” their task was to run on a treadmill for 40 minutes at either moderate or high intensity (measured by their heart rate), right before bed (9:20-10:00 pm).  

Sleep recordings were taken every night to measure how long it took the students to fall asleep, how long they slept, whether or not they woke up after initially falling asleep (and for how long), and how normal their stages of sleep were.  Every morning, when the students woke up, they also completed a survey on how well they thought they slept.  The researchers predicted that only high intensity exercise before bed would make it harder for the students to fall asleep at night.

In fact, the researchers did find that those students who had high intensity workouts before bed had both a harder time falling and staying asleep (especially due to elevated heart rates).  Also, in the morning, the students themselves reported having a harder time falling asleep.  However, contrary to the researchers’ prediction, since no substantial sleep differences were found between moderate and high intensity exercise (but rather, only between high intensity exercise and not working out at all), this seems to suggest that exercise before bed (moderate or intense) can be potentially harmful for initiation and maintenance of sleep. 

Although this particular research from Japan only examined male students, I can confidently say (from a female perspective) that their findings are applicable to women as well.  Ever since I stopped working out before bed, I began sleeping much better.  This has profound implications for our lives (men and women, alike).  Unless we challenge our assumptions about what works and what doesn’t, we will forever be frustrated and tired.   In the specific case of working out before bed, it may initially seem counterintuitive that pre-sleep exercise will actually keep you awake longer and make your sleep worse (as opposed to tiring you out and preparing you for sleep).  However, we must realize that the

lack of sleep that results may have all sorts of negative consequences in other areas of our life, such as reduced cognitive functioning, mood swings, etc….  One potential solution (maybe the most obvious one) would be to reduce or eliminate arousing activities (especially high-intensity ones) before bedtime.  (Well…okay… I am stressing we should reduce or eliminate most arousing activities before bedtime, except maybe the one that I know you’re all thinking about right now…).  If we can work on this, not only will our next workout be improved (because sleep = recovery = stronger muscles = better workout), but also our overall functioning (e.g., ability to complete daily cognitive tasks such as making competent decisions at work) will be improved.  Therefore, at the end of the day, all of this amounts to being mindful about what we are doing before bed.  



Oda, S., & Shirakawa, K. (2014). Sleep onset is disrupted following pre-sleep exercise that causes large physiological excitement at bedtime. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 114, 1789-1799.