Social Habits

The efficacy of app‐supported smartphone interventions for mental health problems: a meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trials

Jake Linardon, Pim Cuijpers, Per Carlbring +2 more · World Psychiatry · 2019 · 813 citations

App-based mental health interventions produce small-to-moderate improvements in depression, anxiety, stress, and quality of life compared to doing nothing or receiving minimal support, with effect sizes roughly equivalent to the difference between mild and moderate symptom severity — but they do not outperform face-to-face therapy or computerized treatment when directly compared.

The relationship between nature connectedness and happiness: a meta-analysis

Colin A. Capaldi, Raelyne L. Dopko, John M. Zelenski · Frontiers in Psychology · 2014 · 1,117 citations

People who feel more psychologically connected to nature tend to report higher happiness — with a small but consistent correlation of r = 0.19 across 30 studies — suggesting that cultivating a sense of nature connectedness may be a modest but real lever for wellbeing. ---

Beyond Adoption: A New Framework for Theorizing and Evaluating Nonadoption, Abandonment, and Challenges to the Scale-Up, Spread, and Sustainability of Health and Care Technologies

Trisha Greenhalgh, Joseph Wherton, Chrysanthi Papoutsi +7 more · Journal of Medical Internet Research · 2017 · 2,567 citations

Most health technologies fail not because they don't work clinically, but because of predictable, multi-level barriers — this paper builds a practical diagnostic framework (NASSS) that identifies *why* a technology stalls or collapses, which is directly applicable to evaluating any self-tracking or personal-experiment tool before you invest time in it. ---

Effectiveness of L2 Instruction: A Research Synthesis and Quantitative Meta‐analysis

John M. Norris, Lourdes Ortega · Language Learning · 2000 · 2,382 citations

Focused second‑language (L2) instruction produces large, durable gains compared to no instruction or natural exposure alone, with explicit teaching methods (e.g., rule explanations, corrective feedback) roughly twice as effective as implicit methods (e.g., flooding input with target forms), and both “Focus on Form” (drawing attention to grammar during communication) and “Focus on Forms” (isolated grammar lessons) work equally well.

Religion, Spirituality, and Health: The Research and Clinical Implications

Harold G. Koenig · ISRN Psychiatry · 2012 · 2,238 citations

This systematic review found consistent evidence that engaging in religious or spiritual practices is associated with better mental health, healthier behaviors, and improved physical health outcomes, suggesting that incorporating such practices could be a beneficial self-experiment for overall well-being.

The effects of improving sleep on mental health (OASIS): a randomised controlled trial with mediation analysis

Daniel Freeman, Bryony Sheaves, Guy M. Goodwin +39 more · The Lancet Psychiatry · 2017 · 660 citations

Treating insomnia with a 6-week digital cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) programme significantly reduced paranoia (Cohen's d = 0.19) and hallucinations (Cohen's d = 0.24) in university students, and the improvement in sleep directly caused the improvement in psychotic experiences — not the other way around.

Connecting Through Technology During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: Avoiding “Zoom Fatigue”

Brenda K. Wiederhold · Cyberpsychology Behavior and Social Networking · 2020 · 503 citations

This editorial and narrative review synthesises early evidence that videoconferencing causes a distinct form of mental fatigue—"Zoom fatigue"—driven by excessive close-up eye contact, constant self-view, reduced mobility, and higher cognitive load from processing non-verbal cues without normal body language, and suggests that taking audio-only breaks and reducing on-screen face size can mitigate this exhaustion.

Psychological impacts from COVID-19 among university students: Risk factors across seven states in the United States

Matthew H.E.M. Browning, Lincoln R. Larson, Iryna Sharaievska +12 more · PLoS ONE · 2021 · 904 citations

During the early COVID-19 pandemic, university students experienced significant psychological impacts, with women, younger students, those in poorer health, with lower income, who spent more time on screens, or knew someone infected, being at higher risk, suggesting self-experimenters should monitor these factors and consider lifestyle changes like reducing screen time and increasing outdoor activity.

Effects of physical exercise on depression, neuroendocrine stress hormones and physiological fitness in adolescent females with depressive symptoms

Chanudda Nabkasorn, Nobuyuki Miyai, Anek Sootmongkol +4 more · European Journal of Public Health · 2005 · 353 citations

An 8-week group jogging program (five 50-minute sessions per week at mild intensity) significantly reduced depressive symptoms, lowered urinary stress hormone levels, and improved cardiovascular fitness in adolescent females with mild-to-moderate depression — and these effects reversed when participants switched back to usual activities.

Loneliness in the general population: prevalence, determinants and relations to mental health

Manfred E. Beutel, Eva M. Klein, Elmar Brähler +8 more · BMC Psychiatry · 2017 · 1,247 citations

BACKGROUND: While loneliness has been regarded as a risk to mental and physical health, there is a lack of current community data covering a broad age range. This study used a large and representative German adult sample to investigate loneliness. METHODS: Baseline data of the Gutenberg Health Study (GHS) collected between April 2007 and April 2012 (N = 15,010; 35-74 years), were analyzed. Recruitment for the community-based, prospective, observational cohort study was performed in equal strata for gender, residence and age decades. Measures were provided by self-report and interview. Loneliness was used as a predictor for distress (depression, generalized anxiety, and suicidal ideation) in logistic regression analyses adjusting for sociodemographic variables and mental distress. RESULTS: A total of 10.5% of participants reported some degree of loneliness (4.9% slight, 3.9% moderate and 1.7% severely distressed by loneliness). Loneliness declined across age groups. Loneliness was stronger in women, in participants without a partner, and in those living alone and without children. Controlling for demographic variables and other sources of distress loneliness was associated with depression (OR = 1.91), generalized anxiety (OR = 1.21) and suicidal ideation (OR = 1.35). Lonely participants also smoked more and visited physicians more frequently. CONCLUSIONS: The findings support the view that loneliness poses a significant health problem for a sizeable part of the population with increased risks in terms of distress (depression, anxiety), suicidal ideation, health behavior and health care utilization.

Loneliness in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic: Cross-sectional results from the COVID-19 Psychological Wellbeing Study

Jenny M. Groarke, Emma Berry, Lisa Graham‐Wisener +3 more · PLoS ONE · 2020 · 732 citations

OBJECTIVES: Loneliness is a significant public health issue. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in lockdown measures limiting social contact. The UK public are worried about the impact of these measures on mental health outcomes. Understanding the prevalence and predictors of loneliness at this time is a priority issue for research. METHOD: The study employed a cross-sectional online survey design. Baseline data collected between March 23rd and April 24th 2020 from UK adults in the COVID-19 Psychological Wellbeing Study were analysed (N = 1964, 18-87 years, M = 37.11, SD = 12.86, 70% female). Logistic regression analysis examined the influence of sociodemographic, social, health and COVID-19 specific factors on loneliness. RESULTS: The prevalence of loneliness was 27% (530/1964). Risk factors for loneliness were younger age group (OR: 4.67-5.31), being separated or divorced (OR: 2.29), scores meeting clinical criteria for depression (OR: 1.74), greater emotion regulation difficulties (OR: 1.04), and poor quality sleep due to the COVID-19 crisis (OR: 1.30). Higher levels of social support (OR: 0.92), being married/co-habiting (OR: 0.35) and living with a greater number of adults (OR: 0.87) were protective factors. CONCLUSIONS: Rates of loneliness during the initial phase of lockdown were high. Risk factors were not specific to the COVID-19 crisis. Findings suggest that supportive interventions to reduce loneliness should prioritise younger people and those with mental health symptoms. Improving emotion regulation and sleep quality, and increasing social support may be optimal initial targets to reduce the impact of COVID-19 regulations on mental health outcomes.

Age of onset and cumulative risk of mental disorders: a cross-national analysis of population surveys from 29 countries

John J. McGrath, Ali Al-Hamzawi, Jordi Alonso +83 more · The Lancet Psychiatry · 2023 · 539 citations

Approximately half the global population will experience at least one mental disorder by age 75, with most first onsets occurring in childhood, adolescence, or young adulthood, highlighting the commonality of these conditions and the critical need for early awareness and support.

Changes in Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior in Response to COVID-19 and Their Associations with Mental Health in 3052 US Adults

Jacob D. Meyer, Cillian P. McDowell, Jeni Lansing +4 more · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · 2020 · 724 citations

The COVID-19 pandemic altered many facets of life. We aimed to evaluate the impact of COVID-19-related public health guidelines on physical activity (PA), sedentary behavior, mental health, and their interrelations. Cross-sectional data were collected from 3052 US adults 3–8 April 2020 (from all 50 states). Participants self-reported pre- and post-COVID-19 levels of moderate and vigorous PA, sitting, and screen time. Currently-followed public health guidelines, stress, loneliness, positive mental health (PMH), social connectedness, and depressive and anxiety symptoms were self-reported. Participants were grouped by meeting US PA guidelines, reporting ≥8 h/day of sitting, or ≥8 h/day of screen time, pre- and post-COVID-19. Overall, 62% of participants were female, with age ranging from 18–24 (16.6% of sample) to 75+ (9.3%). Self-reported PA was lower post-COVID among participants reporting being previously active (mean change: −32.3% [95% CI: −36.3%, −28.1%]) but largely unchanged among previously inactive participants (+2.3% [−3.5%, +8.1%]). No longer meeting PA guidelines and increased screen time were associated with worse depression, loneliness, stress, and PMH (p < 0.001). Self-isolation/quarantine was associated with higher depressive and anxiety symptoms compared to social distancing (p < 0.001). Maintaining and enhancing physical activity participation and limiting screen time increases during abrupt societal changes may mitigate the mental health consequences.

Opinion Paper: “So what if ChatGPT wrote it?” Multidisciplinary perspectives on opportunities, challenges and implications of generative conversational AI for research, practice and policy

Yogesh K. Dwivedi, Nir Kshetri, Laurie Hughes +70 more · International Journal of Information Management · 2023 · 3,487 citations

This opinion paper synthesises perspectives from 43 experts across 13 fields to map the opportunities, risks, and research gaps of generative AI like ChatGPT — concluding that while the technology can boost productivity in banking, hospitality, and marketing, it also introduces unresolved threats around bias, misinformation, privacy, and the erosion of human judgment, with no consensus on whether regulation is needed.

Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2024 report of the Lancet standing Commission

Gill Livingston, Jonathan Huntley, Kathy Liu +24 more · The Lancet · 2024 · 2,694 citations

This 2024 update from the Lancet Commission identifies 14 modifiable risk factors that together account for approximately 45% of dementia cases worldwide, meaning nearly half of all dementia could theoretically be prevented or delayed through addressing these factors across the lifespan.

The social determinants of mental health and disorder: evidence, prevention and recommendations

James B. Kirkbride, Deidre M. Anglin, Ian Colman +8 more · World Psychiatry · 2024 · 926 citations

Social circumstances—including poverty, discrimination, migration, and marginalisation—are causally linked to mental health outcomes across the life course, and addressing these structural factors through primary prevention could reduce population-level mental illness by 20–50% depending on the condition, but individual-level self-experiments can only target downstream behavioural and environmental mediators, not the root causes.

Older Adults' Reasons for Using Technology while Aging in Place

Sebastiaan Theodorus Michaël Peek, Katrien Luijkx, M. D. Rijnaard +6 more · Gerontology · 2015 · 19,739 citations

BACKGROUND: Most older adults prefer to age in place, and supporting older adults to remain in their own homes and communities is also favored by policy makers. Technology can play a role in staying independent, active and healthy. However, the use of technology varies considerably among older adults. Previous research indicates that current models of technology acceptance are missing essential predictors specific to community-dwelling older adults. Furthermore, in situ research within the specific context of aging in place is scarce, while this type of research is needed to better understand how and why community-dwelling older adults are using technology. OBJECTIVE: To explore which factors influence the level of use of various types of technology by older adults who are aging in place and to describe these factors in a comprehensive model. METHODS: A qualitative explorative field study was set up, involving home visits to 53 community-dwelling older adults, aged 68-95, living in the Netherlands. Purposive sampling was used to include participants with different health statuses, living arrangements, and levels of technology experience. During each home visit: (1) background information on the participants' chronic conditions, major life events, frailty, cognitive functioning, subjective health, ownership and use of technology was gathered, and (2) a semistructured interview was conducted regarding reasons for the level of use of technology. The study was designed to include various types of technology that could support activities of daily living, personal health or safety, mobility, communication, physical activity, personal development, and leisure activities. Thematic analysis was employed to analyze interview transcripts. RESULTS: The level of technology use in the context of aging in place is influenced by six major themes: challenges in the domain of independent living; behavioral options; personal thoughts on technology use; influence of the social network; influence of organizations, and the role of the physical environment. CONCLUSION: Older adults' perceptions and use of technology are embedded in their personal, social, and physical context. Awareness of these psychological and contextual factors is needed in order to facilitate aging in place through the use of technology. A conceptual model covering these factors is presented.

Setting the future of digital and social media marketing research: Perspectives and research propositions

Yogesh K. Dwivedi, Elvira Ismagilova, David L. Hughes +15 more · International Journal of Information Management · 2020 · 2,382 citations

This paper is a collection of expert opinions and research propositions, not an experimental study — it synthesises what leading academics believe are the biggest gaps in digital and social media marketing research, offering a roadmap for future studies rather than reporting new data on what works.

Revealing the self in a digital world: a systematic review of adolescent online and offline self-disclosure.

Towner E, Grint J, Levy T +2 more · Curr Opin Psychol · 2022 · 76 citations

ChatGPT: Bullshit spewer or the end of traditional assessments in higher education?

Jürgen Rudolph, Samson Tan, Shannon Tan · Journal of Applied Learning & Teaching · 2023 · 1,635 citations

ChatGPT is the world’s most advanced chatbot thus far. Unlike other chatbots, it can create impressive prose within seconds, and it has created much hype and doomsday predictions when it comes to student assessment in higher education and a host of other matters. ChatGPT is a state-of-the-art language model (a variant of OpenAI’s Generative Pretrained Transformer (GPT) language model) designed to generate text that can be indistinguishable from text written by humans. It can engage in conversation with users in a seemingly natural and intuitive way. In this article, we briefly tell the story of OpenAI, the organisation behind ChatGPT. We highlight the fundamental change from a not-for-profit organisation to a commercial business model. In terms of our methods, we conducted an extensive literature review and experimented with this artificial intelligence (AI) software. Our literature review shows our review to be amongst the first peer-reviewed academic journal articles to explore ChatGPT and its relevance for higher education (especially assessment, learning and teaching). After a description of ChatGPT’s functionality and a summary of its strengths and limitations, we focus on the technology’s implications for higher education and discuss what is the future of learning, teaching and assessment in higher education in the context of AI chatbots such as ChatGPT. We position ChatGPT in the context of current Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIEd) research, discuss student-facing, teacher-facing and system-facing applications, and analyse opportunities and threats. We conclude the article with recommendations for students, teachers and higher education institutions. Many of them focus on assessment.

A national experiment reveals where a growth mindset improves achievement

David S. Yeager, Paul Hanselman, Gregory M. Walton +22 more · Nature · 2019 · 1,424 citations

A single, 50-minute online session teaching that intelligence can be developed raised lower-achieving students' grades by 0.11 grade points (roughly a 3% improvement) and increased advanced math enrolment by 5 percentage points, but only in schools where peer norms already supported challenge-seeking.

A multidimensional approach to measuring well-being in students: Application of the PERMA framework

Margaret L. Kern, Lea Waters, Alejandro Adler +1 more · The Journal of Positive Psychology · 2014 · 713 citations

Seligman recently introduced the PERMA model with five core elements of psychological well-being: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. We empirically tested this multidimensional theory with 516 Australian male students (age 13-18). From an extensive well-being assessment, we selected a subset of items theoretically relevant to PERMA. Factor analyses recovered four of the five PERMA elements, and two ill-being factors (depression and anxiety). We then explored the nomological net surrounding each factor by examining cross-sectional associations with life satisfaction, hope, gratitude, school engagement, growth mindset, spirituality, physical vitality, physical activity, somatic symptoms, and stressful life events. Factors differentially related to these correlates, offering support for the multidimensional approach to measuring well-being. Directly assessing subjective well-being across multiple domains offers the potential for schools to more systematically understand and promote well-being.

The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction

Ullrich K. H. Ecker, Stephan Lewandowsky, John Cook +6 more · Nature Reviews Psychology · 2022 · 1,230 citations

An attachment perspective on psychopathology

Mario Mikulincer, Philip R. Shaver · World Psychiatry · 2012 · 929 citations

Attachment theory 1,2,3 has proven to be a very fruitful framework for studying emotion regulation and mental health. In particular, research on adult attachment processes and individual differences in attachment orientations has provided strong evidence for the anxiety-buffering function of what Bowlby 2 called the attachment behavioral system and for the relevance of attachment-related individual differences to coping with stress, managing distress, and retaining psychological resilience 4. In this paper, we offer a brief overview of the attachment perspective on psychopathology. Following a brief account of attachment theory's basic concepts, we review research findings showing that attachment insecurities — called attachment anxiety and avoidance in the theory — are associated with mental disorders, and that increases in attachment security are an important part of successfully treating these disorders. Bowlby 2 claimed that human beings are born with an innate psychobiological system (the attachment behavioral system) that motivates them to seek proximity to significant others (attachment figures) in times of need. Bowlby 1 also outlined major individual differences in the functioning of the attachment system. Interactions with attachment figures who are available in times of need, and who are sensitive and responsive to bids for proximity and support, promote a stable sense of attachment security and build positive mental representations of self and others. But when a person's attachment figures are not reliably available and supportive, proximity seeking fails to relieve distress, felt security is undermined, negative models of self and others are formed, and the likelihood of later emotional problems and maladjustment increases. When testing this theory in studies of adults, most researchers have focused on the systematic pattern of relational expectations, emotions, and behavior that results from one's attachment history — what Hazan and Shaver 5 called attachment style. Research clearly indicates that attachment styles can be measured in terms of two independent dimensions, attachment-related anxiety and avoidance 6. A person's position on the anxiety dimension indicates the degree to which he or she worries that a partner will not be available and responsive in times of need. A person's position on the avoidance dimension indicates the extent to which he or she distrusts relationship partners’ good will and strives to maintain behavioral independence, self-reliance, and emotional distance. The two dimensions can be measured with reliable and valid self-report scales (e.g., 6), and they are associated in theoretically predictable ways with relationship quality and adjustment 4. Mikulincer and Shaver 4 proposed that a person's location in the two-dimensional conceptual space defined by attachment anxiety and avoidance reflects both the person's sense of attachment security and the ways in which he or she deals with threats and distress. People who score low on these dimensions are generally secure and tend to employ constructive and effective affect-regulation strategies. Those who score high on either the attachment anxiety or the avoidance dimension (or both) suffer from insecurity and tend to rely on what Cassidy and Kobak 7 called secondary attachment strategies, either deactivating or hyperactivating their attachment system in an effort to cope with threats. According to Mikulincer and Shaver 4, people scoring high on avoidant attachment tend to rely on deactivating strategies — trying not to seek proximity, denying attachment needs, and avoiding closeness and interdependence in relationships. These strategies develop in relationships with attachment figures who disapprove of and punish closeness and expressions of need or vulnerability 8. In contrast, people scoring high on attachment anxiety tend to rely on hyperactivating strategies — energetic attempts to achieve proximity, support, and love combined with lack of confidence that these resources will be provided and with resentment and anger when they are not provided 7. These reactions occur in relationships in which an attachment figure is sometimes responsive but unreliably so, placing the needy person on a partial reinforcement schedule that rewards persistence in proximity-seeking attempts, because they sometimes succeed. Individual differences in attachment styles begin in interactions with parents during infancy and childhood (e.g., 9). However, Bowlby 3 claimed that meaningful relational interactions during adolescence and adulthood can move a person from one region to another of the two-dimensional conceptual space defined by attachment anxiety and avoidance. Moreover, a growing body of research shows that attachment style can change, subtly or dramatically, depending on current context, recent experiences, and recent relationships (e.g., 10,11). According to attachment theory, interactions with inconsistent, unreliable, or insensitive attachment figures interfere with the development of a secure, stable mental foundation; reduce resilience in coping with stressful life events; and predispose a person to break down psychologically in times of crisis 3. Attachment insecurity can therefore be viewed as a general vulnerability to mental disorders, with the particular symptomatology depending on genetic, developmental, and environmental factors. Mikulincer and Shaver 4 reviewed hundreds of cross-sectional, longitudinal, and prospective studies of both clinical and non-clinical samples and found that attachment insecurity was common among people with a wide variety of mental disorders, ranging from mild distress to severe personality disorders and even schizophrenia. Consistently compatible results have also been reported in recent studies. For example, attachment insecurities (of both the anxious and avoidant varieties) are associated with depression (e.g., 12), clinically significant anxiety (e.g., 13), obsessive-compulsive disorder (e.g., 14), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (e.g., 15), suicidal tendencies (e.g., 16), and eating disorders (e.g., 17). Attachment insecurity is also a key feature of many personality disorders (e.g., 18,19). However, the specific kind of attachment insecurity differs across disorders. Anxious attachment is associated with dependent, histrionic, and borderline disorders, whereas avoidant attachment is associated with schizoid and avoidant disorders. Crawford et al 18 found that attachment anxiety is associated with what Livesley 20 called the “emotional dysregulation” component of personality disorders, which includes identity confusion, anxiety, emotional lability, cognitive distortions, submissiveness, oppositionality, self-harm, narcissism, and suspiciousness. Crawford et al 19 also found that avoidant attachment is associated with what Livesley 20 called the “inhibitedness” component of personality problems, including restricted expression of emotions, problems with intimacy, and social avoidance. Another related issue concerning the associations between attachment insecurities and psychopathology is the extent to which attachment insecurities are a sufficient cause of mental disorders. In our view, beyond disorders such as separation anxiety and pathological grief, in which attachment injuries are the main causes and themes, attachment insecurities per se are unlikely to be sufficient causes of mental disorders. Other factors (e.g., genetically determined temperament; intelligence; life history, including abuse) are likely to converge with or amplify the effects of attachment experiences on the way to psychopathology. Consider, for example, the relation between attachment-related avoidance and psychological distress. Many studies of large community samples have found no association between avoidant attachment and self-report measures of global distress 4. However, studies that focus on highly stressful events, such as exposure to missile attacks, living in a dangerous neighborhood, or giving birth to a handicapped infant, have indicated that avoidance is related to greater distress and poorer long-term adjustment 4. Life history factors are also important. For example, the association between attachment insecurity and depression is higher among adults with a childhood history of physical, psychological, or sexual abuse (e.g., 21). Stressful life events, poverty, physical health problems, and involvement in turbulent romantic relationships during adolescence also strengthen the link between attachment insecurity and psychopathology (e.g., 22). The causal links between attachment and psychopathology are also complicated by research findings showing that psychological problems can increase attachment insecurity. Davila et al 23, for example, found that late adolescent women who became less securely attached over periods of 6 to 24 months were more likely than their peers to have a history of psychopathology. Cozzarelli et al 24 found that women who moved in the direction of insecure attachment over a 2-year period following abortion were more likely than other women who had an abortion to have a prior history of depression or abuse. Solomon et al 25 assessed attachment insecurities and PTSD symptoms among Israeli ex-prisoners of war (along with a matched control group of veterans) 18 and 30 years after their release from captivity. Attachment anxiety and avoidance increased over time among the ex-prisoners, and the increases were predicted by the severity of PTSD symptoms at the first wave of measurement. Overall, attachment insecurities seem to contribute nonspecifically to many kinds of psychopathology. However, particular forms of attachment insecurity seem to predispose a person to particular configurations of mental disorders. The attachment-psychopathology link is moderated by a large array of biological, psychological, and socio-cultural factors, and mental disorders per se can erode a person's sense of attachment security. If attachment insecurities are risk factors for psychopathology, then the creation, maintenance, or restoration of a sense of attachment security should increase resilience and improve mental health. According to attachment theory, interactions with available and supportive attachment figures impart a sense of safety, trigger positive emotions (e.g., relief, satisfaction, gratitude, love), and provide psychological resources for dealing with problems and adversities. Secure individuals remain relatively unperturbed during times of stress, recover faster from episodes of distress, and experience longer periods of positive affectivity, which contributes to their overall emotional well-being and mental health. In some of our studies, we have examined the effects of increased security on various indicators of mental health by experimentally activating mental representations of supportive attachment figures (e.g., 26,27). These research techniques, which we 11 refer to as “security priming”, include subliminal pictures suggesting attachment-figure availability, subliminal names of people designated by participants as security-enhancing attachment figures, guided imagery highlighting the availability and supportiveness of an attachment figure, and visualization of the faces of security-enhancing attachment figures. Security priming improves participants’ moods even in threatening contexts and eliminates the detrimental effects of threats on positive moods (e.g., 26). Mikulincer et al 28 found that subliminal priming with security-related words mitigated cognitive symptoms of PTSD (heightened accessibility of trauma-related words in a Stroop-color naming task) in a non-clinical sample. Admoni 29 found that priming the names of each participant's security providers mitigated two cognitive symptoms of eating disorders (distorted body perception and heightened accessibility of food-related words in a Stroop task) in a sample of women hospitalized for eating disorders. There is also preliminary evidence that a sense of security provided by a psychotherapist improves a client's mental health. In a study based on data from the multi-site National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program, Zuroff and Blatt 30 found that a client's positive appraisals of his or her therapist's sensitivity and supportiveness predicted relief from depression and maintenance of therapeutic benefits over an 18-month period. The results were not attributable to patient characteristics or severity of depression. In a one-year prospective study of the effectiveness of residential treatment of high-risk adolescents, Gur 31 found that staff members’ provision of a sense of attachment security in the adolescents resulted in lower rates of anger, depression, and behavioral problems. Although these preliminary findings are encouraging, there is still a great need for additional well-controlled research examining the long-term effects of security-enhancing therapeutic figures on clients’ mental health. According to attachment theory 3, the linkage between attachment insecurities (whether in the form of anxiety, avoidance, or both) and psychopathology is mediated by several pathways. In this section, we will review the most important of these pathways. According to attachment theory and research, lack of parental sensitivity and responsiveness contributes to disorders of the self, characterized by lack of self-cohesion, doubts about one's internal coherence and continuity over time, unstable self-esteem, and over-dependence on other people's approval (e.g., 32,33). Insecure people are likely to be overly self-critical, plagued by self-doubts, or prone to using defenses, such as destructive perfectionism, to counter feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness (e.g., 34). These dysfunctional beliefs about oneself increase insecure people's risk for developing mental disorders. Attachment research has also shown that attachment insecurities are associated with pathological narcissism (e.g., 35). Whereas avoidant attachment is associated with overt narcissism or grandiosity, which includes both self-praise and denial of weaknesses 36, attachment anxiety is associated with covert narcissism, characterized by self-focused attention, hypersensitivity to other people's evaluations, and an exaggerated sense of entitlement 36. According to attachment theory, interactions with available attachment figures and the resulting sense of attachment security provide actual and symbolic supports for learning constructive emotion-regulation strategies. For example, interactions with emotionally accessible and responsive others provide a context in which a child can learn that acknowledgment and display of emotions is an important step toward restoring emotional balance, and that it is useful and socially acceptable to express, explore, and try to understand one's feelings 37. Unlike relatively secure people, avoidant individuals often prefer to cordon off emotions from their thoughts and actions. As a result, they tend to present a façade of security and composure, but leave suppressed distress unresolved in ways that impair their ability to deal with life's inevitable adversities. This impairment is particularly likely during prolonged, demanding stressful experiences that require active coping with a problem and mobilization of external sources of support (e.g., 38). People who score high on attachment anxiety, in contrast, often find negative emotions to be congruent with their attachment-system hyperactivation. For them, “emotion regulation” can mean emotion amplification and exaggeration of worries, depressive reactions to actual or potential losses and failures, and PTSD intrusion symptoms following traumas. Attachment anxiety is also associated with socially destructive outbursts of anger and impulsive, demanding behavior toward relationship partners, sometimes including violence 4. According to attachment theory, recurrent failure to obtain support from attachment figures and to sustain a sense of security, and the resulting reliance on secondary attachment strategies (hyperactivation and deactivation), interfere with the acquisition of social skills and create serious problems in interpersonal relations. Bartholomew and Horowitz 32, using as an assessment device the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems 39, found that attachment anxiety was associated with more interpersonal problems in general. Secure individuals did not show notable elevations in any particular sections of the problems circle, but avoidant people generally had problems with nurturance (being cold, introverted, or competitive), and anxious people had problems with emotionality (e.g., being overly expressive). These problems seem to underlie insecure individuals’ self-reported loneliness and social isolation (e.g., 40) and their relatively low relationship satisfaction, more frequent relationship breakups, and more frequent conflicts and violence 4. Attachment insecurities are associated with a wide variety of mental disorders, ranging from mild negative affectivity to severe, disorganizing, and paralyzing personality disorders. The evidence suggests that insecure attachment orientations (whether anxious or avoidant) are fairly general pathogenic states. Although many of the research findings supporting these ideas are correlational, several studies show a prospective connection between attachment insecurities and vulnerability to disorders. From a therapeutic standpoint, we have reviewed preliminary evidence that situationally heightening people's sense of attachment security reduces the likelihood and intensity of psychiatric symptoms (e.g., PTSD, eating disorders). This evidence underscores the soothing, healing, therapeutic effects of actual support offered by relationship partners, including therapists, and the comfort and safety offered by mental representations of supportive experiences and loving and caring attachment figures. The research evidence causes us to be optimistic about the utility of clinical interventions that increase clients’ sense of attachment security. In the long run, research on attachment security and insecurity, and on the connections between insecurity and psychopathology, should contribute to a strongly social conception of the human mind and its vulnerability to pathologies. In a pioneering chapter on the social neuroscience of attachment processes, Coan 41 proposed what he calls social baseline theory. According to this theory, the human brain evolved in a highly social environment, and many of its basic functions rely on social co-regulation of emotions and physiological states. This means that, rather than conceptualizing human beings as separate entities whose interactions with each other need to be understood, it makes more sense to consider social relatedness and its mental correlates as the normal “baseline” condition. Using this as a starting point helps us to see why experiences of separation, isolation, rejection, abuse, and neglect are so psychologically painful, and why dysfunctional relationships are often the causes or amplifiers of mental disorders.

The growing field of digital psychiatry: current evidence and the future of apps, social media, chatbots, and virtual reality

John Torous, Sandra Bucci, Imogen Bell +7 more · World Psychiatry · 2021 · 1,072 citations

As the COVID-19 pandemic has largely increased the utilization of telehealth, mobile mental health technologies - such as smartphone apps, vir-tual reality, chatbots, and social media - have also gained attention. These digital health technologies offer the potential of accessible and scalable interventions that can augment traditional care. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive update on the overall field of digital psychiatry, covering three areas. First, we outline the relevance of recent technological advances to mental health research and care, by detailing how smartphones, social media, artificial intelligence and virtual reality present new opportunities for "digital phenotyping" and remote intervention. Second, we review the current evidence for the use of these new technological approaches across different mental health contexts, covering their emerging efficacy in self-management of psychological well-being and early intervention, along with more nascent research supporting their use in clinical management of long-term psychiatric conditions - including major depression; anxiety, bipolar and psychotic disorders; and eating and substance use disorders - as well as in child and adolescent mental health care. Third, we discuss the most pressing challenges and opportunities towards real-world implementation, using the Integrated Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services (i-PARIHS) framework to explain how the innovations themselves, the recipients of these innovations, and the context surrounding innovations all must be considered to facilitate their adoption and use in mental health care systems. We conclude that the new technological capabilities of smartphones, artificial intelligence, social media and virtual reality are already changing mental health care in unforeseen and exciting ways, each accompanied by an early but promising evidence base. We point out that further efforts towards strengthening implementation are needed, and detail the key issues at the patient, provider and policy levels which must now be addressed for digital health technologies to truly improve mental health research and treatment in the future.

Human resource management in the age of generative artificial intelligence: Perspectives and research directions on ChatGPT

Pawan Budhwar, Soumyadeb Chowdhury, Geoffrey Wood +20 more · Human Resource Management Journal · 2023 · 722 citations

This perspectives editorial synthesises existing literature to argue that generative AI (like ChatGPT) will fundamentally reshape human resource management (HRM) across recruitment, performance management, employee well-being, and ethical compliance, but the evidence base is almost entirely theoretical — no controlled experiments exist yet, so anyone running a self-experiment on using generative AI for HR tasks must treat all claims as hypotheses, not proven effects.

Time for united action on depression: a Lancet–World Psychiatric Association Commission

Helen Herrman, Vikram Patel, Christian Kieling +22 more · The Lancet · 2022 · 964 citations

Economic Analysis of Social Interactions

Charles F. Manski · The Journal of Economic Perspectives · 2000 · 2,083 citations

Social interactions—how your behaviour is influenced by the people around you—are extremely difficult to study using observational data because many different causal mechanisms can produce the same observed patterns, meaning that without controlled experiments or subjective data on expectations, you cannot reliably tell whether your friends' actions caused your behaviour or whether you simply chose friends who already behaved like you.

The future of social media in marketing

Gil Appel, Lauren Grewal, Rhonda Hadi +1 more · Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science · 2019 · 1,735 citations

Social media allows people to freely interact with others and offers multiple ways for marketers to reach and engage with consumers. Considering the numerous ways social media affects individuals and businesses alike, in this article, the authors focus on where they believe the future of social media lies when considering marketing-related topics and issues. Drawing on academic research, discussions with industry leaders, and popular discourse, the authors identify nine themes, organized by predicted imminence (i.e., the immediate, near, and far futures), that they believe will meaningfully shape the future of social media through three lenses: consumer, industry, and public policy. Within each theme, the authors describe the digital landscape, present and discuss their predictions, and identify relevant future research directions for academics and practitioners.

Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults

Ethan Kross, Philippe Verduyn, Emre Demiralp +6 more · PLoS ONE · 2013 · 1,565 citations

Over 500 million people interact daily with Facebook. Yet, whether Facebook use influences subjective well-being over time is unknown. We addressed this issue using experience-sampling, the most reliable method for measuring in-vivo behavior and psychological experience. We text-messaged people five times per day for two-weeks to examine how Facebook use influences the two components of subjective well-being: how people feel moment-to-moment and how satisfied they are with their lives. Our results indicate that Facebook use predicts negative shifts on both of these variables over time. The more people used Facebook at one time point, the worse they felt the next time we text-messaged them; the more they used Facebook over two-weeks, the more their life satisfaction levels declined over time. Interacting with other people "directly" did not predict these negative outcomes. They were also not moderated by the size of people's Facebook networks, their perceived supportiveness, motivation for using Facebook, gender, loneliness, self-esteem, or depression. On the surface, Facebook provides an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection. Rather than enhancing well-being, however, these findings suggest that Facebook may undermine it.

Achieving Effective Remote Working During the COVID‐19 Pandemic: A Work Design Perspective

Bin Wang, Yukun Liu, Jing Qian +1 more · Applied Psychology · 2020 · 1,509 citations

Existing knowledge on remote working can be questioned in an extraordinary pandemic context. We conducted a mixed-methods investigation to explore the challenges experienced by remote workers at this time, as well as what virtual work characteristics and individual differences affect these challenges. In Study 1, from semi-structured interviews with Chinese employees working from home in the early days of the pandemic, we identified four key remote work challenges (work-home interference, ineffective communication, procrastination, and loneliness), as well as four virtual work characteristics that affected the experience of these challenges (social support, job autonomy, monitoring, and workload) and one key individual difference factor (workers' self-discipline). In Study 2, using survey data from 522 employees working at home during the pandemic, we found that virtual work characteristics linked to worker's performance and well-being via the experienced challenges. Specifically, social support was positively correlated with lower levels of all remote working challenges; job autonomy negatively related to loneliness; workload and monitoring both linked to higher work-home interference; and workload additionally linked to lower procrastination. Self-discipline was a significant moderator of several of these relationships. We discuss the implications of our research for the pandemic and beyond.

Functional Fear Predicts Public Health Compliance in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Craig A. Harper, Liam Satchell, Dean Fido +1 more · International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction · 2020 · 1,479 citations

Abstract In the current context of the global pandemic of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), health professionals are working with social scientists to inform government policy on how to slow the spread of the virus. An increasing amount of social scientific research has looked at the role of public message framing, for instance, but few studies have thus far examined the role of individual differences in emotional and personality-based variables in predicting virus-mitigating behaviors. In this study, we recruited a large international community sample ( N = 324) to complete measures of self-perceived risk of contracting COVID-19, fear of the virus, moral foundations, political orientation, and behavior change in response to the pandemic. Consistently, the only predictor of positive behavior change (e.g., social distancing, improved hand hygiene) was fear of COVID-19, with no effect of politically relevant variables. We discuss these data in relation to the potentially functional nature of fear in global health crises.

Advances in Social Media Research: Past, Present and Future

Kawaljeet Kaur Kapoor, Kuttimani Tamilmani, Nripendra P. Rana +3 more · Information Systems Frontiers · 2017 · 1,254 citations

Social media comprises communication websites that facilitate relationship forming between users from diverse backgrounds, resulting in a rich social structure. User generated content encourages inquiry and decision-making. Given the relevance of social media to various stakeholders, it has received significant attention from researchers of various fields, including information systems. There exists no comprehensive review that integrates and synthesises the findings of literature on social media. This study discusses the findings of 132 papers (in selected IS journals) on social media and social networking published between 1997 and 2017. Most papers reviewed here examine the behavioural side of social media, investigate the aspect of reviews and recommendations, and study its integration for organizational purposes. Furthermore, many studies have investigated the viability of online communities/social media as a marketing medium, while others have explored various aspects of social media, including the risks associated with its use, the value that it creates, and the negative stigma attached to it within workplaces. The use of social media for information sharing during critical events as well as for seeking and/or rendering help has also been investigated in prior research. Other contexts include political and public administration, and the comparison between traditional and social media. Overall, our study identifies multiple emergent themes in the existing corpus, thereby furthering our understanding of advances in social media research. The integrated view of the extant literature that our study presents can help avoid duplication by future researchers, whilst offering fruitful lines of enquiry to help shape research for this emerging field.

Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto

Jenny van Doorn, Martin Mende, Stephanie Noble +4 more · Journal of Service Research · 2016 · 1,221 citations

Technology is rapidly changing the nature of service, customers’ service frontline experiences, and customers’ relationships with service providers. Based on the prediction that in the marketplace of 2025, technology (e.g., service-providing humanoid robots) will be melded into numerous service experiences, this article spotlights technology’s ability to engage customers on a social level as a critical advancement of technology infusions. Specifically, it introduces the novel concept of automated social presence (ASP; i.e., the extent to which technology makes customers feel the presence of another social entity) to the services literature. The authors develop a typology that highlights different combinations of automated and human social presence in organizational frontlines and indicates literature gaps, thereby emphasizing avenues for future research. Moreover, the article presents a conceptual framework that focuses on (a) how the relationship between ASP and several key service and customer outcomes is mediated by social cognition and perceptions of psychological ownership as well as (b) three customer-related factors that moderate the relationship between ASP and social cognition and psychological ownership (i.e., a customer’s relationship orientation, tendency to anthropomorphize, and technology readiness). Finally, propositions are presented that can be a catalyst for future work to enhance the understanding of how technology infusion, particularly service robots, influences customers’ frontline experiences in the future.

Impacts of COVID-19 and social isolation on academic staff and students at universities: a cross-sectional study

Walter Leal Filho, Tony Wall, Lez Rayman‐Bacchus +6 more · BMC Public Health · 2021 · 279 citations

BACKGROUND: "The impacts of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the shutdown it triggered at universities across the world, led to a great degree of social isolation among university staff and students. The aim of this study was to identify the perceived consequences of this on staff and their work and on students and their studies at universities. METHOD: The study used a variety of methods, which involved an on-line survey on the influences of social isolation using a non-probability sampling. More specifically, two techniques were used, namely a convenience sampling (i.e. involving members of the academic community, which are easy to reach by the study team), supported by a snow ball sampling (recruiting respondents among acquaintances of the participants). A total of 711 questionnaires from 41 countries were received. Descriptive statistics were deployed to analyse trends and to identify socio-demographic differences. Inferential statistics were used to assess significant differences among the geographical regions, work areas and other socio-demographic factors related to impacts of social isolation of university staff and students. RESULTS: The study reveals that 90% of the respondents have been affected by the shutdown and unable to perform normal work or studies at their institution for between 1 week to 2 months. While 70% of the respondents perceive negative impacts of COVID 19 on their work or studies, more than 60% of them value the additional time that they have had indoors with families and others. . CONCLUSIONS: While the majority of the respondents agree that they suffered from the lack of social interaction and communication during the social distancing/isolation, there were significant differences in the reactions to the lockdowns between academic staff and students. There are also differences in the degree of influence of some of the problems, when compared across geographical regions. In addition to policy actions that may be deployed, further research on innovative methods of teaching and communication with students is needed in order to allow staff and students to better cope with social isolation in cases of new or recurring pandemics.

Behavioural activation to mitigate the psychological impacts of COVID-19 restrictions on older people in England and Wales (BASIL+): a pragmatic randomised controlled trial

Simon Gilbody, Elizabeth Littlewood, Dean McMillan +27 more · The Lancet Healthy Longevity · 2024 · 45 citations

A structured telephone-based behavioural activation programme (up to eight weekly sessions) reduced depression scores by about 1.7 points on the PHQ-9 scale (0–27) at three months in socially isolated older adults with multiple long-term conditions, compared to usual care plus wellbeing resources.

AI-based chatbots in customer service and their effects on user compliance

Martin Adam, Michael Wessel, Alexander Benlian · Electronic Markets · 2020 · 1,035 citations

Abstract Communicating with customers through live chat interfaces has become an increasingly popular means to provide real-time customer service in many e-commerce settings. Today, human chat service agents are frequently replaced by conversational software agents or chatbots, which are systems designed to communicate with human users by means of natural language often based on artificial intelligence (AI). Though cost- and time-saving opportunities triggered a widespread implementation of AI-based chatbots, they still frequently fail to meet customer expectations, potentially resulting in users being less inclined to comply with requests made by the chatbot. Drawing on social response and commitment-consistency theory, we empirically examine through a randomized online experiment how verbal anthropomorphic design cues and the foot-in-the-door technique affect user request compliance. Our results demonstrate that both anthropomorphism as well as the need to stay consistent significantly increase the likelihood that users comply with a chatbot’s request for service feedback. Moreover, the results show that social presence mediates the effect of anthropomorphic design cues on user compliance.

Human mobility: Models and applications

Hugo Barbosa, Marc Barthélemy, Gourab Ghoshal +7 more · Physics Reports · 2018 · 1,010 citations

A critique of the cross-lagged panel model.

Ellen L. Hamaker, Rebecca M. Kuiper, Raoul P. P. P. Grasman · Psychological Methods · 2015 · 3,554 citations

The cross-lagged panel model (CLPM) is believed by many to overcome the problems associated with the use of cross-lagged correlations as a way to study causal influences in longitudinal panel data. The current article, however, shows that if stability of constructs is to some extent of a trait-like, time-invariant nature, the autoregressive relationships of the CLPM fail to adequately account for this. As a result, the lagged parameters that are obtained with the CLPM do not represent the actual within-person relationships over time, and this may lead to erroneous conclusions regarding the presence, predominance, and sign of causal influences. In this article we present an alternative model that separates the within-person process from stable between-person differences through the inclusion of random intercepts, and we discuss how this model is related to existing structural equation models that include cross-lagged relationships. We derive the analytical relationship between the cross-lagged parameters from the CLPM and the alternative model, and use simulations to demonstrate the spurious results that may arise when using the CLPM to analyze data that include stable, trait-like individual differences. We also present a modeling strategy to avoid this pitfall and illustrate this using an empirical data set. The implications for both existing and future cross-lagged panel research are discussed.

Consumers and Artificial Intelligence: An Experiential Perspective

Stefano Puntoni, Rebecca Walker Reczek, Markus Giesler +1 more · Journal of Marketing · 2020 · 963 citations

Artificial intelligence (AI) helps companies offer important benefits to consumers, such as health monitoring with wearable devices, advice with recommender systems, peace of mind with smart household products, and convenience with voice-activated virtual assistants. However, although AI can be seen as a neutral tool to be evaluated on efficiency and accuracy, this approach does not consider the social and individual challenges that can occur when AI is deployed. This research aims to bridge these two perspectives: on one side, the authors acknowledge the value that embedding AI technology into products and services can provide to consumers. On the other side, the authors build on and integrate sociological and psychological scholarship to examine some of the costs consumers experience in their interactions with AI. In doing so, the authors identify four types of consumer experiences with AI: (1) data capture, (2) classification, (3) delegation, and (4) social. This approach allows the authors to discuss policy and managerial avenues to address the ways in which consumers may fail to experience value in organizations’ investments into AI and to lay out an agenda for future research.

A strategy for human factors/ergonomics: developing the discipline and profession

Jan Dul, Ralph Bruder, Peter Buckle +5 more · Ergonomics · 2012 · 902 citations

Human factors/ergonomics (HFE) has great potential to contribute to the design of all kinds of systems with people (work systems, product/service systems), but faces challenges in the readiness of its market and in the supply of high-quality applications. HFE has a unique combination of three fundamental characteristics: (1) it takes a systems approach (2) it is design driven and (3) it focuses on two closely related outcomes: performance and well-being. In order to contribute to future system design, HFE must demonstrate its value more successfully to the main stakeholders of system design. HFE already has a strong value proposition (mainly well-being) and interactivity with the stakeholder group of 'system actors' (employees and product/service users). However, the value proposition (mainly performance) and relationships with the stakeholder groups of 'system experts' (experts fromtechnical and social sciences involved in system design), and 'system decision makers' (managers and other decision makers involved in system design, purchase, implementation and use), who have a strong power to influence system design, need to be developed. Therefore, the first main strategic direction is to strengthen the demand for high-quality HFE by increasing awareness among powerful stakeholders of the value of high-quality HFE by communicating with stakeholders, by building partnerships and by educating stakeholders. The second main strategic direction is to strengthen the application of high-quality HFE by promoting the education of HFE specialists, by ensuring high-quality standards of HFE applications and HFE specialists, and by promoting HFE research excellence at universities and other organisations. This strategy requires cooperation between the HFE community at large, consisting of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA), local (national and regional) HFE societies, and HFE specialists. We propose a joint world-wide HFE development plan, in which the IEA takes a leadership role. PRACTITIONER SUMMARY: Human factors/ergonomics (HFE) has much to offer by addressing major business and societal challenges regarding work and product/service systems. HFE potential, however, is underexploited. This paper presents a strategy for the HFE community to strengthen demand and application of high-quality HFE, emphasising its key elements: systems approach, design driven, and performance and well-being goals.

The “online brain”: how the Internet may be changing our cognition

Joseph Firth, John Torous, Brendon Stubbs +8 more · World Psychiatry · 2019 · 615 citations

The impact of the Internet across multiple aspects of modern society is clear. However, the influence that it may have on our brain structure and functioning remains a central topic of investigation. Here we draw on recent psychological, psychiatric and neuroimaging findings to examine several key hypotheses on how the Internet may be changing our cognition. Specifically, we explore how unique features of the online world may be influencing: a) attentional capacities, as the constantly evolving stream of online information encourages our divided attention across multiple media sources, at the expense of sustained concentration; b) memory processes, as this vast and ubiquitous source of online information begins to shift the way we retrieve, store, and even value knowledge; and c) social cognition, as the ability for online social settings to resemble and evoke real-world social processes creates a new interplay between the Internet and our social lives, including our self-concepts and self-esteem. Overall, the available evidence indicates that the Internet can produce both acute and sustained alterations in each of these areas of cognition, which may be reflected in changes in the brain. However, an emerging priority for future research is to determine the effects of extensive online media usage on cognitive development in youth, and examine how this may differ from cognitive outcomes and brain impact of uses of Internet in the elderly. We conclude by proposing how Internet research could be integrated into broader research settings to study how this unprecedented new facet of society can affect our cognition and the brain across the life course.

Temporal Patterns of Happiness and Information in a Global Social Network: Hedonometrics and Twitter

Peter Sheridan Dodds, Kameron Decker Harris, Isabel M. Kloumann +2 more · PLoS ONE · 2011 · 827 citations

Individual happiness is a fundamental societal metric. Normally measured through self-report, happiness has often been indirectly characterized and overshadowed by more readily quantifiable economic indicators such as gross domestic product. Here, we examine expressions made on the online, global microblog and social networking service Twitter, uncovering and explaining temporal variations in happiness and information levels over timescales ranging from hours to years. Our data set comprises over 46 billion words contained in nearly 4.6 billion expressions posted over a 33 month span by over 63 million unique users. In measuring happiness, we construct a tunable, real-time, remote-sensing, and non-invasive, text-based hedonometer. In building our metric, made available with this paper, we conducted a survey to obtain happiness evaluations of over 10,000 individual words, representing a tenfold size improvement over similar existing word sets. Rather than being ad hoc, our word list is chosen solely by frequency of usage, and we show how a highly robust and tunable metric can be constructed and defended.

Mobile Phone Sensor Correlates of Depressive Symptom Severity in Daily-Life Behavior: An Exploratory Study

Sohrab Saeb, Mi Zhang, Christopher J Karr +4 more · Journal of Medical Internet Research · 2015 · 817 citations

BACKGROUND: Depression is a common, burdensome, often recurring mental health disorder that frequently goes undetected and untreated. Mobile phones are ubiquitous and have an increasingly large complement of sensors that can potentially be useful in monitoring behavioral patterns that might be indicative of depressive symptoms. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to explore the detection of daily-life behavioral markers using mobile phone global positioning systems (GPS) and usage sensors, and their use in identifying depressive symptom severity. METHODS: A total of 40 adult participants were recruited from the general community to carry a mobile phone with a sensor data acquisition app (Purple Robot) for 2 weeks. Of these participants, 28 had sufficient sensor data received to conduct analysis. At the beginning of the 2-week period, participants completed a self-reported depression survey (PHQ-9). Behavioral features were developed and extracted from GPS location and phone usage data. RESULTS: A number of features from GPS data were related to depressive symptom severity, including circadian movement (regularity in 24-hour rhythm; r=-.63, P=.005), normalized entropy (mobility between favorite locations; r=-.58, P=.012), and location variance (GPS mobility independent of location; r=-.58, P=.012). Phone usage features, usage duration, and usage frequency were also correlated (r=.54, P=.011, and r=.52, P=.015, respectively). Using the normalized entropy feature and a classifier that distinguished participants with depressive symptoms (PHQ-9 score ≥5) from those without (PHQ-9 score <5), we achieved an accuracy of 86.5%. Furthermore, a regression model that used the same feature to estimate the participants' PHQ-9 scores obtained an average error of 23.5%. CONCLUSIONS: Features extracted from mobile phone sensor data, including GPS and phone usage, provided behavioral markers that were strongly related to depressive symptom severity. While these findings must be replicated in a larger study among participants with confirmed clinical symptoms, they suggest that phone sensors offer numerous clinical opportunities, including continuous monitoring of at-risk populations with little patient burden and interventions that can provide just-in-time outreach.

VADER: A Parsimonious Rule-Based Model for Sentiment Analysis of Social Media Text

Cecelia Hutto, Éric Gilbert · Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media · 2014 · 5,662 citations

The inherent nature of social media content poses serious challenges to practical applications of sentiment analysis. We present VADER, a simple rule-based model for general sentiment analysis, and compare its effectiveness to eleven typical state-of-practice benchmarks including LIWC, ANEW, the General Inquirer, SentiWordNet, and machine learning oriented techniques relying on Naive Bayes, Maximum Entropy, and Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithms. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, we first construct and empirically validate a gold-standard list of lexical features (along with their associated sentiment intensity measures) which are specifically attuned to sentiment in microblog-like contexts. We then combine these lexical features with consideration for five general rules that embody grammatical and syntactical conventions for expressing and emphasizing sentiment intensity. Interestingly, using our parsimonious rule-based model to assess the sentiment of tweets, we find that VADER outperforms individual human raters (F1 Classification Accuracy = 0.96 and 0.84, respectively), and generalizes more favorably across contexts than any of our benchmarks.

The Welfare Effects of Social Media

Hunt Allcott, Luca Braghieri, Sarah Eichmeyer +1 more · American Economic Review · 2020 · 787 citations

The rise of social media has provoked both optimism about potential societal benefits and concern about harms such as addiction, depression, and political polarization. In a randomized experiment, we find that deactivating Facebook for the four weeks before the 2018 US midterm election (i) reduced online activity, while increasing offline activities such as watching TV alone and socializing with family and friends; (ii) reduced both factual news knowledge and political polarization; (iii) increased subjective well-being; and post-experiment Facebook use. Deactivation reduced post-experiment valuations of Facebook, suggesting that traditional metrics may overstate consumer surplus. (JEL D12, D72, D90, I31, L82, L86, Z13)

The future of mental health care: peer-to-peer support and social media

John A. Naslund, Kelly A. Aschbrenner, Lisa A. Marsch +1 more · Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences · 2016 · 1,140 citations

AIMS: People with serious mental illness are increasingly turning to popular social media, including Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, to share their illness experiences or seek advice from others with similar health conditions. This emerging form of unsolicited communication among self-forming online communities of patients and individuals with diverse health concerns is referred to as peer-to-peer support. We offer a perspective on how online peer-to-peer connections among people with serious mental illness could advance efforts to promote mental and physical wellbeing in this group. METHODS: In this commentary, we take the perspective that when an individual with serious mental illness decides to connect with similar others online it represents a critical point in their illness experience. We propose a conceptual model to illustrate how online peer-to-peer connections may afford opportunities for individuals with serious mental illness to challenge stigma, increase consumer activation and access online interventions for mental and physical wellbeing. RESULTS: People with serious mental illness report benefits from interacting with peers online from greater social connectedness, feelings of group belonging and by sharing personal stories and strategies for coping with day-to-day challenges of living with a mental illness. Within online communities, individuals with serious mental illness could challenge stigma through personal empowerment and providing hope. By learning from peers online, these individuals may gain insight about important health care decisions, which could promote mental health care seeking behaviours. These individuals could also access interventions for mental and physical wellbeing delivered through social media that could incorporate mutual support between peers, help promote treatment engagement and reach a wider demographic. Unforeseen risks may include exposure to misleading information, facing hostile or derogatory comments from others, or feeling more uncertain about one's health condition. However, given the evidence to date, the benefits of online peer-to-peer support appear to outweigh the potential risks. CONCLUSION: Future research must explore these opportunities to support and empower people with serious mental illness through online peer networks while carefully considering potential risks that may arise from online peer-to-peer interactions. Efforts will also need to address methodological challenges in the form of evaluating interventions delivered through social media and collecting objective mental and physical health outcome measures online. A key challenge will be to determine whether skills learned from peers in online networks translate into tangible and meaningful improvements in recovery, employment, or mental and physical wellbeing in the offline world.

Promoting novelty, rigor, and style in energy social science: Towards codes of practice for appropriate methods and research design

Benjamin K. Sovacool, Jonn Axsen, Steve Sorrell · Energy Research & Social Science · 2018 · 1,133 citations

A series of weaknesses in creativity, research design, and quality of writing continue to handicap energy social science. Many studies ask uninteresting research questions, make only marginal contributions, and lack innovative methods or application to theory. Many studies also have no explicit research design, lack rigor, or suffer from mangled structure and poor quality of writing. To help remedy these shortcomings, this Review offers suggestions for how to construct research questions; thoughtfully engage with concepts; state objectives; and appropriately select research methods. Then, the Review offers suggestions for enhancing theoretical, methodological, and empirical novelty. In terms of rigor, codes of practice are presented across seven method categories: experiments, literature reviews, data collection, data analysis, quantitative energy modeling, qualitative analysis, and case studies. We also recommend that researchers beware of hierarchies of evidence utilized in some disciplines, and that researchers place more emphasis on balance and appropriateness in research design. In terms of style, we offer tips regarding macro and microstructure and analysis, as well as coherent writing. Our hope is that this Review will inspire more interesting, robust, multi-method, comparative, interdisciplinary and impactful research that will accelerate the contribution that energy social science can make to both theory and practice.

Predictors of eHealth Usage: Insights on The Digital Divide From the Health Information National Trends Survey 2012

Emily Z. Kontos, Kelly D. Blake, Wen‐Ying Sylvia Chou +1 more · Journal of Medical Internet Research · 2014 · 987 citations

BACKGROUND: Recent eHealth developments have elevated the importance of assessing the extent to which technology has empowered patients and improved health, particularly among the most vulnerable populations. With noted disparities across racial and social groups in chronic health outcomes, such as cancer, obesity, and diabetes, it is essential that researchers examine any differences in the implementation, uptake, and impact of eHealth strategies across groups that bear a disproportionate burden of disease. OBJECTIVE: The goal was to examine eHealth use by sociodemographic factors, such as race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status (SES), age, and sex. METHODS: We drew data from National Cancer Institute's 2012 Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) (N=3959) which is publicly available online. We estimated multivariable logistic regression models to assess sociodemographic predictors of eHealth use among adult Internet users (N=2358) across 3 health communication domains (health care, health information-seeking, and user-generated content/sharing). RESULTS: Among online adults, we saw no evidence of a digital use divide by race/ethnicity. However, there were significant differences in use by SES, particularly for health care and health information-seeking items. Patients with lower levels of education had significantly lower odds of going online to look for a health care provider (high school or less: OR 0.50, 95% CI 0.33-0.76) using email or the Internet to communicate with a doctor (high school or less: OR 0.46, 95% CI 0.29-0.72), tracking their personal health information online (high school or less: OR 0.53, 95% CI 0.32-0.84), using a website to help track diet, weight, and physical activity (high school or less: OR 0.64, 95% CI 0.42-0.98; some college: OR 0.67, 95% CI 0.49-0.93), or downloading health information to a mobile device (some college: OR 0.54, 95% CI 0.33-0.89). Being female was a consistent predictor of eHealth use across health care and user-generated content/sharing domains, whereas age was primarily influential for health information-seeking. CONCLUSIONS: This study illustrates that lower SES, older, and male online US adults were less likely to engage in a number of eHealth activities compared to their counterparts. Future studies should assess issues of health literacy and eHealth literacy and their influence on eHealth engagement across social groups. Clinical care and public health communication efforts attempting to leverage Web 2.0 and 3.0 platforms should acknowledge differential eHealth usage to better address communication inequalities and persistent disparities in health.

Helping Doctors and Patients Make Sense of Health Statistics

Gerd Gigerenzer, Wolfgang Gaissmaier, Elke Kurz‐Milcke +2 more · Gothic.net · 2007 · 1,336 citations

Many doctors, patients, journalists, and politicians alike do not understand what health statistics mean or draw wrong conclusions without noticing. Collective statistical illiteracy refers to the widespread inability to understand the meaning of numbers. For instance, many citizens are unaware that higher survival rates with cancer screening do not imply longer life, or that the statement that mammography screening reduces the risk of dying from breast cancer by 25% in fact means that 1 less woman out of 1,000 will die of the disease. We provide evidence that statistical illiteracy (a) is common to patients, journalists, and physicians; (b) is created by nontransparent framing of information that is sometimes an unintentional result of lack of understanding but can also be a result of intentional efforts to manipulate or persuade people; and (c) can have serious consequences for health. The causes of statistical illiteracy should not be attributed to cognitive biases alone, but to the emotional nature of the doctor-patient relationship and conflicts of interest in the healthcare system. The classic doctor-patient relation is based on (the physician's) paternalism and (the patient's) trust in authority, which make statistical literacy seem unnecessary; so does the traditional combination of determinism (physicians who seek causes, not chances) and the illusion of certainty (patients who seek certainty when there is none). We show that information pamphlets, Web sites, leaflets distributed to doctors by the pharmaceutical industry, and even medical journals often report evidence in nontransparent forms that suggest big benefits of featured interventions and small harms. Without understanding the numbers involved, the public is susceptible to political and commercial manipulation of their anxieties and hopes, which undermines the goals of informed consent and shared decision making. What can be done? We discuss the importance of teaching statistical thinking and transparent representations in primary and secondary education as well as in medical school. Yet this requires familiarizing children early on with the concept of probability and teaching statistical literacy as the art of solving real-world problems rather than applying formulas to toy problems about coins and dice. A major precondition for statistical literacy is transparent risk communication. We recommend using frequency statements instead of single-event probabilities, absolute risks instead of relative risks, mortality rates instead of survival rates, and natural frequencies instead of conditional probabilities. Psychological research on transparent visual and numerical forms of risk communication, as well as training of physicians in their use, is called for. Statistical literacy is a necessary precondition for an educated citizenship in a technological democracy. Understanding risks and asking critical questions can also shape the emotional climate in a society so that hopes and anxieties are no longer as easily manipulated from outside and citizens can develop a better-informed and more relaxed attitude toward their health.