June 2010

teenage girl studyingTwo researchers from the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) have studied the relationship between teenagers’ goals and antisocial behaviour. The results show that the principal goal of young people is to finish their studies and leave home. The most antisocial among them place greater importance on popularity with others.

“The goals that teenagers place most importance on are to do with leaving home, work and education, in other words they are related to finishing their studies and academic achievements”, Laura López Romero, co-author of the study with Estrella Romero and a researcher at the USC, tells SINC. [continue reading…]

gogostat logoWith summer vacation about to start, another software application designed to help parents protect their kids online becomes available . Start-up tech firm, Schakra, which makes third-party social network applications, is introducing GoGoStat Parental Guidance. This free Facebook app is designed to help parents monitor and set rules for their childrens’ use of certain features of the popular social network.

“We all know by now that the Internet and social networking sites can be extremely risky for children and teens, yet there’s an immense draw for them to participate,” says Bala Balabaskaran, Schakra’s chief software architect. “Allowing parents to define their own ground rules and monitoring criteria sets the stage for an honest dialogue with their children on social media usage.”

Source: Technology Live

simon-cowellSimon Cowell may appear to relish arguing with his fellow judges when they disagree with him, but new research out today suggests that – at least at a neuronal level – he would find their agreement much more satisfying

Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London) in collaboration with Aarhus University in Denmark have found that the ‘reward’ area of the brain is activated when people agree with our opinions. The study, published today in the journal ‘Current Biology’, suggests that scientists may be able to predict how much people can be influenced by the opinions of others on the basis of the level of activity in the reward area. [continue reading…]

anorexia

iStockphoto

A new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health examines the content and messages presented by websites that appear to support or encourage eating disorders. These websites use images, text and interactive applications to further knowledge, attitudes and behaviors to achieve dangerously low body weights. The study is the largest and most rigorous analysis of pro-eating disorder websites and it is available online in advance of print in the June 17 edition of the American Journal of Public Health. [continue reading…]