Alex Blaszczynski, Professor of Psychology at the University of Sydney, says there is a trend toward online sports betting which has altered the pattern of problem gambling presentations at the various University’s Gambling Treatment Clinic.
The internationally recognised gambling expert says:
“Problem gambling has certainly moved away from the traditional picture of a person sitting for hours on end at a poker machine.
“While we are still seeing these clients, we are seeing that young men in particular are turning to gambling on sports. These young men are reporting difficulties controlling their internet-based sports betting in increasing numbers.
“Looking at our client numbers, we had approximately a 70 percent increase in the number of sports betting clients from 2008-2009 to 2010-2011.” [continue reading…]
Getting married, exercising regularly, thinking happy thoughts, not working so hard— according to The Longevity Project are not shortcuts to immortality, and for certain groups of people, they can actually have the opposite effect! Veronique Greenwood writes in the Atlantic about the Longevity Project which debunks conventional wisdom. that “Worrying is always bad for your health.
Optimistic people have a tendency to ignore details, meaning they don’t follow doctor’s orders correctly or lead themselves into unhealthy situations or addictions. It was the conscientious people—careful, sometimes even neurotic, but not catastrophizing—who lived longer, write Friedman and Martin, researchers at the University of California, Riverside. And, their studies show, some of what we think will benefit our children may actually rob them of years later in life. In the Terman study, precocious, active children who were sent to school a year early, as Philip was, tended to have emotional problems that led to unhealthy behaviors and shortened life span.
My first born son was an early talker. I was drawn to this video for that reason.MIT researcher Deb Roy wanted to understand how his infant son learned language — so he wired up his house with videocameras to catch every moment (with exceptions) of his son’s life, then parsed 90,000 hours of home video to watch “gaaaa” slowly turn into “water.” Astonishing, data-rich research with deep implications for how we learn.
Illustration on digital bullying by Annlaug Auestad
At Thursday’s White House Conference for Bullying Prevention in Washington, D.C., Facebook is announcing a new suite of tools to protect users from bullying, foster a stronger sense of community in the social network, and “create a culture of respect” among Facebook users.
U.S. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle popped up on Facebook to deliver the message about cyber-bullying. The video, exclusive to Facebook, serves as a promo and curtain-raiser for the White House Conference on Bullying Prevention, which takes place Thursday. In the video, President Obama jokes about not bugging the viewer for a friend request but instead bringing to light the upcoming conference. “This isn’t an issue that makes headlines every day, but it affects every single young person in our country,” he says in the video.
Facebook’s changes boil down to two main aspects: an improved safety center with more multimedia resources, and better, more social tools for reporting offensive or bullying content.
In addition to reporting harassing or TOS-violating content directly to Facebook, users now have two important options that are more social and more community-centric. Within the reporting options interface, the targeted user can choose to privately message the user who posted the stressful or offensive content. If the user wishes to report the content to Facebook, he or she can also choose to include a trusted authority figure, such as a teacher or parent, as a contact in that incident report.
As for the Safety Center upgrades, Facebook will be bringing “new educational videos, external resources from renowned experts, downloadable materials for people to share and discuss” and more resources within the coming weeks. The company is also asking teens to contribute feedback on smart, safe uses of technology.
