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The Complex Relationship Between Social Media and Mental Health In College Students

Social media has never been more popular world-wide than it has been in recent years, with the majority of users primarily being of college age. In fact, social media usage has increased by nearly 1000% in the last eight years for people between 18 and 29 according to the Pew Research Center. In fact 98% […]

Using Information Cascades to Fight Terrorism

http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/27/researchers-from-arizona-state-university-take-the-war-online-back-to-isis/ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/13/world/middleeast/isis-is-winning-message-war-us-concludes.html?_r=0 http://phys.org/news/2015-07-countering-social-persuasion-extremist-groups.html Over the past several years, the war on terror has become increasingly more digital in nature. This change has proven difficult for the U.S. and other governments. In fact, in June, the New York Times reported that a leaked U.S. State Department document from an internal memo discussed how, thus far, ISIS has outmaneuvered […]

Human Augmentation?

  http://factor-tech.com/feature/what-can-deus-ex-human-revolution-teach-us-about-the-ethics-of-human-augmentation/   Understandably, human augmentation is an iffy subject whether it be mechanical or nano-tech based augmentations as in the Deus-Ex universe or extensive genetic engineering as seen in others. The idea of adding or modifying humans to such an extent to many removes what it means to be human making them seem “more […]

Spirals of silence in social media

http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/26/social-media-and-the-spiral-of-silence/ A recent survey conducted by Rutgers researchers and Pew Research Centre researchers found that people are more likely to share their political views in situations where the majority of people around them share the same views. More specifically, the survey addressed how likely people were to discuss the Snowden leaks. The reason that the […]

Everyone is Going Mobile

By the year 2018, more young people will use mobile devices to access the internet than all other devices combined. According to a study published by ZenithOptimedia, a leading global media services network, 16-24 year olds will begin using mobile devices to access the internet more often than all other devices combined in 34 of […]

Artificial Intelligence and Bayes Rule

Bayes Rule is a prominent principle used in artificial intelligence to calculate the probability of a robot’s next steps given the steps the robot has already executed. PR2, the newly formed coffee making robot, can make coffee with any coffee machine if the user gives it a list of instructions to follow. The robot’s uniqueness […]

How Facebook beat Myspace and Why Google worries about Facebook

Myspace was a big thing before Facebook came along. But now it’s a “social entertainment destination” which not many people go to. The key difference in their business model is the management styles. Myspace was purchased by a big company and adopted professional management style with detailed plans. However, the founders of Facebook adopted the […]

The Majority Illusion

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/538866/the-social-network-illusion-that-tricks-your-mind/   This essay discuessed an illusion of social network. For example, something, like the message, picture or the idea, is rare actually, but some people think it is common based on the information and the influence from their social network. Some people from USC have worked on it and discovered the reason for this […]

Revolutionary Information Cascades

Article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/06/13/what-really-made-the-arab-uprisings-contagious/ In this article, York University Professor Merouan Mekouar explains the critical role Information Cascades played during the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.  The author contrasts the successful revolutions, resulting in the overthrow of long-time despotic dictators, in Libya and Egypt with the unsuccessful protests in Morocco and Algeria.  In the case of the Libyan […]

Facebook vs. Orkut from a Brazilian’s Perspective

Having lived in Brazil my whole life, I believe it could be interesting to share this insider’s perspective on how Brazilians endured with Orkut while the whole world was already using Facebook as main online social network. So, back in 2004 we started hearing at school about this online social network, in which all cool kids […]

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