Surprisingly accurate estimates of users’ race, age, IQ, sexuality, personality type, substance use, and political views can be inferred from automated analysis of only their Facebook Likes – information that is by default publicly available. The Cambridge University researchers who developed the analytical technique say that such a method could be used to extract sensitive […]
“Likes” or positive comments from close friends on Facebook appear to inflate users’ self-esteem and reduce self-control, resulting in higher body-mass indexes and higher levels of credit-card debt. That’s according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Columbia Business School who have analyzed five separate Facebook studies in the Journal of Consumer Research. “To […]
A new European study into Facebook usage reports that women, but not men, feel less happy and less content with their lives the longer they spend on Facebook. The study, carried out by Leif Denti at the University of Gothenburg, also revealed that women spend much longer than men on Facebook. The new study adds […]
People with more Facebook friends have more grey matter in their brain, but University College London (UCL) scientists aren’t sure whether our online social network is driving the changes in the brain, or if people with bigger brains simply have more friends. The new research, appearing inProceedings of the Royal Society B, adds to the […]
Researchers spend a lot of time examining how people form friendships online, but little has been known about how those relationships end, until now. “Unfriending,” as it has become known, is the subject of a new study by researcher Christopher Sibona, from the University of Colorado Denver Business School. Sibona’s work, based on a survey […]
