Tinius Digest September

Witnessing negative news on a 24-hour news cycle might bring about a constant state of high alert, kicking people’s surveillance motives into overdrive as the world becomes dark and dangerous. This triggers a need to obtain more information—and the vicious circle continues.

The greater the consumption of negative news, the higher the proportion struggled with mental and physical disorders. The association is significant even after controlling for demographics, personality traits and general news use.

73.6 percent of those with the highest problematic news consumption reported psychological challenges—including stress, anxiety, concentration problems and exhaustion. In the rest of the population, the proportion is eight percent.

61 percent of those with the highest news consumption also reported physical challenges – including body pain and digestion problems. In the rest of the population, the proportion is 6.1 percent.

Five short videos were enough to inoculate people against manipulation techniques commonly used in misinformation: emotionally manipulative language, incoherence, false dichotomies, scapegoating, and ad hominem attacks.

The direct effect of the study shows that the participants improved manipulation technique recognition, boosted confidence in spotting these techniques, increased people’s ability to discern trustworthy from untrustworthy content, and improved the quality of their sharing decisions.

The effects are robust across the political spectrum and various covariates.

The study thus confirms the theory of psychological vaccination (psychological inoculation), which ‘strengthens resistance to future unacceptable counterarguments’. 

News consumption gaps are either stable or converge throughout the campaign. The effect is significant over variables such as gender, age, education, and political interest.

The study finds that social media provides political information to groups that use traditional media channels the least, thereby reducing overall gaps in political media consumption.

The researchers conclude: ‘In this way, to some extent, election campaigns equalize inequalities in political news consumption when it matters the most.’

Monitoring at the workplace is becoming increasingly more accessible. Emails, browsing history and use of work phones are more traditional monitoring. Now Google, Microsoft and Zoom also offer additional functions that allow employers to monitor their employees’ digital activities.

55 percent of employees respond that they have ‘little’, ‘very little’ or ‘not at all’ an overview of what information employers collect about them. 

The Norwegian Data Protection Authority believes the figures are worrying and may ‘indicate that digital work tools record such large amounts of information that it can be challenging for employees to keep track’.

Seven percent of employees respond that they have indications that the employer has monitored, or is monitoring, which websites they visit. Three percent have also seen signs that the employer has taken invasive measures (inspection of email, logging of keyboard use or screen recording). 14 percent have used software that measures their productivity.

The fewest hateful tweets are published when the temperature outside is between 12 and 21 degrees Celsius.

When the thermometer passes 40 degrees celsius, the number of hateful tweets increases by 22 percent. Cold also causes things to get heated in the comment fields: Between -3 and -6 degrees, hate speech increases by 12.5 percent.

The findings are also significant when the researchers consider different climate zones, political affiliations, religions, income and places of residence.

The researchers believe the results show that temperature can trigger aggressive tendencies and highlight people’s inability to adapt to extreme temperatures.

Robots can better detect mental well-being issues in children than parent-reported or self-reported testing. Robots may thus be a helpful addition to traditional mental health assessment methods, although the robots are not intended as a substitute for professional mental health support.

Study participants all said they enjoyed talking with the robot. The children were willing to confide in the robot, sometimes sharing information with the robot that they had not yet shared via the standard assessment method of online or in-person questionnaires.

For children experiencing well-being-related concerns, the robot may have enabled them to divulge their true feelings and experiences, leading to more negative response ratings to the questionnaire.