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I propose we use cultural variables to show the appropriate content for specific groups of users in the same way that we use media queries to show content according to viewports or breakpoints.

Slow Messaging cultures are more easygoing about the speed at which messages and information travel. Fast Messaging cultures demand that information travels quickly and efficiently.

High Power Distance societies tolerate a high level of authority in their leaders, and their orders are often unquestioned. Symbols of this power are important. On the other hand, Low Power Distance societies have bosses that are much closer to their employees in power levels, and instructions can be debated or challenged.

How do we make our fellow humans comfortable with our interfaces and site? Start using cultural queries in our designs.

25 bloggers were arrested and charged with sedition

What explains his rage is that, had it not been for social media, the government would likely have succeeded in hiding the protests from many Turks. Turkey is a country that jails more journalists than Iran, and it is hardly surprising that the mainstream Turkish media, which has been additionally co-opted by the authorities through financial measures, broadcast pictures of beauty contests and cooking shows for several days while parts of Istanbul and other cities were blanketed with tear gas.

While international news organizations and some alternative outlets in Turkey played a role in breaking the media’s silence, social media took the lead.

Besides arresting and intimidating bloggers, the authorities made several attempts to choke access to Facebook and Twitter, as well as blocking cell phone communications (which your correspondent experienced on June 1 in Istanbul). The deputy prime minister ominously cautioned that “It's possible to shut it [Internet] all down," much in the same manner as the Egyptian government had done two years earlier.

possibly in keeping with smartphone use actually not being as popular as PCs — Foursquare and other check-in services are not so hot, with only 12.2 percent using these.

McAfee describes teen usage on social networks as “stalking” rather than sharing: half of teens responding said they mostly observed others rather than posted updates about themselves. Only six percent said they shared “almost everything.” Nevertheless, they are huge social network users: 60 percent check their accounts daily, and 41 percent said they check accounts “constantly.”

The study found that 79 percent of teens said they hid their online behavior from their parents: partly to keep private what they’re actually doing online, and partly because they’re online for a lot longer than parents think. Popular activities include accessing violent content (43%); sexual topics/porn (36%; 32%); and watching pirated movies (30.7%). A whole 15% are hacking other people’s accounts. Meanwhile, teens spend about five hours a day online; while parents only think their kids spend an average of three hours a day online. McAfee found that just over 10 percent spend more than 10 hours per day online.

Teens hiding what they do from parents has gone up massively since 2010, when only 45 percent said they hid their behavior, and is a disconnect when compared to what parents think: half of parents responding to the study said they knew what their teen kids did online.

Did your obese friends cause you to become overweight, or did you choose obese friends because they're similar to you?

In his own study, Macy analyzed words expressing mood in 500 million tweets sent between February 2008 and January 2010. He found that people’s mood, as measured by their tweets, tended to be elevated in the morning and to decline as the day progressed. Weekends tended to be “happier” days, although mood peak started later in the morning, possibly reflecting twitterers' tendency to sleep in. Most remarkable, Macy said in an interview with Science magazine, was that the tweets showed a similar pattern across the 84 countries where the tweets originated, suggesting that the daily mood curve is fundamentally human rather than cultural.

Today’s students face a job market that increasingly clamors for real technology skills, not just the ability to post party pictures on Facebook.