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Nuša Gregoršanec

BBC NEWS | UK | Online networking 'harms health' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7898510.stm

interaction internet health problems

shared by Nuša Gregoršanec on 07 Mar 13 - Cached
  • Online networking 'harms health'
  • Online networking 'harms health'
  • Dr Aric Sigman says websites such as Facebook set out to enrich social lives, but end up keeping people apart.
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  • A lack of "real" social networking, involving personal interaction, may have biological effects, he suggests. He also says that evidence suggests that a lack of face-to-face networking could alter the way genes work, upset immune responses, hormone levels, the function of arteries, and influence mental performance.
  • This, he claims, could increase the risk of health problems as serious as cancer, strokes, heart disease, and dementia.
  • Dr Sigman says that there is research that suggests the number of hours people spend interacting face-to-face has fallen dramatically since 1987, as the use of electronic media has increased.
  • Dr Sigman also argues using electronic media undermines people's social skills and their ability to read body language.
Janja Petek

Unreported Side Effects of Drugs Are Found Using Internet Search Data, Study Finds - NY... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...internet-data-study-finds.html

effects internet search data

shared by Janja Petek on 07 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Using data drawn from queries entered into Google, Microsoft and Yahoo search engines, scientists at Microsoft, Stanford and Columbia University have for the first time been able to detect evidence of unreported prescription drug side effects before they were found by the Food and Drug Administration’s warning system.
  • Using automated software tools to examine queries by six million Internet users taken from Web search logs in 2010, the researchers looked for searches relating to an antidepressant, paroxetine, and a cholesterol lowering drug, pravastatin.
  • The new study was undertaken after Dr. Altman wondered whether there was a more immediate and more accurate way to gain access to data similar to what the F.D.A. had access to.
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  • He turned to computer scientists at Microsoft, who created software for scanning anonymized data collected from a software toolbar installed in Web browsers by users who permitted their search histories to be collected.
  • The researchers said that they were now thinking about how to add new sources of information, like behavioral data and information from social media sources. The challenge, they noted, was to integrate new sources of data while protecting individual privacy.
mancamikulic

Why We All Have 'Internet-Addiction Genes' - Robert Wright - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...262112

addiction internet human beings modern world habbit genes

shared by mancamikulic on 06 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • : A gene that seems to be (very modestly) correlated with internet addiction also plays a role in nicotine addiction.
  • A gene that seems to be (very modestly) correlated with internet addiction also plays a role in nicotine addiction.
  • internet addiction is not a figment of our imagination
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  • Whether heavy internet use deserves to be called an addiction or just a hard-to-break habit is a question about a behavior pattern and its attendant psychological states.
  • To answer it we ask such things as how strong the cravings for the internet are, what lengths a person will go to in order to satisfy them, and so on.
  • Human beings are biochemical machines "designed" by natural selection to, among other things, form habits.
  • The habit-forming machinery involves the release of reward chemicals, such as dopamine, that make us feel good upon attaining these goals
  • In the modern world, there are shortcuts to getting these rewards
  • And there's some evidence (though here I'm approaching the limits of my comprehension of the science) that people with a particular variant of a gene involved in building acetylcholine receptors are more susceptible to nicotine addiction than other people
  • the main point is this: the biochemical mechanisms (including genes) involved in chemical addictions will naturally be the mechanisms involved in habit formation more generally since habit formation is what they were originally designed for.
  • whether it's a habit or an addiction, it is going to involve pleasure-dispensing biochemical mechanisms of the sort that can get us addicted to such chemicals as nicotine and cocaine
  • After all, the internet, like these chemicals, allows us to trigger our neuronal reward mechanisms with much less work,
  • it wasn't possible, in a very small and technologically primitive social universe, to at any time of day launch an observation or joke
  • the internet, like a pack of cigarettes or lots of cocaine, lets you just sit in a room and repeatedly trigger reward chemicals that
  • And all of us have lots and lots of these genes--genes that make us susceptible to internet addiction.
  • some of these genes may vary from person to person in ways that make some people particularly susceptible to internet addiction
  • In fact, there will turn out to be so many genes which are so modestly correlated with internet addiction
  • that if journalists write stories every time such a gene is found, or is thought to have been found, they will find that they're not shedding much actual light on the situation.
  • These genes are really just genes for being human.
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