Study: Anxiety and alcohol use linked to Facebook

College freshmen who report higher levels of anxiety and alcohol use are more likely to feel emotionally connected with the social networking site than those who don't.







In a quest to learn what leads some people to turn to Facebook to connect with others, doctoral student Russell Clayton of the Missouri School of Journalism found that anxiety and alcohol use seem to play a big role.

For his master's thesis, which appears in the May issue of Computers in Human Behavior, Clayton surveyed more than 225 college freshman about two emotions, anxiety and loneliness, and two behaviors, alcohol and marijuana use. He found that the students who reported both higher levels of anxiety and greater alcohol use also appeared the most emotionally connected with Facebook. Those who reported higher levels of loneliness, on the other hand, said they used Facebook to connect with others but were not emotionally connected to it.

It probably isn't terribly surprising that those who are anxious may feel more emotionally connected to a virtual social setting than a public one, which Clayton acknowledges in a school news release. "Also, when people who are emotionally connected to Facebook view pictures and statuses of their Facebook friends using alcohol, they are more motivated to engage in similar online behaviors in order to fit in socially."




Marijuana use, on the other hand, predicted the opposite -- the absence of emotional connectedness to the site. Clayton has a theory about this as well: "Marijuana use is less normative, meaning fewer people post on Facebook about using it. In turn, people who engage in marijuana use are less likely to be emotionally attached to Facebook."

Whether Facebook is therapeutic for those feeling anxious is debatable. Last year one study found that people who use social networking sites regularly saw their behaviors change negatively, and that included having trouble disconnecting and relaxing. So the question becomes: Which came first, the anxiety or the networking?

Meanwhile, Facebook appears to be showing its laughter lines as teenagers "meh" their way to Twitter and Instagram. Surveys of their levels of anxiety and drug use while on those sites are surely imminent.

T-Mobile's iPhone 5 ad is a low-budget revolution

It takes a revolution to effect a revolution.

This is the modest hope of T-Mobile, as it attempts to wean the American public off two-year plans.

In order to introduce the iPhone 5 to its mold-breaking community, the company has decided to keep it fairly simple.

Yes, it's co-opting the revolution for its own purposes.




It describes the iPhone 5 as having revolutionized phones. Just as T-Mobile is revolutionizing carriers.

This revolution is, though, being effected with a seemingly small budget.

Yes, there's a little shattering of glass, but it's not as if they pushed the boat out to get Catherine Zeta-Jones -- or even a look-alike -- to add a little glamor to the revolution.

And that music, I know it from somewhere. Goodness, its the "Star-Spangled Banner," isn't it? I wonder how much the rights were to that.

Galaxy S4 Group Play makes sharing easier (hands-on)

Sharing is a big part of Samsung's products (just think of all those ads in recent months, like the one with a woman giving her husband a secret video). Now the Korean electronics giant is taking that a step further with the Galaxy S4's improved Group Play.



Galaxy S3 users will recognize this as the feature that lets them share documents and photos with others in close range. I recently got some hands-on time with Group Play on the S4 and found some nice updates to the program. In particular, future S4 owners can share music and games along with photos and documents, and the group leader's device acts as the Wi-Fi access point connecting all the other devices. That means you don't have connect to any Wi-Fi or cellular data network -- a big change from the Galaxy S3 version, which relied on all devices being connected to the same Wi-Fi network.





Setting up and connecting to a group is so simple that people might actually use the feature (once they realize what it is). Samsung crams tons of capabilities in all of its devices, but few consumers know they even exist, let alone how to use them. One of the company's biggest pushes this year is to make its products easier to use. With the Galaxy S4, many features such as NFC are automatically turned on instead of defaulted to the off setting. And the device has an improved notification/settings screen that's easier to navigate.

Setup
For Group Play, you launch the program by clicking an icon on the phone. The group leader has to choose "create group," which automatically turns on the Wi-Fi access point.

All other devices joining a Group Play session will recognize the access point the same way as any other Wi-Fi network. When you launch the program, you choose "join group" instead of "create group." The program then automatically searches for available Wi-Fi networks and connects when it finds one called "Group Play XXX." If there are multiple networks with "Group Play" in their name, the program gives you the option to choose which to join.

Apple board member's remarks pique iWatch speculation

Here's another scrap to add to your "Apple's Next Move" file.

Recent remarks from Bill Campbell, an Apple board member and close friend of Steve Jobs, suggest that rumors about an iWatch -- or perhaps even an Apple competitor to Google's high-tech Glass specs -- might be worth heeding.

At an event for Intuit employees this week, Campbell sat down with Intuit CEO Brad Smith for an hourlong chat, discussing, as Businessweek puts it, "things that make a product great, how managers should behave, and some of the recent highs and lows he's seen in the technology industry and beyond."

Though Campbell reportedly said he couldn't offer any specifics on future Apple products, he said we could anticipate "a lot of things going on with the application of technology to really intimate things." And, calling Google Glass a "phenomenal breakthrough," he said, "When you start to think about glasses or watches, they become as intimate as the cell phone was."

Wearable computing, then, seems to be on the minds of those in the know in Cupertino. No surprise, really: such gadgets struck up the buzz at this year's CES confab, and the iWatch rumors have long been flying, with, recently, The New York Times reporting that Apple is experimenting with wristwatch-like iOS devices that feature curved glass, and Bloomberg reporting that the company has about 100 people working on a smartwatch project. (Google and Samsung, too, are potential players in the smartwatch realm.)

Apple has also filed patent applications for watch-relevant flexible displays and for a Glass-sounding "head-mounted display apparatus." (Some have even said Apple will release an iTV product this year that will feature a wearable "iRing" that acts as a kind of remote.)

Campbell's comments, then, add a bit more grist to the mill. And we may not have all that long to wait before we discover if the iWatch rumors are true. In the same report about the 100-person team, Bloomberg cites an unnamed source as saying that Apple wants the device out as soon as this year (and, as CNET's Dan Farber points out, the pressure is on Apple to produce something bold and ambitious again, and in time for the fourth-quarter shopping season).

The same unnamed source who told Bloomberg about an arrival date for the gadget, also said it could include features that let its users make calls, see the identity of incoming callers, check map coordinates, use a pedometer for counting steps, and monitor their heart rate and other health data via sensors. CNET's Scott Stein and Donald Bell have their own wishlists of iWatch features, which you can check out here.

Smartphone innovation: Where we're going next (Smartphones Unlocked) Read more: http://www.cnet.com/8301-17918_1-57578982-85/smartphone-innovation-where-were-going-next-smartphones-unlocked/#ixzz2QBiBEXYc

The HTC One has a gorgeous chassis and a ton of camera tricks, the Samsung's Galaxy S4 pauses and unpauses video when you avert your gaze, and in the Lumia 920, Nokia was the first to introduce wireless charging and an ultrasensitive screen you can control while wearing gloves.

Yet compared with the real meat of what you do with a phone -- things like communicating with people, browsing the Internet, snapping photos, and playing games -- today's top phones are mostly all on par. Software and hardware extras that extend beyond the basics, while impressive, convenient, likable, and even useful, still amount to fancy filler.

All of today's technology will certainly improve: cameras will get sharper and clearer, processors faster, screens stronger, and batteries longer-lived. But in tomorrow's tech world, that "filler" may be the more compelling story.

With his shaggy, sandy blond hair and a 5-o'clock shadow, Mark Rolston, the creative director for Frog Design, has studied technology for the better part of two decades. As he sees it, smartphones are just about out of evolutionary advances. Sure, form factors and materials might alter as manufacturers grasp for differentiating design, but in terms of innovative leaps, Rolston says, "we're at the end of gross innovation for smartphones."

That isn't to say smartphones are dead or obsolete. Just the contrary. As Rolston and other future thinkers who study the mobile space conclude, smartphones will become increasingly impactful in interacting with our surrounding world, but more as one smaller piece of a much large, interconnected puzzle abuzz with data transfer and information.

We'll certainly see more crazy camera software and NFC features everywhere, but there's much, much more to look forward to besides.

Boeing's futuristic X-48C makes final flight

The aerospace giant and NASA say the distinctive "blended wing body" design flew like a champ in low-speed tests and holds promise for quieter, more fuel-efficient aircraft yet to come.





It's mission accomplished for the experimental X-48C aircraft.

The distinctively shaped machine this week made the last of 30 flights in an eight-month program as backers Boeing and NASA sought to show how well a "blended wing body" aircraft can perform. The X-48C program is tied to NASA's Environmentally Responsible Aircraft project, which is geared toward developing futuristic airplanes that burn less fuel, spew fewer emissions, and make less noise.

The Boeing-designed X-48C has a radically different look than that of conventional aircraft. Where a big 747 or a little Cessna has -- very roughly speaking -- the shape of a plus sign when viewed from above or below, with a wings sticking out as separate entities from a long, slender fuselage, the X-48C is essentially a seamless triangle in which there is no separation between wings and fuselage. There's no tail structure, either. Hence the term "blended wing."

"We have shown that a BWB aircraft, which offers the tremendous promise of significantly greater fuel efficiency and reduced noise, can be controlled as effectively as a conventional tube-and-wing aircraft during takeoffs, landings and other low-speed segments of the flight regime," Boeing program manager Bob Liebeck said in a statement Friday.

In the 30 flights since last August, the turbojet-powered, remotely piloted X-48C generally flew for about 30 minutes at a time, going as fast as 140 mph and flying as high as 10,000 feet or so, Boeing said. The scale model aircraft, build by Cranfield Aerospace, has a wingspan of a little more than than 20 feet and weighs about 500 pounds.

Zuckerberg bores staff in new Facebook Home ad

In a quite stunning acting debut, Facebook's CEO shows the virtues of Home and the difficulties of being a CEO. His employees aren't impressed.





They're a smug, self-centered, self-righteous lot at Facebook.

Which is why Facebook Home, the tool that turns your Android into a Windows Phone, was designed specifically for them.

They can stare at their phones all day, bathing in the joys of those closest to them. Well, those closest to them in a virtual sense.

They can also ignore the catatonia-inspiring monotone that regularly emerges from their CEO's mouth.

Please, you know I'm never mean. I am merely describing the new commercial for Facebook Home on AT&T, a quite stellar act of self-deprecation.




While Zuckerberg talks about Facebook Home -- which, after some initial bad reviews on Google Play, is now enjoying a solidly middle-of-the-road 2.5 stars -- his contemptuous employees stare at their phones and wish they were anywhere but there.






In a similar vein to the launch ad for Home, their glamorous news feed comes to life.

Bikes roar, as Zuckerberg drones.

There is no drag queen this time, but there is a man in his swim shorts, ready to party. It is not Zuckerberg.

The progressive humanization of Facebook's CEO has been a wonder to behold. He is being sold as a very nice man through little touches of his character being shared with the outside world.

This ad performs the task very well. He plays himself with extreme aplomb.

I cannot wait for the next TV interview of Zuckerberg where his nose is buried in his phone, ignoring the interviewer's questions.

Wouldn't you like to see what's on his personal home page? Oh, it's private, you say? Of course it is.