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Kids And Screen Time: What Does The Research Say?
NPR: Kids are spending more time than ever in front of screens, and it may be inhibiting their ability to recognize emotions, according to new research out of the University of California, Los Angeles. The study, published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, found that sixth-graders who went five days without exposure to technology were significantly better at reading human emotions than kids who had regular access to phones, televisions and computers. The UCLA researchers studied two groups of sixth-graders from a Southern California public school.
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Faces Are More Likely to Seem Alive When We Want to Feel Connected
Feeling socially disconnected may lead us to lower our threshold for determining that another being is animate or alive, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. “This increased sensitivity to animacy suggests that people are casting a wide net when looking for people they can possibly relate to -- which may ultimately help them maximize opportunities to renew social connections,” explains psychological scientist and lead researcher Katherine Powers of Dartmouth College.
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Food Craving Is Stronger, but Controllable, for Kids
Children show stronger food craving than adolescents and adults, but they are also able to use a cognitive strategy that reduces craving, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association
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The Science of Truthiness
Slate: A bumper sticker was popular in the city where I went to college. It was yellow, with large black print that read: “Mopeds are dangerous.” Beneath the text was the blocky silhouette of a moped and nothing else. The sticker didn’t illustrate the claim that mopeds were dangerous—it didn’t show a moped crumpled against a tree or running someone over—but it was eye-catching, the yellow contrasting sharply with the black, and on message. I believed that bumper sticker, and still do, for all that I’ve rarely encountered a moped or read about a moped accident or even really grasped the difference between a moped and a Segway.
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Why You Shouldn’t Race Through Those Thank-You Notes
New York Magazine: Thank-you notes are the bane of newlyweds ever — they take forever, are drenched in overly saccharine language, and seem to serve little point other than adhering to an established social more. But a new study led by Lisa Williams of the University of New South Wales and published in the journalEmotion suggests that simple expressions of gratitude can help make others — even those who barely know you (those weird distant cousins of your significant other, for example) — feel more warmly toward you.
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The Positive Effects of Sports-Themed Video Games
Pacific Standard: It’s widely believed that video games are partially responsible for the childhood obesity epidemic, since they encourage kids to sit in front of screens rather than go outside and play. If that’s your worry, you might want to … buy your kid a new video game. Just make sure its title contains the acronym NFL, NBA, or MLB. Newly published research suggests adolescents who play more sports-themed video games are more likely to get involved in real-life sports activities over time. What’s more, playing these games appears to enhance kids’ self-esteem by allowing them to develop and master sports-related skills and knowledge.
