Those who seek social support on Facebook when stressed are more susceptible to Facebook addiction. This, according to researchers at Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany. The research team conducted an online survey of 309 Facebook users between 18 and 56 years old. Participants answered questions related to stress, Facebook engagement, and…
Too much screen time can lead to sleep problems in teens. But reducing screen time and blue light exposure can resolve these problems within a week. Researchers from the Netherlands Institute of Neuroscience investigated the effects of screen time on adolescents and saw that teens who were exposed to screen…
More TV means less sleep for preschoolers. This, according to researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The research team studied the rest and activity cycles of 470 preschoolers for 16 days. Additionally, they examined questionnaires completed by the parents about their child’s health and behavior, including how much TV…
Watching Spiderman and Antman might help you overcome your fear of bugs. Researchers from Ariel University and Bar-Ilan University say that doing so can act as exposure therapy for people who are afraid of bugs. Exposure therapy is exposing oneself to their phobia until they’re no longer afraid. With this…
As the Game of Thrones series nears its conclusion, fans are at risk of suffering from showhole depression. When you suffer from showhole depression, you experience harmful symptoms like general unhappiness and feelings of hopelessness when a favorite show ends. While this might sound ridiculous to some, the reality is…
Trigger warnings are statements that appear before potentially disturbing content, meant to help people manage emotional responses. But, according to researchers at the University of Waikato, they might have little to no impact. The research team conducted six experiments with over 1,300 participants. Some read a trigger warning before viewing…
Watching too much TV can impair preschoolers’ development. University of Montreal researchers say spending many hours in front of the TV is harmful during this critical stage of development. It can prevent preschoolers from engaging in more enriching developmental activities and lead to emotional trouble in teenhood. This study found…
The audio we listen to can change how we feel about ourselves. Researchers from the University of Oxford divided 135 participants into five groups. Each group heard a different set of audio instructions. Two of these groups listened to audio that encouraged participants to be kind to themselves. The remaining…
You’ve heard it many times before: “Violent video games spark aggressive behavior in players and lead to violence in real life…” But, have you ever stopped to look at the facts and consider the validity of this statement? Heather Ness, a psychology professor and blogger who specializes in the psychology…
In the digital era, both children and adults have been looking to video games for entertainment more and more often. The number of players getting involved, even when looking at a single game alone, can be staggering; for example, as of June 2018, the popular video game Fortnite had more…
People debate about whether watching violence makes us more likely to engage in violence ourselves—of which was precisely explored in the Bobo doll experiment. In this experiment, Albert Bandura and his team of researchers studied 72 kids who experienced either an aggressive or non-aggressive model. In the aggressive model, the…
Addiction is a strong word, and the scientific community has not yet determined whether individuals can be “addicted” to sites like Facebook and Instagram in the medical sense. However, whether or not an individual meets the criteria for an addiction disorder may not matter as much as the consequences of his…
