The ever increasing pace of the world.

The New York Times just printed an interesting article on the ways in which technology - and the ever increasing pace of change that comes concordant with that - might be affecting our children.  This is interesting in and of itself.  We might wonder how our children's malleable young minds are shaped by the cacophony of media they are exposed to, how their understanding of the world might shift as they inhabit more and more time in electronic and online activities, and how the absence of many of the influences of the past might shape their development. Already we see some differences - younger generations expect information immediately, seem to have less privacy concerns and are better at multitasking than older adults.  These changes may not be all good.  For example, the increase in multitasking could potentially have negative effects on the ability to focus on materials for longer periods of time - such as is needed in schooling.

But there's another issue that has to do more with the increasing pace of change rather than the actual experiences themselves.  We'll be talking about research methods tomorrow, and we'll be discussing types of studies that utilize what are called "developmental designs".  I know you'll be excited to learn about won't really have a choice but to listen to me talk about cross-sectional, longitudinal and sequential designs.  All three of these are ways of looking at change over time.  Cross-sectional designs focus on looking at a group of people of slightly different ages at one point in time, with the implicit assumption often being that by looking at the differently aged people, you can figure out what changes in development due to the effects of age. Longitudinal designs focus on a single group of people over time with the implicit assumption often being that that particular group of people should be illustrative of how development generally occurs in people outside of your specific study sample.  We'll talk about why these assumptions are not always correct, but for now I will just note that sequential designs are an attempt to pin down the actual differences between age effects, cohort effects and time of measurement effects by basically combining longitudinal and cross-sectional designs.

But what happens when change gets really fast?

Researchers are exploring this notion too. They theorize that the ever-accelerating pace of technological change may be minting a series of mini-generation gaps, with each group of children uniquely influenced by the tech tools available in their formative stages of development.

“People two, three or four years apart are having completely different experiences with technology,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. “College students scratch their heads at what their high school siblings are doing, and they scratch their heads at their younger siblings. It has sped up generational differences.”

 Already, we have to be careful in research to attend to which of our findings are driven by actual developmental change and not by cohort.  What happens when cohorts shrink in size?

Your public face.

Sometimes in looking through Facebook, it can seem that everyone's life is perfect, full of smiling children, exciting parties, exotic vacations, and clever status updates that inspire responses from many.  It's a way to link to new and interesting things you might find surfing the web, play a variety of electronic games, a way to promote new businesses, and it's even becoming a medium for true social change.

It's also a way to realize that some of the people you know are really really irritating.  But are they irritating only online, or does this illustrate a more general truth about who they are?

People have commonly assumed that people put forth their best public face on social networking sites, and that they present not a real version of themselves, but an idealized one.  A recent study conducted by Sam Gosling of the University of Texas at Austin, however, suggests that Facebook profiles result in fairly accurate representations of our personalities. Researchers asked participants to fill out questionnaires on the Big 5 personality measures of openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism, listing both what they perceived themselves to be (their real self) and what they wished to be (their ideal self).  It turns out that when observers then rated their perceptions of the participants' profiles, the ratings matched pretty closely.  In other words, people's profiles were a good representation of their personality.

 "I was surprised by the findings because the widely held assumption is that people are using their profiles to promote an enhanced impression of themselves," says Gosling of the more than 700 million people worldwide who have online profiles. "In fact, our findings suggest that online social networking profiles convey rather accurate images of the profile owners, either because people aren't trying to look good or because they are trying and failing to pull it off."

Gosling argues that this "honesty" thus makes Facebook (and potentially other social networking sites) more like genuine social interaction, and that it fulfills many of the same functions.  He likens Facebook to using a telephone - allowing us to keep in contact with people with whom we might not keep in contact with otherwise. He makes the argument that his research shows that we really can trust the online personas people present to the world.

While I agree with these statements generally, I would also point out that online, particularly when posts can be made anonymous, many people are prone towards making statements that they would not make in real life.  The online framework provides a sense of anonymity which can sometimes result in online sharing of content that, if people reflected on it a bit, might not be information they want out there. There are consequences to this.  For example, in the recent past people have lost their jobs, cyberstalked their exes, inadvertently alerted their insurance companies to potential fraud, and even accidentally posted embarrassing photos of British spies in speedos.  While these are perhaps more extreme examples of the possible consequences of online over-sharing, it's rare to find a person that hasn't had some form of online gaffe.

In the past few weeks, I've gotten dozens of requests for letters of recommendation.  I'm willing happy to do so, and have, in the process, been advising students to make sure that any social networking sites are made private.  Recently, admissions committees have been using such materials to help make their decisions about which students to allow into programs.  And, Facebook does not seem to be helping students make that cut.

 A new survey of 500 top colleges found that 10% of admissions officers acknowledged looking at social-networking sites to evaluate applicants. Of those colleges making use of the online information, 38% said that what they saw "negatively affected" their views of the applicant.

So, a word to the wise. Keep up with the new privacy features on Facebook, and when they are instituted, update your privacy settings.  In the meantimes, make your profile private, consider the use of lists to control the flow of outgoing information, and most importantly, don't ever put anything on Facebook that you would be horrified to find the world at large viewing.  Once it is on the web, it is there forever. 

Remember, your mom could be watching.

Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids

No Virginia, watching TV won't make your baby smarter.

As mentioned in class today, the Walt Disney Company has admitted that watching television will not make your baby smarter, although it may be an interesting segue way into a discussion of mental illness and an effective means of torture for adults.  As it turns out, the use of videos targeted for young children may actually be negatively related to language development and problems with attention.

So, if you bought your child some Baby Einstein videos and were disappointed with the results, here's how to get your money back.

Happy viewing.