Mediaboss Marketing

Media Search:

East-West divide in social site use found

Published: Feb. 7, 2013 at 5:23 PM

EAST LANSING, Mich., Feb. 7 (UPI) -- The contrast between U.S. "me-first" culture and China's "collective-good" mentality shows in differing use of social networking sites, a psychologist says.

Michigan State University psychology Professor Linda Jackson said U.S. citizens spend more time on social networking sites, consider them to be more important and have more "friends" on them, while Chinese citizens tend to be more interested in real-world relationships than online friendships and less inclined toward the self-promotion that's popular on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

"In the United States, it's all about promoting yourself and taking credit for positive outcomes and denying blame for negative outcomes," Jackson said in a university release Thursday. "In China, it's the opposite. If something bad happens, you take the blame and talk about how you can improve. If something good happens, the credit is shared for the good of the group."

Jackson and colleague Jin-Liang Wang of China's Southwest University surveyed more than 400 college-aged residents from each country on their use of social network sites.

They said U.S. study participants spent nearly twice as long on social networking sites, nearly 52 minutes a day, compared with Chinese participants at about 28 minutes daily.

Jackson said she worries about the potential negative effects of spending an increasing amount of time online.

"Because we are essentially social creatures, I cannot see good coming out of social isolation and practices that encourage aloneness and solitary activities," she said. "And a lot of technology does this."

February 7th, 2013

Comments off

What others say: Guard flu secrets

Category: Virus Killer

Purdue University virologist Suresh Mittal looks at petri dishes in his lab.

Associated Press

Enlarge photo

The following editorial appeared recently in the Chicago Tribune:

Americans are still in the grip of a scary flu season. Who can forget the alarming headlines about the swift spread and virulence of this year's bug? Everyone's still on high alert should someone sneeze or cough on the bus, train, restaurant or office. Violators are dealt with harshly.

Now imagine a flu strain exponentially more contagious and more deadly. Fiction? Hardly. In late 2011, a Dutch scientist announced that he had genetically tweaked one of the world's most deadly bird flu viruses to make it more contagious to humans. In other words, a doomsday virus spread by a sneeze.

An international furor forced scientists conducting the experiments to back off. They declared a voluntary moratorium while government and research officials debated safety rules. Now, a year later, that moratorium is about to be lifted in many labs around the world. The U.S. is expected to release new guidelines for researchers within weeks.

The nagging question, however, remains: is this research safe? Many scientists say it is. The research can be safely done on the virus, known as H5N1, with strict security. Labs, for instance, need layers of security to make sure mutated viruses don't infect researchers or otherwise escape.

Maybe we've seen too many science fiction movies in which killer bugs escape, but we're skeptical. We'll take our cue from Dr. Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota influenza expert, who argues for strict limits on publishing details about the mutated H5N1 virus.

"The problem is once the work is done and the decision made to publish it, anyone in the world can (create a mutated virus)," Osterholm told us. "That is the part that hasn't been addressed. I don't worry about a U.S.-government supported lab that is under tight review and scrutiny. I worry about this work being done in the University of Podunk."

Follow this link:
What others say: Guard flu secrets

February 7th, 2013

Comments off