Internet addiction leads to high levels of hostility in college students

Evan Thornton

Though one might joke about their addiction to websites like Facebook or twitter as they struggle to stay offline in class or at work, a study shows people with Internet addiction have high levels of hostility not only offline but online as well.

A 2008 study preformed at eight colleges in Taiwan, tested four dimensions of hostility on and offline and showed that college students with Internet addiction had an increased score on expressive hostility. The study also showed that online gaming and chatting are aggravators of aggressive behavior.

“Previous reports have demonstrated the association between Internet addiction and aggressive behavior among adolescents in the real world. The results from this experiment demonstrated that subjects with Internet addiction have higher hostility not only in real life but also online,” said researchers. 

A total of 2,262 students with an almost even number of men and women participants, took 3 distinct surveys that measured levels of Internet addiction and hostility/depression both on and offline. Researchers assessed the differences between the scores on fours dimensions of hostility including cognition, affection, expression and suppression.

Answers to question followed formats similar to, “If some hits me, I hit back” or “I was told more then once that I spent to much time on the Internet.”

Online chatting and gaming through the internet play large roles in Internet addiction. Results showed that people devoting most online time to chatting show high levels of hostility online more then any other Internet activity. Online gamers had high levels of hostility both in the real world and online.

Another interesting result that researchers found was that for the general public, hostility decreased when getting online. Researchers believe that “relaxation and entertainment are the usual motives for using the Internet.”  

Previous reports showed that people with high levels of hostility are at high risk of Internet addiction. Researchers believe that this preexisting hostility might make people addicted to the Internet resistant attenuating effects of casual internet usage.    

Researchers said the survey was heavily based off many pre-existing theories of psychology such as the social learning theory, the cognitive neo association model and social cognitions that all explain “the association between media-violence viewing and aggressive behavior.”

Limitations researchers noted were that the results are based solely on information from college students and that study could not confirm an informal relationship between hostility and use of the Internet. 

“Although the mechanism for the association could not be confirmed in present study, the results might suggest that more attention should be paid to the effect of the Internet on hostility among college students with Internet addiction.”  

Study looks into how Bloggers blog and why?

What do you use your Tumblr for?  In the Tumblr age a slew of Wordpress blogs, gifs and other post often draw plenty of commentary and retweets, but a recent study looked further into why bloggers really blog and the effects of blogging.

           

            A study from Swinburne University researchers James R. Baker, and Susan Moore asked 182 MySpace bloggers from the  30 most popular blogs of certain days of the week why they blog and the effects blogging has on them.

            Bloggers were asked to rate which style of blogging theirs most closely mirrors.  Bloggers  rated their identification with Therapeutic Blogging, Substitution Blogging, Self-Censoring Blogging and Connected Blogging.  They then rated their relation to statements like, “Blogging helps me to gain insight into my problems,” “Its harder to talk about my problems through my blog than it is face-to-face, on the phone, or by email,” “When I’m upset, blogging helps ease my distress.” 

            The study found that those who scored high under Therapeutic Blogging were more likely to use their blogs for emotional support, instrumental support, acceptance and other coping strategies. 

The study also showed that females were more likely to participate in Therapeutic Blogging than males. 

Chart 1.1 shows those who scored high under the category of Self-Censoring Blogging utilized blogs as a form of venting and acceptance. 

            Those scoring high under the Connected Blogging category had high interactive blogs with high comments and a larger number of readers. 

            Those scoring high under the Substitution Blogging category were satisfied with the amount and closeness with face-to-face friends. 

The study continued past research that found bloggers using the medium for a number of reasons to keep up with news, self promote, pass time and express emotions and that discontinued blogs showed discontent with their blogging experience.  

Though many of the bloggers were from the same pool of MySpace bloggers, they still found essential information for those serious about blogging.  The study found that those practicing Connected Blogging had a larger audience and higher comments.  Next time you want to boost your followers, look more into connected blogging. 

Negative Social Network Interactions Create Negative Behaviors Offline

Don’t think that denied friend request has no meaning, researchers have found that the negative experiences on social networking sites have an affect on the way people act in real-life and over cyberspace.

When thinking of social media, we think of being able to connect with friends, check up on loved ones and meet new people, but a recent study has shown that the very nature of social networking sites (SNS) can cause negative interactions that blur the lines of friendship.

Researchers at The University of Arizona interviewed over 150 undergraduate students about a negative experience they’ve had over any form of SNS and found that more than half have been confronted with denied or ignored friend requests and erased messages and “untagged” pictures. Many (about 80%) of these interactions have been with friends or romantic partners (i.e. boyfriends or girlfriends) and were not random people met online but rather people they have intimate relationships with.

The study shows that while deleted messages and identification tags had a lot to do with discretion (i.e. athletic institutions or people at work seeing unfavorable things) and personal preference (i.e. not liking a photo of oneself) the assumptions that were made on the other side initially is where the confusion and disapproval occur.

With the increase in how social norms associated with tangible society have merged with that of the cyberspace social world in addition to the way that social networking has become a part of our everyday interactions, researchers believe that the reason people experience negative events on SNSs is because users are not able to separate their actions in person with those they are afforded online. The term friend takes on different meaning when in person than it does over cyberspace and these “friend negotiations” can be cause for people to misinterpret their friendship they have with people online

The study concludes that people who experience negative interactions online with people they have close ties with suffer the greatest relational strain because there are already expectations of behavior between parties that are broken and betrayed.

The researchers believe that they results they found can contribute to people being more careful about how they interact online and give insight into what type of behaviors online can cause the most strain offline.

FOX News persona contradicted by blind study of college students

Evan Thornton
FOX News, a station with the motto “Fair & Balanced”, is often placed under scrutiny for delivering conservatively slanted news and its teeming support of the Republican Party. But according to a recent study at the University of Maryland involving a blind study of students, results show that FOX news has a politically neutral and accurate news rating.

In an experiment, which involved students reading articles stripped of all logos, authors and advertisements, 60% of readers of the FOX News article found it to be politically neutral and slightly accurate. Secondly, a majority of participants believed the FOX News article originated from CNN.

The experiment had 40 students read 1 of 3 randomly distributed anonymous articles from FOX, MSNBC and CNN. The articles had all news logos, authors or advertisements removed that would be indicative of the articles origins. The participants were then surveyed regarding the articles accuracy, political bias and original source. A majority of participants considered their political affiliation as independents.

“Its interesting that results seem to contradict the FOX News networks persona of a conservative political bias so often harked on by politicians and comedians such as Jon Stewart,” said experiment leader Evan Thornton.

Another interesting result from the experiment was that 50% of readers of the anonymous MSNBC article believed the article expressed a conservative bias and 41% believed it originated from FOX News.

Thornton said, “These results seem to be quite ironic as FOX news is notoriously conservative and MSNBC is infamously liberal.”

Other results of the experiment showed that the CNN article was rated as accurate and an original source could not be identified with a majority. Thornton believes these results reflect CNN’s politically balanced persona.

Researchers believe their findings could lead to a larger experiment that could further investigate into perceived political biases with anonymous sources. 

New Study looks into student news trust using new website

A recent study by University of Maryland students engaged put their peers to the test in a variation of a news outlet guessing game.  Zach Daidone, Evan Thornton and Ashley Morse looked deeper into audience news trust focusing on biased stories, the relationship between audiences’ political bias and their sources of news and students political bias in relation to how they interpret the organization.  

The study utilized a fairly new website, Newstrust.com. Newstrust.com allows audience interaction with news by allowing readers to rate stories based off several categories and have their ratings of the story rated by editors.

Morse conducted a content analysis of 8 stories from Newstrust.com’s list of worst rated stories.   CNN, MSNBC and FOX news articles were measured to see the signs of bias present within the stories (authors opinion included, number of sources, number of paragraphs contributed to each side.)

 Morse found that many stories from FOX and MSNBC didn’t exhibit the traditional signs of bias, many of the stories from the two outlets used valid sources, equal distribution of paragraphs to each side, and a fair amount of quotes to each source. 

 The results also showed that stories from CNN, the outlet perceived as most neutral, contained many of the common signs of bias.  Chart 1.1 below shows the breakdown of each bias by news outlet. 

Chart 1.1

 Daidone looked further into the relationship between ones political party and their sources of news.  A survey of 96 participants found that The New York Times and The Washington Post were perceived as most reliable over FOX, MSNBC, Twitter, and other sources.

Daidone also found that conservatives and liberals perceive outlets often viewed as opposing their own political beliefs more reliable than one might think.   Chart 1.2 below shows the breakdown of perceived reliability amongst conservatives, liberals and independents. 

Chart 1.2

 


Thornton looked into whether knowing the original source of the news content changes how readers rate, interpret and perceive bias and balance in stories.  The experiment asked 40 students to blind read articles, match the story with a news source and rate the reliability of the story. 

Results showed that news outlets mostly known as bias were not perceived as biased during the blind reading of the story.  Thornton also found that unlabeled FOX news stories were perceived as fair and unable to be matched with the correct source in the blind reading of the story.  The further results of the story are shown in chart 1.3 below. 

Chart 1.3

The study found many inconsistencies with previous research showing that audiences still disagree with the statement that “I often don’t trust what news organizations are saying.” 

However, the researchers found results similar to previous studies that stated the higher the interaction news audiences have with the news, the higher the ratings for media accuracy are.  This was shown true when Thornton found that many journalism majors rated the biased stories as “slightly accurate” compared to the non-journalism majors. 

Morse said, “The study is not a trail blazer, but overall it leaves room for further research into the hostile media effect from all aspects.” 

This study started small, but it opens doors for a closer look into audience news trust, and triggers that cause the audience distrust.  

The increase in the purchase of Smartphones is helping people make more use of the mobile Internet, research shows.

The change in our society’s priorities and the evolving need for people to be able to connect to others at a moments notice is evident in the increase of Smartphone purchases we have seen over the past five years.

Researcher Melissa Moore, along with a group of two other researchers, conducted a study to determine the different ways in which people use their mobile phones. Moore specifically answered the question whether or not upgrading mobile phones increases a person’s consumption of the Internet (on their phone) and mobile news. She found that an overwhelming number of people have felt more obligated to use the Internet after upgrading their phones, more often a Smartphone.

In addition she found that the majority of people who upgraded their cell phones to Smartphones cited the Internet as the main reason to do so. 65% of the respondents used in Moore’s survey stated that they were more inclined to use the internet once they received an upgrade on their phone and more than 3/4 of the respondents said that being able to check email constantly and “staying connected” as reasons why they chose to upgrade their phones (some earlier than their mobile device plans allowed).

Looking at and receiving mobile news, although not as massively supportive as using the Internet, showed considerable strides in terms of its increase in use after a phone upgrade. Moore found that 44 % of the respondents in the study said they received mobile news often or very often.

Moore’s research, coupled with the work of the other researchers about operating systems and the connection between majors/career paths and using mobile phone apps, creates an interpretative analysis of not only the direction of what type of phones people are buying but also what they technology that Smartphones provide are being used for.

Moore stated that previous research already confirms the findings about an increase in Smartphone purchases but was a great guide to form her research topic and the questions that she used to answer them. She hopes that her research can be used in the future to spawn further research about mobile use behaviors as technology continues to evolve and become an intricate and essential part of our life.

Mobile News Apps and the Obligated College Student

By Marisa Pilla

With college students being under so much pressure to succeed, you would think students would feel obligated to always be connected in their world around them.  But a recent study conducted at the University of Maryland showed that might not be the case.

The study, conducted last month, partially focused on mobile news apps and any sort of feeling of obligate a student felt to use them. The study wanted to see if there was any connection with the major of a student and how obligated that student felt to use that app.

Over 140 students participated in the survey, the majority, 81% were females. These participants answered an array of questions regarding the types of mobile news apps they use, how often they use them and if they have them because they feel like they have to because of their major. The top five majors reported were Business/Finance 24%, Communications 15.6%, Biology/Pre-med 15.6%, Psychology 13.5%, and Arts and Humanities with 11.5%.

When asked what type of news/media app they use the most out of traditional news, sports, weather and entertainment, the majority said they use their weather apps the most. Traditional apps came in third with 14%.  The study also showed that the students used their apps either three to four times a day, or eight times or more, both results yielded 28% of the results.

The research team hoped to find some sort of correlation between a student’s major and the obligation they felt to use their mobile news apps because of their major. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the least obligated, the average answer reported was a 2. When the students were asked the reason behind their news apps, 55% said it was to keep in touch with their surroundings, which can show that the news that they are interested in does not have anything to do with their college major.

Marisa Pilla, a member of the research team that conducted the survey said that they wish they could change a few things about the results. For starters, she wishes that more journalism students took the survey, because she feels that they might have a different opinion about news apps than a Business major would. Also, Pilla expressed that she hoped that she had a more even distribution of gender. “An overwhelming majority of the participants were females, and I do truly believe that things would have ended up different if there were more male participation.”

While nothing significant was proven by this research, what was proven is that news apps are everywhere in this day and age. Whether it is obligation that is fueling the fire, or sheer curiosity, college students are staying in touch with the world around them, even if it is for only three to four times a day.  

In Class Presentation summary

The results of our content analysis found that many of the bias articles coded did not show traditional forms of bias.  The analysis also found that CNN.com and FOX news outlets that were labeled as biased from our pre study did not show traditional forms of bias.  The content analysis also found that CNN, the news organization perceived as most neutral had the most traditional signs of bias such as adding the authors opinion, having company representatives as sources.  The chart below shows the break down of biases shown by CNN, MSNBC and FOX news. 

Though the results were interesting, the amount of stories coded were not enough to make a statement about biases present within the three news organizations, but it leaves room for research about what signs of bias news audiences would and wouldn’t pick up on.  

In Class Presentation (Written Version) - Moore

For my particular research question I looked at how upgrading one’s phone effected respondents use of the internet, and in turn, mobile apps. The question came from a comment that Marissa made when we were initially in a group of six, that when she had a flip phone she did not go on the internet as much even though it had the capability and that it was not until she received a Blackberry that she more frequently used the internet on her phone. From my section of the survey I found that majority of the respondents felt the same. Many of the respondents felt the need to upgrade their phone so that they could have constant access to email and social networking sites. Furthermore, all my questions were significantly significant to each other. More than 60% of all the respondents who answered the question “since your update, how often do you use the internet?” answered very often. In addition a little over 60% of the respondents stated that after they received their upgrade on their phone (to a Smartphone) they were more inclined to use the internet. Overall, I found that upgrades have are correlated to the amount of time that students spend on the internet and how much they use mobile apps.

The psychological effect of mobile phones through apps and situational usage

This University of Maryland group of researchers sought to find the psychological effects of mobile phones with its users. We created a survey and distributed it to University of Maryland undergraduate students over the age of 18.

We measured psychological effects through questions that addressed emotional attachment to mobile phones and links between mobile apps and social media engagement. The survey had 122 respondents to help find those answers.
So what did we find?

Well, apparently respondents said they would be very bored without their mobile phones in settings that aren’t generally considered fun, like in class or in waiting rooms at appointments. On the other hand, if respondents were at parties, bars or on dates, most answered that they’d be apathetic without their phones. They also said they’d be really angry if their date answered his or her phone on a date. It seems like people still want attention despite the world’s technological advances. Also, an overwhelming amount of respondents said they check their phones for texts and other notifications right before bed and first thing in the morning. 

So people go to their phones when they’re bored and they check their phones constantly. While it might not be surprising, it certainly was interesting. 

Additionally, it turns out that the more respondents shared news links on their Facebook mobile apps, the more they “liked” other friends’ news links.
Also, females without smart phones spent more time on Facebook than men and men with smart phones spent more time on their Facebook mobile app than females. 

Facebook apps even led to anxiety for some respondents. The more time respondents spend on their Facebook mobile app, the more they were anxious without their phones for one day. 

Lastly, we also found that most respondents had been on Facebook for five years and Twitter for only one year, which could indicate Twitter’s continual growth and popularity.

How much news do students share on Facebook?

My research question was based on the profile of college students who use social media to obtain news, interact with news, and broadcast the news.  I found that a majority of the participants, 45%, never posted a link from a major news outlet onto any of their social media websites. Meanwhile, five people posted more than four times a week. Around 72% of the participants said they would rather read the news article itself than a Tweet or Facebook post about a news article. There were 27 participants that said they would rather read a Tweet or Facebook post about the news article. Additionally, 45% of the participants never posted any links to their social media profiles. 

My study researched if a student's major influences news consumption

My research question focused on if a student's major indicated any feeling of obligation towards how much news they consumed or what news apps they used on their mobile phones. The majority of participants, 56%, had one to two apps news or media apps on their phone. The study also found that most participants, 28% for both options, use these apps three to four times a day, or eight times or more a day.  The top five majors reported were business/finance, communications, biology/pre-med, psychology and arts and humanities. Perhaps if more journalism students took the survey the differences would have been statistically significant.

How do mobile Facebook apps affect students' interactions (discussions, sharing, etc) with news content and peers?

As part of the psychological mobile effects group, I researched how individuals with Facebook mobile applications on their Smart Phones interacted with the news online and offline.

One interesting significant finding was that the more news links individuals shared on Facebook mobile (FBM), the more often they liked their friends news links on FBM. It also makes sense that the more concerned participants felt about how others would react to their current events comments on FBM, the more uncomfortable they felt discussing the news with friends in person. Futhermore, the more uninformed participants felt without FBM for one day, the more anxious they felt without FBM for one day.

Although it was not significant, there was also a positive trend found between how much time individuals spend on FBM and how anxious individuals found without FBM for one day.

Study Reveals Sources for School Spirit

By: Evan Thornton

The traditional fight songs, face-paint and maybe an aggressive chant or statement regarding a fumbled ball are all a part of the spirit at major sporting events. But where does this motivation and desire to support a team of athletes come from? A recent study of University of Maryland students reveals that participating in high school sports and actively engaging in social/sports media promotes higher ratings of overall school spirit.

 Journalism major and University of Maryland student, Patrick Quinn conducted a survey of 45 of his fellow students regarding activities and factors that promote school spirit for Maryland sporting events. Some factors included personal ties to athletes, current success of teams, knowledge of athletics and geographical ties to the state of Maryland.

Quinn’s results show participation in high school sports and social/sports media engagement has the strongest positive correlation regarding school spirit. 

“Both are examples of people actively being involved and associating themselves with sports in their own time, unlike where you were born or whether the teams wining or losing”, said Quinn. “This active engagement is probably what leads to higher school spirit.”

The study used the website surveymonkey.com to create an 18 question survey targeted at undergraduates ranging from 18 to 23 years old. The survey was only accessible through invitation so Quinn could verify that all participants met the sample requirements.  

The first question in the survey asked respondents to rate his or her level of school spirit on a scale from 1 to 7. Subsequent questions highlighted possible factors that could act as a driving force behind the respondent’s school spirit for Maryland athletics. Answers were then related back to the student’s original rating of their school spirit to determine a relationship.  

Many factors revolved around the use of social and sports media, such as viewing sports online, watching/reading news and supporting Maryland athletics through Facebook or Twitter. All of these factors proved significant regarding high levels of school spirit.

Quinn believes that in terms of social capital, which is the resources that can be utilized through social interaction such as Twitter and Facebook, the university could use his results regarding social media and school spirit to boost attendance at games.

Results also indicated that as student’s progress through their undergraduate degree their school spirit rating decreases. Sophomores were found to have the highest ratings of school spirit, which then decreased for juniors and even lower for seniors. 

Quinn said, “Sports are a great way to get freshman and sophomores involved. However, by juniors and senior year, people tend to have found their niche thus have other outlets in which to socialize.”

            Quinn notes that his survey does suffer certain limitations, including a relatively small sample size and the lack of freshman year respondents.

            “Overall the study was a success because I gained a better understanding on factors driving school spirit at the University of Maryland,” said Quinn. “ However many factors will influence one’s overall school spirit, thus its hard to a measure a single factor when it simply is just a part of total school spirit.” 

Study investigates the "perceived trust" of prominent news outlets

By Rachel Rosenthal

Viewers and readers perceive CNN and the New York Times to be the most reliable news sources when compared to FOX, MSNBC, and the Washington Post, according to a study by researchers at a large, mid-Atlantic university.

The study analyzed data collected from over 100 college students who participated in an online survey in which they were asked to scale the “reliability” of various print and broadcast news outlets’ neutrality.  

Results from the study yielded a significant connection between the participants political affiliation and their perception of neutrality in news publications like Washington Post, New York Times, MSNBC, and Fox. Specifically, researchers found a significant positive correlation between how liberals, conservatives, and independents rate the reliability of MSNBC’s news, the Washington Post’s news coverage, the reliability of the New York Times, and Fox’s news coverage.

Independents and liberals trusted the perceived neutrality of the New York Times the most while conservative participants trusted Fox news more than any other news outlet. Independent and conservatives trusted the Washington Post the least while liberals showed the lowest perceived trust of Fox news.

            Research team member, Zachary Daidone, posed the question of whether the participants’ political affiliation determined the individual’s source for news. 

            Daidone said that before analyzing the collected data it was assumed that conservatives would find Fox more reliable and MSNBC less reliable.

            “We assumed that liberals would find the exact opposite [of what the conservatives perceived.] This, however, wasn’t exactly the case.” Said Daidone, “There is no statistical significance between someone’s political affiliation and where they get their news from, based on our survey results.”

But in determination to understand why certain participants chose specific news sources Daidone explains that if the survey were redistributed to a larger group of people, results would show support that a person’s political affiliation does influence where they get their news.

Of those participating, only two said they most often get their news from MSNBC, and only 8 said they get their news from FOX. The most common choices were Twitter, CNN, and 'Other.'

             Daidone explained Twitter was one of the most popular news sources because participants perceive Twitter as the most ‘fun’ in addition to being convenient, fast, and easy.

            CNN also ranked with Twitter as the participants’ primary source for news. The survey data proved no statistically relevant data between political affiliation and news perception however, the information determined the reliability of each news source.

            Daidone said, “We wanted to know whether CNN’s content was perceived as biased, unbiased, biased towards liberals or conservatives and it turns our CNN had the highest reliability scores out of all the other major broadcast outlets.”

            While the data and results were described as valid and significant brevity of survey questions posed a restraint on the group’s findings.

            “One of my regrets is that I didn't specifically use Facebook as a news option in my survey,” Daidone said.

            Despite limitations, the study data determined CNN as the most used and trusted news source and The New York Times as the most trusted neutral news source among liberal, conservative, and independent participants.

Do smartphones equate to more Internet usage on the go?

Smartphone users tend to utilize the internet on their mobile device more than users of feature phones, according to a University of Maryland study about how mobile phones are used.

“It did increase how much people were able to get on the Internet,” Melissa Moore, one of the researchers performing the study, said of mobile phones. Moore, who zeroed in on the relationship between mobile phones and the Internet through a survey crafted by her research group, said that users’ decision to get a smartphone was affected by their ability to e-mail and engage in social networking on the go. Moore also said that users tend to utilize applications on smartphones once they get an appropriate data plan.

Moore found areas of study that were statistically significant, including how often users get on the internet after a phone upgrade/update, how much users utilize their data plan for receiving mobile news after an upgrade/update, and how inclined users are to utilize the internet on their phones after an update/upgrade. About 81 percent of the respondents said they used the internet on their updated phone often or very often, with about 79 percent of 149 respondents said an updated phone required a new data plan. About 65 percent of 150 respondents said they were more inclined to use the Internet once they upgraded their phone, with about 11 percent saying they were somewhat more inclined to use the Internet.

Moore originally thought journalism students would utilize applications on smartphones more often than students from other majors – that didn’t turn out to be the case. Moore found in her survey that a lot of college majors utilized applications; students one particular major didn’t use applications a lot more than students from other majors.

But the research group’s survey – which totaled 20 questions – didn’t go off without a hitch, as she said there were multiple complications with the survey that led to less than ideal results. Moore said that after first issuing the survey, her research team found problems with the survey and had to re-distribute the survey a second time. But Moore found that participants’ motivation for answering the question may have been skewed – the group offered a $15 gift certificate to a random respondent of the survey, which Moore thought led to some of her questions being skipped by some respondents.

Moore said that there was a lot of previous research done on this topic. One of the big conclusions drawn was by Roger Entner, Senior Vice President of research and Insights at Telecom Practice, who found through a 2010 Nielson study that smartphones will pass feature phones in usage, with the Internet being the main reason why. In fact, a 2010 Mobile Marketer article found that even some smartphones are looking like old devices – including the Blackberry in comparison to Verizon Android – in terms of the ease of Internet and application usage.

However, one last effort by providers of feature phones seems to be underway in order to make feature phones attractive options by giving them smartphone features. Jared Newman of PCWorld discovered that AT&T tried to promote its Quick Messaging phones through features such as enabling the sharing of photos and videos through social networking.

Research Looks into Psychology of College Students When Using Mobile Devices

Everybody knows “that” person who is constantly on their cell phone, either texting or browsing social networks; if you don’t know anybody like this, which I highly doubt, then you are “that guy.” But why are so many people in our society turning into this person and obsessed with mobile applications? Melissa Major, a University of Maryland student and researcher, worked with other student-researchers Romy Zipken and Rachel Rosenthal to find out the effects mobile devices have on emotions, social networking and news.

“I wanted to focus on mobile psychology because I feel that this is a topic that is studied less than mobile uses. I also have a general interest in human behavior and emotions because I am a psych[ology] double major,” said Major.

The researchers surveyed a convenient sample of 122 undergraduate University of Maryland students “because it is a population that we are a part of, so we were interested to see the results.” A convenient sample means that the survey was given out to only one specific subculture that the researchers selected; in this case it was only UMd students. Of the 122 survey takers, 65 were female (86.7%), 9 were male (12%), and 1 person was transgender (1.3%). The survey also differentiated between who owned a smartphone (74.4%, 58 people) and who owned a basic phone (23.3%, 18 people).

These students answered questions asking what their emotional response would be if they didn’t have their mobile phone while waiting for a doctor’s appointment, on a date or at a large social gathering. They also were asked about how often they use Facebook and the corresponding mobile app as a news source. Finally, the survey questioned about a correlation between the length of time someone is a member of a social network and whether they use the corresponding mobile app.

This convenient sample found many significant correlations. Major and her partners found a significant negative correlation between the time spent on mobile applications daily and how often they post a comment about news on their profile (r= -0.355, p= 0.008). Although the researchers found that people did not comment about the news the more time they spent on the phones, they did find that people felt more comfortable discussing the news with another person if they spent more time on their mobile apps.

The common stereotype that women are more concerned about what people think of them and are always looking at themselves or friends on Facebook was also addressed in this study. It was found that for non-smartphone users, females spent more time on Facbeook [via the computer] than males. However, amongst smartphone users, males spent more time on the Facebook mobile app than females.

Another difference between genders was that for Facebook mobile and non-mobile users, males were more concerned about what others would think about them if they commented about current events. For mobile users, “ the average female concern level was 2.5, while the average male concern level was 3.6.” For non-mobile users, males’ concern level was slightly higher than females’ (3.0 and 2.93 respectively).

Although the researchers did find some significant results, positive and negative, there were some limitations to the study. 122 students agreed to the consent form at the beginning of the study, but only 78 students responded to every question in the survey. Another limitation involved a set of questions pertaining to how mobile Facebook apps affect students’ interactions with news content and peers. The preliminary question to this set asked if the survey taker owned a smart phone or a basic phone. Depending on the answer to this question, the follow-up questions split into two sections. Major said, “If I had to change anything with the survey, I would have not split the questions based on if you have a smart phone or not because it was difficult to compare the answers since the questions were different.”

The study also concluded that it was difficult to draw conclusions for some of the findings because so few people owned a basic phone; The sample size for non-smart phone users was very small. Another factor that could have skewed the results was that the majority of the survey was taken by females who have a different mobile behavior than males.

News organizations are not as biased as audiences think, research suggests.

Bias or political slant in individual news stories and within entire news organizations has long been talked about and mulled over amongst those on the inside and outside of the journalistic community. Ashley Morse, a student at the University of Maryland, College Park, decided to research into how much water these speculations actually held. Her team's research eventually suggested that news organizations commonly perceived to be "neutral" showed the most traditional signs of bias in their stories.

Morse, 20, a senior Broadcast Journalism major from Mitchellville, Md. decided, along with two other team members, to take a closer look at news bias by utilizing the ground-breaking website NewsTrust.com to take a closer look at various news stories that were perceived to be biased by readers. According to Morse, “Newstrust is a website that rates stories on a scale of 1 to 5 and viewers ratings are then reviewed and rated to have a system of checks and balances.” On its website NewsTrust.com claims it “helps people find and share good journalism online, so they can make more informed decisions as citizens.”

The research team put out a pre-survey to check which news organizations participants would perceive as biased or neutral. The pre-survey results showed that FOX news was considered a conservatively biased news source, MSNBC was considered a liberally biased news source an CNN was considered to be a (relatively) neutral news source. Morse then went to NewsTrust.com to gather a sample of those organizations' worst rated stories, meaning the news stories the analysts thought were very biased, one way or another. Morse then read the stories herself, looking for bias. Morse said examples of a bias in news story's were “having one side to the story, using only company representatives as sources, or having a largely disproportionate number of paragraphs contributed to one side”.
When the results came back, Morse said she was surprised. The results suggested that out of the three news organizations’ stories Morse looked at, CNN had the most typical expressions of bias that she was looking for. “I expected to find that FOX and MSNBC, especially FOX, would have very apparent bias in their reporting, but it wasn’t like that at all,” Morse said. “I feel that if the names of the news organizations were removed from these stories, and audiences were asked to connect stories to the news outlet, they would not be able to match the stories with the news outlet it came from.”

According to Morse, the main limitation to using NewsTrust.com was the variety of critics. “The members of Newstrust, who analyze the stories, are made up of liberal males, therefore the system in which they selected the most biased stories is limited,” said Morse. Other than the political limitations, Morse had good things to say about NewsTrust.com. “I like the way that the website works and how they are trying to merge journalism and social media into one,” Morse said. “I think it is a great idea to have comments actually contribute to the story and having the commentators verify their identities really helps facilitate insightful thought.”

In preparation for their independent research, Morse, along with the other members of her team, reviewed previous research studies that touched on the research topics they planned to look into. In 2009, a presentation entitled “The Origins of Media Perceptions: Judgements of News Accuracy and Bias Among Adolescents”, was made in the Journalism studies division of the International Communication Association. According to Morse, the 2009 study “aimed to analyze the affects of news bias on adolescents” which is a group that is still creating their idea of what is and isn’t accurate in the daily news. The results from the 2009 study had a strength from its sample size, since it was based on a questionnaire distributed by mail to around 500,000 people, aiming specifically at households with adolescents aged 12-17.

Researchers in the 2009 study hypothesized that “news media accuracy and bias would be negatively correlated among adolescents”, Morse said, but in reality discovered that those two variables were not related at all.

This was Morse’s first research project. “Overall, it was a learning experience to say the least,” Morse said with a smile. “ And I thought what I found was different from what I expected to find.”

Factors Driving School Spirit

College athletics have long served as an outlet through which university students across the country demonstrate their school spirit. Due to the direct relation between school spirit and the financial status of collegiate athletic programs, Patrick Quinn examined the driving forces behind school spirit by distributing an online survey to a sample of 45 undergraduate students at the University of Maryland and content analysis of university attendance rates and ticket sales.

The results of Quinn’s study suggest that several factors drive school spirit: whether or not the participant has a personal tie to a Maryland athlete, the participant’s geographical tie to Maryland athletics, the participant’s knowledge level of Maryland athletics, the participant’s history of athletic participation, the participant’s sense of belonging, success level of athletic team, non-live attendance at events effects, news following of Maryland athletics level, social media activity.

Most notably, this study suggests that students who played a sport in high school tend to have more school spirit than those who did not. Results also suggest that students who have knowledge of Maryland athletics and watch Maryland athletics on television or online have more school spirit.

“People who go to Maryland athletic events for social reasons and who use social media to follow Maryland sports also tend to have higher school spirit,” Quinn said.

Quinn said that he was very surprised to find that students who use social media tend to have more school spirit. “It is not something concrete to judge school spirit but it was definitely interesting to see the extent to which students talk about Maryland sports without actually watching the game or being in attendance,” he said.

Students who grew up in Maryland also tend to have more school spirit according to the study. “College sports are something that people are raised on,” Quinn said.

Quinn’s study also indicated that the success of the university’s sports teams did not impact the level of a student’s school spirit. “This result was very interesting because the media tends to blame a team’s on-field performance for low ticket sales and poor attendance,” he said.

Due to the subjective nature of measuring school spirit, Quinn said that the most difficult part of conducting this study was determining which factors he would observe.

“I already knew that one single factor does not drive school spirit but I found it very difficult to determine how to weigh each factor and how to pin point which factors were most important,” he said.