PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Social media users need help to adjust to interface changes

2014-04-30
(Press-News.org) Social media companies that give users a greater sense of control can ease them into interface changes, as well as curb defections to competitors, according to researchers. "Several studies have looked into how social media companies have failed," said Pamela Wisniewski, a post-doctoral scholar in information sciences and technology, Penn State. "What we need to think about is how social media companies can be more adaptive and how they can improve the longevity of their sites. In a study of the reaction to the introduction of Facebook's Timeline interface between 2011 and 2012, researchers found that users considered the mandatory transition to the new interface highly stressful. They also found evidence that suggests that giving users a voice can give them a sense of control to better adapt to new online environments. Facebook's Timeline interface allowed users to access posts by date, highlighted certain events and set privacy controls to remove, modify visibility or hide posts on their page. The company initially provided a blog to release information to users, but then closed the blog, said Wisniewski, who worked with Heng Xu, associate professor of information sciences and technology, Penn State, and Yunan Chen, assistant professor of informatics, University of California, Irvine. Denying users the ability to use the blog as a place to voice their concerns and give feedback may have thwarted one of the positive strategies people use to cope with changes in their environment, the researchers said. People who feel more in control become focused on solving problems and adjusting to the change, while those who do not feel they have control tend to focus on their emotions and resort to more negative coping strategies. The researchers, who presented their findings today (April 30) at the Association for Computing Machinery's Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, said that 67 percent of users' coping strategies in the Timeline transition were negative. The users complained, threatened to switch to another social network and urged others to drop Facebook. "Without giving people a way of offering feedback, you make them feel less empowered and they have more of a feeling of hopelessness," said Wisniewski. Some users did adapt more successfully and took positive steps to use the new interface, including learning about Timeline and finding new ways to customize it. Companies that halt communication run the risk of allowing false information to circulate among users. "Without providing more users feedback, not only was there more negativity, but a lot of the information that was causing the negativity was actually based on misinformation," said Wisniewski. "Being more responsive and sharing information with users can stop some of this misinformation." The researchers also said that changing too many features at once can confuse users and may lead to a harsher backlash. "In the Timeline rollout, they added several other features at the same time as Timeline," said Wisniewski. "These weren't necessarily part of Timeline, but were thrown in at the same time." The researchers examined users' perceptions and signs of coping strategies by reviewing 1,149 comments posted to Facebook's Timeline release blog from September 2011 to April 2012. Facebook first made the transition to the new interface on Dec. 15, 2011, as an opt-in feature. The interface became mandatory for Facebook users on May 21, 2012. INFORMATION: The National Science Foundation supported this work.


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Parents just as likely to use cell phones while driving, putting child passengers at risk

2014-04-30
Ann Arbor, Mich. — Despite their precious cargo, parents are no less likely to engage in driving distractions like cell phone use than drivers from the general population, according to a new University of Michigan study published in Academic Pediatrics. The study found that 90 percent of parent drivers said they engaged in at least one of the 10 distractions examined in the study while their child was a passenger and the vehicle was moving, says lead author Michelle L. Macy, M.D., M.S., an emergency medicine physician at the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's ...

Study questions Neandertal inferiority to early modern humans

2014-04-30
The embargo has been lifted for the article, 'Neandertal Demise: An Archaeological Analysis of the Modern Human Superiority Complex.' An analysis of the archaeological records of Neandertals and their modern human contemporaries has found that complex interbreeding and assimilation may have been responsible for Neandertal disappearance 40,000 years ago, in contrast to many current theories, according to results published April 30, 2014, in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Paola Villa from the University of Colorado Museum and Wil Roebroeks from Leiden University ...

Lymph node ultrasounds more accurate in obese breast cancer patients

2014-04-30
ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic research into whether ultrasounds to detect breast cancer in underarm lymph nodes are less effective in obese women has produced a surprising finding. Fat didn't obscure the images — and ultrasounds showing no suspicious lymph nodes actually proved more accurate in overweight and obese patients than in women with a normal body mass index, the study found. The research is among several Mayo studies presented at the American Society of Breast Surgeons annual meeting April 30-May 4 in Las Vegas. Researchers studied 1,331 breast cancer patients ...

Surgeons and health care settings influence type of breast cancer surgery women undergo

Surgeons and health care settings influence type of breast cancer surgery women undergo
2014-04-30
TORONTO, April 30, 2014 – Breast cancer is one of the few major illnesses for which physicians may not recommend a specific treatment option. North American women are more likely to opt for precautionary breast surgery when physicians don't specifically counsel against it, according to a new study. The research, presented today at the American Society of Breast Surgeons Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, also demonstrates how clarity during consultations and the capability of clinical facilities also play important roles influencing a woman's breast cancer treatment choices. There ...

Study: Women leaders perceived as effective as male counterparts

2014-04-30
WASHINGTON -- When it comes to being perceived as effective leaders, women are rated as highly as men, and sometimes higher - a finding that speaks to society's changing gender roles and the need for a different management style in today's globalized workplace, according to a meta-analysis published by the American Psychological Association. "When all leadership contexts are considered, men and women do not differ in perceived leadership effectiveness," said lead researcher Samantha C. Paustian-Underdahl, PhD, of Florida International University. "As more women have ...

Flexible pressure-sensor film shows how much force a surface 'feels' -- in color

2014-04-30
A newly developed pressure sensor could help car manufacturers design safer automobiles and even help Little League players hold their bats with a better grip, scientists report. The study describing their high-resolution sensor, which can be painted onto surfaces or built into gloves, appears in the ACS journal Nano Letters. Yadong Yin and colleagues explain that pressure is a part of our daily lives. We and the objects around us constantly exert pressure on surfaces, from a simple, light touch of a finger on a smartphone screen to the impact of a head-on car collision. ...

Sustainable barnacle-repelling paint could help the shipping industry and the environment

2014-04-30
Barnacles might seem like a given part of a seasoned ship's hull, but they're literally quite a drag and cause a ship to burn more fuel. To prevent these and other hangers-on from slowing ships down, scientists are developing a sustainable paint ingredient from plants that can repel clingy sea critters without killing them. The report appears in the ACS journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research. Guillermo Blustein and colleagues explain that barnacles and other ocean creatures that stick to hulls create a cascade of problems. By increasing water resistance, ...

Capturing carbon to produce more oil: Climate solution or folly?

2014-04-30
Any method that leads to the production of more oil seems counter to the prevailing wisdom on climate change that says use of more greenhouse-gas-emitting fuel is detrimental. But there's one oil-recovery process that some say could be part of the climate change solution and now unites unlikely allies in industry, government and environmental groups, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly news magazine of the American Chemical Society. Jeff Johnson, a senior correspondent at C&EN, explains that a process called enhanced oil recovery ...

Faster dental treatment with new photoactive molecule

Faster dental treatment with new photoactive molecule
2014-04-30
In modern dentistry, amalgam fillings have become unpopular. Instead, white composite materials are more commonly used, which at first glance can hardly be distinguished from the tooth. The majority of these composites are based on photoactive materials that harden when they are exposed to light. But as the light does not penetrate very deeply into the material, the patients often have to endure a cumbersome procedure in which the fillings are applied and hardened in several steps. The Vienna University of Technology in collaboration with the company Ivoclar Vivadent have ...

Entire star cluster thrown out of its galaxy

Entire star cluster thrown out of its galaxy
2014-04-30
The galaxy known as M87 has a fastball that would be the envy of any baseball pitcher. It has thrown an entire star cluster toward us at more than two million miles per hour. The newly discovered cluster, which astronomers named HVGC-1, is now on a fast journey to nowhere. Its fate: to drift through the void between the galaxies for all time. "Astronomers have found runaway stars before, but this is the first time we've found a runaway star cluster," says Nelson Caldwell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Caldwell is lead author on the study, which will ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Exercise as an anti-ageing intervention to avoid detrimental impact of mental fatigue

UMass Amherst Nursing Professor Emerita honored as ‘Living Legend’

New guidelines aim to improve cystic fibrosis screening

Picky eaters by day, buffet by night: Butterfly, moth diets sync to plant aromas

Pennington Biomedical’s Dr. Leanne Redman honored with the E. V. McCollum Award from the American Society for Nutrition

CCNY physicists uncover electronic interactions mediated via spin waves

Researchers’ 3D-printing formula may transform future of foam

Nurture more important than nature for robotic hand

Drug-delivering aptamers target leukemia stem cells for one-two knockout punch

New study finds that over 95% of sponsored influencer posts on Twitter were not disclosed

New sea grant report helps great lakes fish farmers navigate aquaculture regulations

Strain “trick” improves perovskite solar cells’ efficiency

How GPS helps older drivers stay on the roads

Estrogen and progesterone stimulate the body to make opioids

Dancing with the cells – how acoustically levitating a diamond led to a breakthrough in biotech automation

Machine learning helps construct an evolutionary timeline of bacteria

Cellular regulator of mRNA vaccine revealed... offering new therapeutic options

Animal behavioral diversity at risk in the face of declining biodiversity

Finding their way: GPS ignites independence in older adult drivers

Antibiotic resistance among key bacterial species plateaus over time

‘Some insects are declining but what’s happening to the other 99%?’

Powerful new software platform could reshape biomedical research by making data analysis more accessible

Revealing capillaries and cells in living organs with ultrasound

American College of Physicians awards $260,000 in grants to address equity challenges in obesity care

Researchers from MARE ULisboa discover that the European catfish, an invasive species in Portugal, has a prolonged breeding season, enhancing its invasive potential

Rakesh K. Jain, PhD, FAACR, honored with the 2025 AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research

Solar cells made of moon dust could power future space exploration

Deporting immigrants may further shrink the health care workforce

Border region emergency medical services in migrant emergency care

Resident physician intentions regarding unionization

[Press-News.org] Social media users need help to adjust to interface changes