Feature Channels: Internet Trends

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Researchers worry that robot-generated tweets distort political online discussion and may impact election outcomes.

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Computer scientists from the University of Utah’s College of Engineering have developed what they call “sentiment analysis” software that can automatically determine how someone feels based on what they write or say. To test out the accuracy of this software’s machine-learning model, the team used it to analyze the individual sentiments of more than 1.6 million (and counting) geo-tagged tweets about the U.S. presidential election over the last five months.

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A new study (www.ajicjournal.org/article/S0196-6553(16)30688-5/fulltext) from the University of Chicago Medicine examines the use of social media platforms to inform young physicians about proper use of antimicrobial agents such as antibiotics. Currently, as much as 50 percent (www.cdc.gov/getsmart/healthcare) of all antibiotic use is inappropriate, leading to such unintended consequences such as antibiotic toxicity and increased antimicrobial resistance. Ensuring optimal use of antibiotics continues to be a central public health concern, and medical residents are a central focus of efforts to improve education in this field. But the question remains as to the best way to reach them.

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One of the challenges to understanding the concerns behind vaccine hesitancy is that very seldom are people with worries about vaccines and vaccine advocates brought together in the same space, especially online. Both groups gravitate towards internet “echo chambers,” only communicating with other likeminded individuals. In January 2016, however, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg posted a photo of himself holding his baby daughter with the caption “Doctor’s visit – time for vaccines!” With his undeniable reach and the ability of anyone to comment, the post represented a unique opportunity to analyze the language used to express pro- vaccination and anti-vaccination viewpoints and understand how people on both sides of the debate perceive the risks of vaccination.

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What you tweet says a lot about your politics and who you are going to vote for in this highly volatile presidential election, according to TweetCast, an online tool developed by Northwestern University computer scientists. The algorithm, trained on Twitter users, can predict whether citizens will vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Perhaps more surprising, the tool also predicts which states will go blue or red (Democrat or Republican).

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NEW YORK (October 14, 2016)—WCS’s Peru Program is fighting wildlife trafficking through a campaign that leverages one of the most effective means of reaching a wide audience: Facebook.

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The University of Southern California (USC) Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center has partnered with Springbok Cares to provide a unique Virtual Reality initiative for patients in the Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer program at USC.

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The rush of self-esteem that comes with the ubiquitous thumbs-up of a ‘like’ has more people asking that question, as Facebook and other social media sites offer more ways for friends to endorse photos and posts.

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Regularly snapping selfies with your smartphone and sharing photos with your friends can help make you a happier person, according to computer scientists at the University of California, Irvine. In a first-of-its-kind study published just before back-to-school season, the authors found that students can combat the blues with some simple, deliberate actions on their mobile devices.

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Florida beekeepers are concerned after 2.5 million bees that were killed during an aerial spraying with Naled/Dibrom for Zika-carrying mosquitoes in Dorchester County, S.C. Now, Floridians are looking for ways to avoid the same tragedy. Florida is the third-largest beekeeping state in the nation.

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The George Washington University Cancer Center is pleased to announce the launch of the first-ever online Community of Practice for patient-centered cancer care.

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A new study – the first to look at social media’s effect on memory – suggests posting personal experiences on social media makes those events much easier to recall.

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Keeping teens focused on what’s happening in class rather than their electronic device is a tall order, given that 73 per cent of them have access to a smartphone — and most would prefer to be on Instagram than at school. But what if making, sharing, liking and commenting on photos was part of the curriculum instead of a forbidden activity?

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Youth cyberbullying is dramatically more likely to occur between current or former friends and dating partners than between students who were never friends or in a romantic relationship, suggests a new study that will be presented at the 111th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

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Death and mourning were largely considered private matters in the 20th century, with the public remembrances common in previous eras replaced by intimate gatherings behind closed doors in funeral parlors and family homes. But social media is redefining how people grieve, and Twitter in particular — with its ephemeral mix of rapid-fire broadcast and personal expression — is widening the conversation around death and mourning, two University of Washington (UW) sociologists say.

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"Interscatter" communication developed by University of Washington engineers allows power-limited devices such as brain implants, contact lenses, credit cards and smaller wearable electronics to talk to everyday devices such as smartphones and watches.

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It’s taking over headlines around the world – people being injured playing Pokémon Go, a location-based augmented reality game. Conrad Earnest, a research scientist at Texas A&M University’s Exercise and Sport Nutrition Lab, says much of the danger in playing the game is similar to the hazards of texting, a subject he has studied in the past.

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An alternative to using Twitter geotags and hashtags to identify community members who have experienced collective trauma, such as a school shooting, shows promise in helping researchers rapidly assess local effects. The approach, developed by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, was deployed to study the impact of deadly gun violence at UC Santa Barbara, Northern Arizona University and Oregon’s Umpqua Community College.

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he economic crisis and austerity are having an unexpected consequence: more young men striving for gym-fit, photo-perfect bodies that they use to create a social media brand.

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Scientists at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) have revealed the network infrastructure used by Netflix for its content delivery, by mimicking the film request process from all over the world and analysing the responses.

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Internet users tend to navigate between websites in a racially segregated way, despite pathways that provide equitable access to different sites, finds a new study by NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

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Text-mining tool developed at CU Cancer Center and published today in Bioinformatics helps researchers map connections between genes, proteins, drugs, diseases.

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A $9.4 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) could lead to development of a new technique for wirelessly monitoring Internet of Things (IoT) devices for malicious software – without affecting the operation of the ubiquitous but low-power equipment.

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Women who engaged on social media after a breast cancer diagnosis expressed more deliberation about their treatment decision and more satisfaction with the path they chose, a new study finds.

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A study led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis concludes that as researchers turn to the internet to find study participants, current health-care disparities may persist. They found that getting individuals to go online was difficult, particularly if subjects didn't have high school educations, had incomes below the poverty line or were African-American.

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New research, led by the University of Southampton, has found that an online behavioural counselling tool is effective at helping people lose weight.

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From politicians and celebrities, companies and organizations to individuals of certain nationalities and the socially disadvantaged, the list of parties affected by hate speech in social media is long. Insulting, threatening or derogatory comments are commonplace in today's digital world. The potential consequences of such virtual witch-hunts - whether justified or otherwise - include a loss of reputation, resignations, losing one's job, social isolation or falling share prices. Predominant opinion suggests that it is the supposed online anonymity which decreases the inhibitions of trolls on the internet.

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A new study by a Johns Hopkins Carey Business School professor finds a strong contemporaneous correlation does exist between the mood of a day’s worth of tweets about a particular stock and the performance of that stock.

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What makes an online dater successful? Do the same factors that make face-to-face relationships successful also apply in the online dating world?

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How can we predict if a new haircut will look good without physically trying it? Or explore what missing children might look like if their appearance is changed? A new personalized image search engine developed by a University of Washington computer vision researcher lets a person imagine how they would look with different hairstyles or appearances.

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Real-life positive health consequences of playing Pokémon Go—a new GPS-based augmented reality game—are happening across the nation. According to Matt Hoffman, DNP, clinical assistant professor at the Texas A&M College of Nursing, this quest to “catch ‘em all” is great news for public health.

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Realizing the risks of social media, major news organizations have created guidelines for employees regarding how to use these outlets, separate from the companies' existing codes of conduct. Little scholarly attention has been paid to the guidelines so far.

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While events like the Arab Spring brought hope that the internet could inspire the growth of democracy in authoritarian countries, a new study offers a reality check.

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A computer program that recognises sketches pioneered by scientists from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) could help consumers shop more efficiently.

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Hiding online is harder than you'd think

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By detecting semantic inconsistencies in content, researchers have developed a new technique for identifying promotional infections of websites operated by government and educational organizations.

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