Tag: study
Students realise internet is real: concern of internet follies harming job prospects
News flash: the internet isn't some otherwordly place of no consequence to the "real" world. What happens on the internet does NOT stay on the internet, it will follow you around. 42% of students are becoming concerned that some…
Who cares about the telly? It's all about the internet now
It's official: internet access and mobile phones are more important to young Britons than television. This is the conclusion from new research from Ofcom, the communications regulator, but at a closer look it's not such a straight shot as…
Online-savvy teens more likely to drink, do drugs and have sex, study finds
We thought the dorky teens that spent all their time in their bedrooms in front of their computers were the last to get up to anything fun / dodgy – but it seems we were wrong. It may well…
Wrong mobile phone contracts mean we waste £5 billion a year
We waste an average of £195 each every year because we are on contracts that allow for more phone usage than we need, according to a report. 76% of us pay too much because we don't need all our…
It's official: Social networks are the most popular internet destination
Social networks are now the most popular internet destination in the UK, according to new figures. 2.4 billion UK users accessed sites such as Facebook and Twitter in January, a report from Experian Hitwise shows. This represents 12.4% of…
The truth about broadband: Still more turtle than hare, study finds
In the ads on TV, broadband comes in like rays of light from the sky. Songs are downloaded in seconds, and videos are streamed without the slightest hiccup. Maybe you are one of the lucky ones whose real life…
We know our mobile phone manners are getting worse, but that doesn't stop us
Not only do we think other people's mobile manners are worsening, we're realising we're getting worse ourselves too. At least this is what a study by technology giant Intel found, having spoken to 2,000 people about the matter. 75%…
Study shows that virtual worlds can influence real-world decisions
A group of scientists at Cambridge University has conducted a study that shows that associations in videogames transfer directly to the real world. A group of volunteers played a (rather basic, from the look of it) cycling game, where they would be given a slurp of fruit juice if a cyclist from their team passed them, but a slurp of salty tea if a rival cyclist passed them.
A few days later, the participants were invited back and given the choice of two chairs in the waiting room, one with the logo of their team, and one with the logo of the rival team. Three quarters of participants picked the chair with their team’s logo, despite most people claiming not to notice the design.
Gaming Addiction Centre Chief: "Compulsive Gaming Is Not Addiction"
Keith Bakker is the founder of one of the most popular gaming addiction rehab centres in the world – the Smith & Jones Centre in Holland. They were the first facility in the world to admit patients for addiction to games, and they’ve been in the headlines lately following a few cases of people playing a little too much of the new WoW expansion.
Last year, Keith said “I believe gaming is currently the greatest threat to our society”, which is a hell of a statement. However, he’s recently made somewhat of a U-turn in his opinions. He now says that 90% of the kids he sees are actually addicts – they just need better social care, which is exactly what I said the other day.
Microsoft studies 30bn instant messages and "proves" six degrees of separation theory
The theory that every human being is separated from anyone else by a maximum of six steps may have gained some ground thanks to a study of some thirty billion instant messages by Microsoft’s researchers.
Studying the addresses of messages sent during June 2006 (yes, two years ago — what, were they reading them as well?), the researchers found that any two people were linked by seven or fewer acquaintances — 6.6 steps to be precise, with over three-quarters of the pairs linkable in seven or fewer steps…
