What’s the best way to influence a teenager?

What’s the best way to influence a teenager?

If you’re raising a teenager, you already know the challenge. And the dangers: careless driving, alcohol and drug abuse, unprotected sex. Helping them make good decisions – that is, helping them accurately assess the short- and long-term risks – seems a distant dream. But a recent study hints at a fresh approach that may influence their behavior. 

And the message is simple: focus on positive, not negative, outcomes. For example, if your teenager has taken up smoking, it’ll be more helpful to emphasize the benefits of stopping (“you’ll have more money, and better skin”) than the potential long-term negative consequences (“you’ll get lung cancer”).  Similarly, when trying to influence teens to cut back on alcohol and drug use, it may be more effective to emphasize improved sports performance than the long-term health risks.

In a press release, the authors explained: “. . . People have a natural tendency to ignore negative information when making decisions, a trait that may be particularly pertinent to young people, who tend to engage in more risky and dangerous behavior.” The study, conducted by researchers from University College London in the UK, was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and was funded the Wellcome Trust and the Royal Society.

The study’s findings, said study author Dr. Christina Moutsiana, “could help to explain the limited impact of campaigns targeted at young people to highlight the dangers of careless driving, unprotected sex, alcohol and drug abuse, and other risky behaviors."

Added co-author Dr. Tali Sharot: "Our findings show that if you want to get young people to better learn about the risks associated with their choices, you might want to focus on the benefits that a positive change would bring rather than hounding them with horror stories."

In the study’s introductory remarks, the authors provided this broad overview: “Human decision making is markedly influenced by beliefs of what might occur in the future. We form and update those beliefs based on information we receive from the world around us. However, even when we are presented with accurate information, cognitive biases and heuristics restrict our ability to make adequate adjustments to our prior beliefs.”

How was the study conducted? Participants, ages 9 to 26, were asked to assess the relative dangers of potential adverse life events (e.g., car accident, getting lung disease). The researchers then showed participants the actual statistics for these events and noted how each person adjusted their belief, after learning that the risk was higher or lower than they had estimated.  The bottom line: when it’s good news, our beliefs change; when it’s bad, news, not so much.  

Said the study authors: “The results show that younger participants were less likely to learn from information that shows them that the future is bleaker than expected. In other words, even when they know the risks, they have difficulties using that information if it's worse than they thought it would be. By contrast, the ability to learn from good news remained stable across all ages.”

While buoyed by the findings, Dr. Moutsiana offered this cautionary note.  She told Medical News Today that “while positive messages about not smoking might be more effective than negative messages, other factors, such as social pressure, need to be considered in why teenagers smoke.”  Added Moutsiana, in the Medical News Today article: “"We used events related more to physical danger. . . . It is possible that events that relate more to social pressure might have a different effect. Therefore it needs to be examined in control experiments."

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Technology Myths (Part 1): which ones are true?

Technology Myths (Part 1): which ones are true?

Finding it hard to keep up?  Me too.  Overwhelmed by new products and new apps for our technical toys, it’s (often) hard to separate myth from magic.  So today we present part 1 of a series we’ll call  Technology Myths, and our debut will tackle five technology related aphorisms. Your job (should you choose to accept it) is to decide which ones, if any, are true. So we ask you:    

1: Is a camera with more megapixels always better?

2: Do more bars on your cell phone mean better service?

3: If you have a larger monitor, will you be more productive?

4. Are Apple computers immune from viruses? and

5. Do high-priced HDMI cables significantly enhance TV quality?

1: Cameras – Is a camera with more megapixels always better?

Certainly not, as the focus should be on sensor size, not megapixels. Explains Melanie Pinola, writing for www.popularmechanics.com: “It's true that more megapixels means more detail in larger photos. That detail, though, depends not just on pixel count but also on the camera's sensor: The larger it is, the more light data it can pick up, and the more detailed your images will be. If you add megapixels without increasing the overall size of the sensor, you reduce the amount of light reaching each pixel. Your point-and-shoot camera may have 20 megapixels, but if its sensor is the size of a pinhead, your photos won't look so great.” 

2: Signal strength – Do more bars on your cell phone mean better service?

Apparently, how well your Smartphone performs has more to do with congestion than connectivity.  A report in PC World, summarized by Patrick Miller at nbcnews.com, explains: “The signal bars on your cell phone display indicate the strength of your cellular signal to the nearest tower. But if you're connected to a tower that lots of other people are connected to, you could have a strong signal and still have poor service, since everyone's calls are competing for scarce network resources.” The PC World report pointed out that in their 2009 test of 3G service, “signals bars were poor indicators of service quality in 12 of the 13 cities.”  Added Pinola, in her article at www.popularmechanics.com: “It might take about a square block of people in Manhattan to overload a single cell tower, whereas in Wyoming, it would take a population spread over 15 square miles.”

3: Monitors – If you have a larger monitor, will you be more productive?

Back in 2008, when huge computer monitors were coming into vogue, a study from the University of Utah claimed that worker productivity rose by 30-50% with widescreen displays. But PC World, again quoted by Miller, dug into the data and found a few caveats.  They explained: “. . . the study also found a point of diminishing returns. Productivity gains fall in a bell-curve distribution once you hit a certain amount of screen space. For a single-monitor setup, over 26 inches is too much, while dual-display gains top out at 22 inches.” In addition, the study found that, when selected a second monitor, personal preference (e.g., “I know I’ll be more productive if I have that 24” display”) did not necessarily correlate with heightened performance.

#4: Macs – Apple computers are immune from viruses

The notion that hackers spend more time attacking Windows-based machines is unassailable.  But according to Wolpin, at blogspot.laptopmag.com, Macs aren’t virus-proof. Said Wolpin: “According to anti-virus software-maker Sophos, based on a study of 100,000 of its users, one in every five Macs carry some sort of malware — these Macs aren’t infected, but they carry malware in much of the same way humans carry dormant viruses such as chicken pox.”

#5: HDMI – high priced HDMI cables significantly enhance TV quality

Beware of those high priced HDMI cables. Apparently, they don’t make a bit of difference. Explains Pinola, in her piece for www.popularmechanics.com:  “Premium-cable manufacturers would have you believe gold-plated connectors and ‘high-density triple-layer metal-to-metal shielding’ give you a better signal and, therefore, the ultimate picture and audio performance. But generic—and cheaper—cables will deliver the same picture and audio quality. Signal over an HDMI cable is digital; it either comes through or it doesn't.”

Said Miller, who summarized PC World’s findings in his NBC report: “High-quality cables have been a staple of the audio/video business for decades now, and for good reason: As an analog audio or video signal travels from one device to another, it's susceptible to interference and disruption, meaning that the image data as it leaves your DVD player isn't 100 percent identical to the image that shows up on your TV, because certain parts of the signal can get lost on the way there.

However, digital audio/video standards like DisplayPort, DVI, and HDMI don't have this problem because the data being transmitted over the cable isn't as sensitive as an analog signal; it consists entirely of ones and zeros, and a tremendous drop in signal voltage has to occur before a one starts to look like a zero at the receiving end.”

One final note, according to Pinola: if you’re buying a cable over 6 feet long, a higher quality product can make a difference.  So keep that in mind. 

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How Many Friends Do You Need?

How Many Friends Do You Need?

When I posed this question to my good friend Scott (a clinical psychologist, no less), he answered glibly: “All of them.”  I laughed, easily agreed, then shared the relevant research.

The number, apparently, is 3 to 5.

But a number of equal interest is Dunbar’s 150 – that is, the number of stable relationships that a human being can comfortably manage at one time. The figure is the brainchild of British anthropologist and evolutionary psychology Robin Dunbar who made the claim some 20 years ago. Two decades later, his analysis has yet to face serious challenge. Dunbar’s theory: the number of relationships that an animal can manage (humans included) is directly related to the size of their brain.

But today, with a swath of tools available to facilitate human connection, the question begs: “Are today’s virtual sharing networks expanding our social circle, and the quality of our relationships?” It’s a lively debate.

We’ll re-visit the debate in a moment, but first a bit about Dunbar, and his numeric hypothesis:

• 150 = casual friends, that is, the average number of people that, if you ran into them at a bar, you would feel comfortable having an impromptu drink with;
• 50 = close friends, the ones you might invite to a group dinner;
• 15 = supportive friends, the ones in whom you confide and turn to for support; and
• 5 = your close support group, that is, your best friends (often family members).

 Dunbar’s central thesis is this: historically, group sizes are remarkably stable. One of his favorite examples: throughout history, company sizes in professional armies have always hovered around 150 (from the Roman Empire to 16th century Spain to 20th century Soviet Union).

Which brings us back to today’s tech tools, and our central question: do today’s tools strengthen or weaken our social connections? The verdict is out.

What’s not in doubt is the importance of friendship. Writes Markham Heid, in a piece for time.com, “. . . [R]esearch has shown that socially isolated people are more than twice as likely to die from heart disease as those with a solid social circle.” And sadly, Heid adds: “The number of Americans who say they have no close friends has roughly tripled in recent decades. . . . ‘Zero’ is also the most common response when people are asked how many confidants they have . . . . And adult men seem to be especially bad at keeping and cultivating friendships.”

Is the Internet expanding our social circle?

Dunbar himself is uncertain what will become of the current generation’s social ties, telling Maria Konnikova, who interviewed him for a piece in The New Yorker: “I don’t think we have enough evidence to argue either way. . . . It’s quite conceivable that we might end up less social in the future, which would be a disaster because we need to be more social—our world has become so large.”

Added Dunbar, again quoted by Konnikova: “The amount of social capital you have is pretty fixed. . . . It involves time investment. If you garner connections with more people you end up distributing your fixed amount of social capital more thinly so the average capital per person is lower . . . . Traditionally, it’s a sixty-forty split of attention: we spend 60% of our time with our core groups of fifty, fifteen, and five, and 40% with the larger spheres. Social networks may be growing our base, and, in the process, reversing that balance.”

And then there’s this noteworthy Dunbar observation, shared in an interview with Bloomberg.com: “In the end, we rely heavily on touch and we still haven't figured out how to do virtual touch. Maybe once we can do that we will have cracked a big nut.”

Dave Morin, one of Path’s co-founders, agrees with Dunbar that, as of yet, the new tools (e.g.,  Facebook and Twitter) have not expanded our social universe. Said Morin: “Dunbar’s work has helped to crystallize a debate among social media architects over whether even the most cleverly designed technologies can expand the dimensions of a person’s social world. As he puts it, ‘The question is, ‘Does digital technology in general allow you to retain the old friends as well as the new ones and therefore increase the size of your social circle?’ The answer seems to be a resounding no, at least for the moment.”

Is the Internet simply the latest utility supporting social life?

Remember the telephone? When it was introduced more than 160 years ago a common fear was its negative impact on human connection. After all, people would no longer be face-to-face, so the theory went, and social ties would suffer. Fast forward to 2015 and these same fears are surfacing. Today’s elders ask: With their heads buried in their phones, what will become of the Smartphone Generation?

Robert Cannon, FCC counsel and founder of Cybertelecom, thinks it’s an empty concern. Said Cannon: “The tension between the net and social engagement will vaporize in much the same way that thoughts about the telephone network vaporized and it came to be taken-for-granted. People do not ask if the telephone is an alienating social force. The phone is a utility supporting social life. Likewise, the net will come to be assumed as a utility for social life. How else would I know when church starts, when the game begins, where we are meeting for drinks, or what the weather for our trip might be?”

Karl Auerbach, CTO at InterWorking Labs agrees: “Ships and airplanes can be argued to be tools engendering either separation or closeness. Why should the internet be any different? I am continuously amazed at the ability of people to adapt the net to improve their interpersonal links.”

Good force or evil?  Naturally, time will tell. For now, though, I think I’ll shoot my friend(s) a quick text.

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If we named our hurricanes differently, would it save lives?

If we named our hurricanes differently, would it save lives?

Picture this scenario: it’s mid-October and a weather alert pops on your screen, advising you that a hurricane is headed our way. It’s still four days away, and while they’re not altogether certain how powerful it will be, or where it may strike land, you’re thinking – what should I do to prepare, if anything? 

Now suppose you heard that the hurricane’s name was Jennifer.  But later you learned that it was named Jack.  Would it make a difference?

Apparently it would, according to researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who maintain that people judge hurricane risk, in part, based on its name.  In their study “Why Have Female Hurricanes Killed More People than Male Ones?” they explain that the more feminine the name, the less likely people are to take preparatory action (note: their study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).

Said the authors:  

“Meteorologists and geoscientists have called for greater consideration of social science factors that predict responses to natural hazards. We answer this call by highlighting the influence of an unexplored social factor, gender-based expectations, on the human toll of hurricanes that are assigned gendered names. Feminine-named hurricanes (vs. masculine-named hurricanes) cause significantly more deaths, apparently because they lead to lower perceived risk and consequently less preparedness. Using names such as Eloise or Charlie for referencing hurricanes has been thought by meteorologists to enhance the clarity and recall of storm information. We show that this practice also taps into well-developed and widely held gender stereotypes, with potentially deadly consequences.”

The authors’ conclusions been challenged on several counts, but their message is worth serious consideration: would we save lives if we named hurricanes based on their severity? In other words, when we decide whether to take action, for a coming storm, to what degree are we influenced by the relative femininity and masculinity of a hurricane’s name?

The authors’ analysis included 94 hurricanes that struck the U.S. between 1950 and 2012, recognizing that up until 1979, hurricanes were only given female names (for the dataset 1950-1978, the researchers did examine the relative femininity of the name).

The study was strongly criticized by social scientist Jeff Lazo from the National Centre for Atmospheric Research. According to an article by Ed Yong, on National Geographic’s web site, “[Lazo] thinks the pattern is most likely a statistical fluke which arose because of the ways in which the team analyzed their data.”

As the debates takes flight, few would disagree that that “men are linked to strength and aggression, and women with warmth and passivity,” according to Yong’s article. The question is: do these unconscious biases have real-life consequences in how we prepare for impending storms?

Said study author Sharon Shavitt, as quoted in Yong’s article: “It may make sense to move away from human names, but other labels could also create problems if they are associated with perceptions of mildness or gentleness. . . . The key is to provide information and labels that are relevant to the storm’s severity.”

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Did you ever notice that . . .

Did you ever notice that . . . you can tell if a person is left handed or right handed by the way that they clap?  Try it out at dinner tonight.  Ask your dinner mates to start clapping and notice which hand is active and which hand is passive (your passive hand “receives” the clap).  Now encourage them to clap the other way, that is, try making your non-dominant hand the active one.  Feels strange, no?

Some folks, of course, are “neutral clappers” (both hands meeting in the middle), but they’re a rare breed. So the next time you’re at a concert, or a play, take a peek at how people clap – you’ll be able to immediately tell if they’re lefty or righty (my wife Roe, by the way, is ambilevous: “having the ability to perform manual skill tasks with both hands”).

Did you ever notice that . . . when families are walking, the man walks ahead of the pack, while the mother trails the field?  Why is that?

I suppose it’s linked to DNA. After all, back in the day, it made sense to have the hunter-gatherer out in front – protecting the family, finding the next meal. But today, what’s the thinking?  I remember a field trip some years ago that my wife organized – an overnighter with 150 fifth graders accompanied by 25 chaperones (three of whom were male). No big surprise that one of the men (walking out ahead) lost track of one of his kids. 

So I wonder: do we still need to be out in front?

Did you ever notice that . . . in conversation, some people perpetually use pronouns instead of first names? (e.g., or “My wife and I are heading to Florida” instead of “Roe and I are heading to Florida”).

Granted, if we are meeting each other for the first time, and I don’t know your sister’s name, a pronoun makes perfect sense. But over time, I’d think that people would make the switch. Yet many don’t.  Why is that? Why do people – long after they know us, and they know that we know all the players – continue to use pronouns? Perhaps it says something about our personality, or, more simply, is just a verbal habit that mimics our parent’s conversational style. Either way, I must admit, it’s a mystery to me (as it happens, early in a relationship, I’ll make a point of introducing family members with both pronoun and first name (“my sister Ilene”), and then, as the conversation evolves, I’ll switch to the name alone. But I may be the odd one here).

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Brain-Training Exercises: Do They Work?

Brain-Training Exercises: Do They Work?

“Before investing time and money on brain games, consider what economists call opportunity costs: If an hour spent doing solo software drills is an hour not spent hiking, learning Italian, making a new recipe, or playing with your grandchildren, it may not be worth it. But if it replaces time spent in a sedentary state, like watching television, the choice may make more sense for you.” – Stanford Center on Longevity

They’re fun. They’re challenging. And they’re somewhat addicting.  But do they work? Do brain-training exercises – that is, sitting in front of a computer performing specific repetitive tasks – really improve cognitive function?

An active debate has emerged within the scientific community, with neuroscientists and behavioral psychologists analyzing first-generation data to assess whether brain-training exercises make a substantive difference in cognitive vigor.

This past fall the Stanford Center on Longevity, working with the Berlin Max Planck Institute for Human Development, issued a word of caution, urging consumers to be wary of exaggerated claims that brain-training exercises will significantly enhance brain function, and brain fitness.

And while the Center’s report, in this writer’s view, was quite balanced in assessing the new field, a group of 127 scientists, from 18 countries, took issue with several of the Center’s findings and crafted an Open Letter to share their concerns.  

What’s clear in all of this is that the “brain fitness” movement, in due time, may well resemble the thriving physical fitness movement.  Said Alvaro Fernandez, in a piece for the Huffington Post: “It took decades of conflicting research and confusing media coverage to finally spread the idea that daily life activities are far from sufficient to keep us physically fit . . . From those humble beginnings, health club memberships in 2014 amounted to $78+ billion dollars in annual revenues.” This same notion, many believe, will apply to brain fitness in the coming years. 

So what exactly did the Stanford Center report have to say?  And how did the 127 scientists, in their Open Letter respond? Some highlights:

Stanford Center on Longevity

·        “It would be appropriate to conclude . . . that the potential to learn new skills remains intact throughout the life span. However at this point it is not appropriate to conclude that training-induced changes go significantly beyond the learned skills, that they affect broad abilities with real-world relevance, or that they generally promote ‘brain health’.”

·        “These conclusions do not mean that the brain does not remain malleable, even in old age. Any mentally effortful new experience, such as learning a language, acquiring a motor skill, navigating in a new environment, and, yes, playing commercially available computer games, will produce changes in those neural systems that support acquisition of the new skill.”

·        “Some of the initial [research] results are promising and make further research highly desirable. However, at present, these findings do not provide a sound basis for the claims made by commercial companies selling brain games.”

·        “We also need to keep in mind opportunity costs. Time spent playing the games is time not spent reading, socializing, gardening, exercising, or engaging in many other activities that may benefit cognitive and physical health of older adults. Given that the effects of playing the games tend to be task-specific, it may be advisable to train an activity that by itself comes with benefits for everyday life. Another drawback of publicizing computer games as a fix to deteriorating cognitive performance is that it diverts attention and resources from prevention efforts. The promise of a magic bullet detracts from the message that cognitive vigor in old age, to the extent that it can be influenced by the lives we live, reflects the long-term effects of a healthy and active lifestyle.”

The 127 scientists respond:

·        “. . . [A] substantial and growing body of evidence shows that certain cognitive training regimens can significantly improve cognitive function, including in ways that generalize to everyday life.”

·        “Over three decades, researchers have built a huge body of evidence that brain plasticity is a lifelong phenomenon – as you acknowledge. However, the [Stanford Center] statement fails to acknowledge that this evidence was derived from training experiments directly documenting the improvement of sensory, cognitive, motor, and functional performance.”

Leading the Open Letter movement was Dr. Michael Merzenich, a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. Said Merzenich: “The authors of the Longevity Center statement properly concluded that a large body of work has shown there is plasticity throughout the brain and throughout life. . . . It was rather astounding, then, that this same group failed to notice that we proved that through hundreds of studies showing we can drive positive change in the brain through directed, intensive, computer-guided training. It’s silly that anyone would think that we can make cognitive training that works in labs, but not in people’s homes.”

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Geniuses in the office: more pain than pleasure?

Geniuses in the office: more pain than pleasure?

Have you ever worked for a genius?  I have. 

The year was 1979, and though the subsequent six years were emotionally painful (he had this unique ability to make you feel inept at every turn), there were positive results, economically speaking.

Those six years remain fresh in my mind, leading me to wonder, from time to time: if you work for a genius, should you bolt or should you stick?

That was the dominant thought that ran through my mind when I read Walter Issacson’s grueling biography of Steve Jobs. Jobs, of course, was a genius by everyone’s account, changing the course of five (yes, five) industries. Yet nearly every page of Issacson’s text revealed Jobs’ cruel and demonic treatment of colleagues. So I wondered: why did these people stick? 

Last week, I found the answer. 

It appeared on page 332 of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s glorious book “The Bully Pulpit” (which traces the intertwining lives of Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and William Taft).  The dynamic passage – authored by Ida Tarbell, the nation’s leading journalist a century ago – was written about Sam McClure, the nation’s leading publisher. But it could just have easily been written about Jobs, a century later.  Wrote Tarbell, of McClure (in a letter to colleagues):

“Never forget that it was he and nobody else who has created that place. . . He is a very extraordinary creature, you can’t put him into a machine and make him run smoothly with the other wheels and things. . . . . Able methodical people grow on every bush but genius comes once in a generation and if you ever get in its vicinity thank the Lord & stick.  You probably will be laid up now and then in a sanitarium recovering from the effort to follow him but that’s a small matter if you really get into touch finally with that wonderful brain. . . . If there was nothing in all this but the annoyance and uncertainty & confusion – that is, if there were no results – then we might rebel, but there are always results – vital ones. . . . The great schemes, the daring moves in that business have always been [his]. They will continue to be. His one hundredth idea is a stroke of genius. Be on hand to grasp that one hundredth idea.”

Hire or Fire?

So when it comes to genius, do we bolt, or do we stick?  Do we hire or do we fire?

The verdict is unclear.  Enthusiasts maintain that businesses need to actively recruit geniuses, in order to advance the organization. Others, however, insist that geniuses do more harm than good and should be led out to pasture.  Below are two contrasting views.  Take your pick.

Hire ‘Em – Dave Logan, writing for CBS Money Watch

Logan urges companies to hire geniuses, then learn to manage them. Logan acknowledges that often, as bright as geniuses are, they can be incredibly difficult to work with (Logan jokes: “. . . the chance that [the genius] will offend someone in a conservative culture is 100% - in the first week.” Nonetheless, Logan recommends that you pull the trigger, saying: “If the hiring manager knows the tradeoffs, they’ll often do the right thing for everyone by hiring the genius, and then working to minimize the deficits, or clean up messes when they happen.” 

Fire ‘Em – Scott Lowe, independent consultant, in an article for www.techrepublic.com

Says Lowe: “Eventually, when a serious attitude problem exists, it’s more than likely that you’ll need to fire the person for the sake of the rest of the team. . . For my own organization, I hire attitude first, skill second. . . . Look for people who fit our culture and have appropriate skills to do the job. . . . You can teach skills, but teaching attitude is much harder.”

Stick or bolt?  Hire or fire?  It just might take a genius to decide what to do.

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