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The protests inspired by the tragic death of George Floyd have now touched every state in America. The protests have dominated the news and the world has been watching, sometimes in shock. Jennifer E. Cobbina is an associate professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. She has authored books on police protests and is highly regarded as an expert on these issues. Recently, she was interviewed about police tactics, policies and how they might be adding fuel to the fire as opposed to de-escalating the tensions among protestors. Jennifer Cobbina, a professor of criminal justice at Michigan State University, told Insider that protest policing in the 1960s and 1970s was "based on the philosophy of escalated force in which increasing violence on the part of protesters was met with increasing force from police. This approach was primarily aggressive and confrontational in nature." "We see protest police resorting to this strategy" in the ongoing George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests, she said, even though such tactics "exacerbate tension between police and protesters." Cobbina suggested police adopt the negotiated management approach that was favored from the mid-1970s until the 1990s. This response protects the right to free speech, tolerates some disruption, de-escalates tension, and avoids high levels of police force unless it's absolutely necessary. This would allow demonstrators and police departments to "decrease disruptiveness from protesters and limit the need for police violence," she said. June 02 Insider.com If you are a journalist covering the protests occurring across America and various responses by police and authorities when handling them – let our experts help with your story. Jennifer E. Cobbina is an associate professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. She is an expert in the areas of race, crime, policing, as well as protest movements. Professor Cobbina is available to speak with media – simply click on her icon to arrange an interview today.
Rensselaer Team Seeks Alternative Approach to Controlling Viruses
As researchers worldwide scramble to formulate a vaccine to combat COVID-19, a team at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is pursuing a potentially powerful solution to pandemic control: a viral trap that is easily adapted to different classes of viruses, enabling a “plug-and-play” approach to virus detection and antiviral activity. Jonathan Dordick, an endowed professor of chemical and biological engineering at Rensselaer, and Robert Linhardt, an endowed professor of chemistry and chemical biology, said the team is exploring how their work — in the areas of viral detection, therapy, and inhibition — could be used against COVID-19 and other viruses in the future. Their team views such innovative approaches as a vital hedge against the growing threat of global pandemics. The viral trap works by mimicking the latch points on a human cell that a virus must bind to before infecting a person by disgorging its genetic instructions into the cell. In research on the Dengue virus with Xing Wang, now a professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois, recently published in Nature Chemistry, the team folded a snippet of DNA into a five-pointed star, and attached decoy latch points that align perfectly with the virus’ own molecular grappling hooks. The result was the world’s most sensitive test for Dengue, and a novel means of capturing and ultimately killing the virus. In previous research, the team demonstrated the same approach for Influenza A, and it can likely be expanded to other viruses like COVID-19. In another approach, Dordick demonstrated how enzymes incorporated into paint, can form a catalytic coating capable of killing the Influenza A Virus. The research, published in Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, suggests enzyme systems could further be incorporated into swabs, wipes, or coatings, to target and kill various viruses, including COVID-19.
New Data Protection Agency: Good or Bad? It Depends.
New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand has proposed legislation to create a new data protection agency. She cites the need as personal information is freely sold across the internet without users' knowledge. She specifically calls out Facebook and Google for their misuse of consumer information. Similar legislation has been proposed in California. But is this a good idea or a bad idea? Law professor and privacy expert Doris DelTosto Brogan says it ultimately depends. "It will depend on how well resourced the new agency is both in terms of human and financial resources, and whether it is truly independent," Prof. Brogan said. "The area is huge and complex and ever-changing. The problems are often under the radar until they explode, and the nature of the threats are often nuanced and subtle. So, a good idea to create a dedicated agency? Yes, to the extent the agency comes to the table with real independence, adequate resources and genuine expertise." But the answer isn't all that simple, she says. "In terms of expertise, the agency will need people who understand the threats, and the reality of how the organizations that are managing data work. It will also need the financial resources to pursue a broad range of matters across a wide landscape not only of subject areas (hotels, airlines, credit reporting agencies, social media, financial institutions, etc.) but also the technology of how data is obtained, and accumulated, stored, used, manipulated and 'shared' by the players. "One concern with a subject-specific agency is the tendency to become overly reliant on and enmeshed with the industry being regulated. This is always an issue (like the critiques of the FAA in the Boeing matter), but with the oversized influence of big tech, and the issues of understanding a dense, rapidly evolving, tech-heavy industry the risk is significant. "Finally, if we are going to take seriously an agency dedicated to protecting privacy, in addition to mastering the market and developing technical expertise the new agency, if it is truly privacy-focused, it will have to develop a robust understanding of privacy conceptually—that is, privacy as more than just a consequentialist understanding. "A dedicated agency, if properly created, will come to the task with a deep understanding of privacy beyond just the implications of my social security number being hacked—but rather an understanding of privacy as essential to humanness, to intimacy, to thought and to informed self-governance."
Ants and plants, a mutually beneficial relationship
Ant-plant interactions are really common in nature, and while people might most often picture ants as carrying pieces of leaves cut from tropical plants, ant behavior in the Midwest is less appreciated. Moni Berg-Binder, Ph.D., associate professor of biology at Saint Mary’s University, finds ant mediated seed dispersal, called myrmecochory, fascinating and says that the temperate deciduous forests here in North America have many examples of plants that engage with the native plant community. “In myrmecochory, these plants, often spring ephemerals, which are early blooming spring plants, produce seeds with a nutritious structure that sticks off the seed called an elaiosome,” she said. “Typically what happens is the seeds fall to the ground which is called primary dispersal. The Ants forage and find the seeds on the ground and then pick up seeds and carry them to their nest. This is secondary dispersal. Then, once they get the seeds into their nests, those seeds are brought to places where developing larvae eat the elaiosome. But the seed is unharmed.” From there, she said the seeds are then deposited in a chamber inside of their nests or they may take the seeds and put them in a refuse pile or a garbage dump just outside the nest. Ants, apparently, keep a very clean nest. And oftentimes the ground soil around ant activity, is elevated in organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorous, possibly moisture — all really good things for plants and essentially the same thing as fertilizer. So the seed flourishes. “It’s a beautiful example of mutualism,” she said. “The seed is taken and has effectively been planted inside this nest with nature’s fertilizer. The win from the ant perspective is that they received food.” Dr. Berg-Binder and her students have focused their research on a plant called bloodroot. Local ants disperse the seeds of bloodroot. Dr. Berg-Binder became interested in plant interactions while in graduate school when she became intrigued by the win-win scenario of mutualism. For her graduate work, she had been interested in conservation and how invasive species are introduced to a natural area where they did not typically belong. These invasive species can engage in mutualism with native species. She said there is much more studying to be done on the relationship native ants have with both native plants and invasive plants. Are ants helping the invasive species become more invasive? “They’re a great study system, and I find them really fascinating,” she said. Are you looking to know more about invasive species or ant and plant interactions? Or, are you a journalist covering this topic and looking to book an interview? That’s where we can help. To book an interview with Dr. Moni Berg-Binder, simply click below to access her contact information. Connect with: Moni Berg-Binder, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Biology Expertise: Invasive plant species and native plants; ecology and animal-plant interactions View profile https://expertfile.com/experts/moni.bergbinderphd/moni-bergbinder-phd
Researchers at Rensselaer Can Now 3D Print Skin With Working Blood Vessels
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a way to 3D print living skin, complete with blood vessels. The advancement, published online in Tissue Engineering Part A, is a significant step toward creating grafts that are more like the skin our bodies produce naturally. “Right now, whatever is available as a clinical product is more like a fancy Band-Aid,” said Pankaj Karande, an associate professor of chemical and biological engineering and member of the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies (CBIS), who led this research at Rensselaer. “It provides some accelerated wound healing, but eventually it just falls off; it never really integrates with the host cells.” A significant barrier to that integration has been the absence of a functioning vascular system in the skin grafts. Karande has been working on this challenge for several years, previously publishing one of the first papers showing that researchers could take two types of living human cells, make them into “bio-inks,” and print them into a skin-like structure. Since then, he and his team have been working with researchers from Yale School of Medicine to incorporate vasculature. In this paper, the researchers show that if they add key elements — including human endothelial cells, which line the inside of blood vessels, and human pericyte cells, which wrap around the endothelial cells — with animal collagen and other structural cells typically found in a skin graft, the cells start communicating and forming a biologically relevant vascular structure within the span of a few weeks. “As engineers working to recreate biology, we’ve always appreciated and been aware of the fact that biology is far more complex than the simple systems we make in the lab,” Karande said. “We were pleasantly surprised to find that, once we start approaching that complexity, biology takes over and starts getting closer and closer to what exists in nature.” You can watch Pankaj Karande, associate professor of chemical and biological engineering, explain this research here: Pankaj Karande is an associate professor of chemical and biological engineering and member of the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies (CBIS) at Rensselaer. He is available to speak with media regarding this latest development – simply click on his icon to arrange an interview.
Ask our experts - Self-care a necessity for graduate students; what are programs doing to help?
Life doesn’t stop when you’re in a doctoral program. Erin Ayala, Ph.D., has done extensive research into self-care, stress, and quality of life of students, particularly those in human service doctoral programs (like medical students and those in nurse anesthesiology, psychology, and counseling). She knows the recipe for stress and burnout: • These stressful programs tend to attract high achievers. It’s already in their nature to balance several commitments and responsibilities. • These programs and professions have a high level of responsibility. • Students in these programs are frequently at an age where they are also going through significant developmental milestones (marriage, children, purchasing homes). “When you bring all of that together, it can be really difficult to prioritize time for self-care,” she said. “Prevention and health promotion are really important, and it’s not just about mental health. It’s not just about being reactive and addressing distress or burnout when it hits. The question is what can we do on the front end to help prevent negative consequences down the road.” What is self-care? Often, Dr. Ayala said, media romanticizes and glamorizes self-care with advertisements for fizzy bath bombs and manicures. “What we have found is that it is completely personalized,” Dr. Ayala said. “For women, social support is really important. Ultimately, there needs to be time to disconnect, whether it’s doing nothing, or just taking a break from your dissertation. You’ve got to give yourself permission to do that. “Nutrition, exercise, hydration, spiritual life, different people have a different recipe for what their self-care looks like. It ebbs and flows just like any exercise or meditation or spiritual practice. Some weeks we’re doing great and other times we’re not, and that’s part of the process.” Dr. Ayala’s most recent research involves analyzing qualitative data, coming from over 200 students throughout the U.S. in clinical counseling and school psychology, all high achievers in the middle of doctoral programs. She’s investigating what faculty are doing to model or not model the importance of physical and psychological wellness. “Students might know that self-care is important, but it can be hard to act on it if they're in an environment that doesn’t support it,” she said. “The biggest supportive theme that came up was faculty simply encouraging them to do it, asking their students, ‘What did you do this weekend for self-care?’ They take the time to check in with their students and give them permission to take time for themselves. That takes zero effort.” “What can we do to make sure faculty are also able to model self-care for their students? The behaviors students are picking up now pave the foundation for the rest of their career. If faculty are working themselves to the bone, it sets an expectation for their students that they are supposed to do the same. If faculty model self-care and talk about its importance, students may be more likely to do it themselves.” Dr. Ayala said when her team asked students what programs can do to support self-care, answers ranged from formal programming and talking about it in the classroom, to referrals for therapists, discounts for gym memberships, or places to meditate on campus — ways to make self-care easier to access. When students are asked what the biggest barrier to self-care is, the answer wasn’t surprising. The majority of students responded that time was an issue. “That’s a tough one because there’s only so much programs can do to minimize the amount of work required,” Dr. Ayala said. “Students have to balance all these professional responsibilities and don’t know what to give up.” Are you looking to know more about self-care and other similar topics when it comes to high education? Or, are you a journalist covering this topic and looking to book an interview? That’s where we can help. Dr. Erin Ayala is a licensed psychologist and core faculty member in the counseling psychology doctoral program at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota. To book an interview with Dr. Ayala – simply click on her icon to arrange a time.
In this Era of Fake News and Alternate FactsExperts are King
There’s nothing new about fake news. Satirical media outlets such as The Onion have been around for a decade giving us a good laugh. But somewhere in the past 12 months, something changed for the worse. The wool that was being pulled over people’s eyes wasn’t so obvious anymore. Satire and bad humour were replaced by visceral accusations, conspiracies, and smear campaigns. How did we get to this point, and what can be done to stem the tide? A sure sign that we had a problem was a development that was apparent in the last presidential election. New voices were on the national scene branding our traditional media outlets as biased, and elitist. We saw the phrase “mainstream media” become a bigger part of the conversation. Now we have to contend with “fake news.” Unlike traditional journalism fake news outlets deliberately spew wrong information. In an effort to get a story out, mistakes will happen. But in the world of fake news there is no retraction or correction of these mistakes — even when they are exposed as blatantly untrue. Further damage ensues when social media then acts as an enabler as fake news articles get amplified to millions of people, who are clicking away, feeding advertising revenues to these publishers. No matter what your political stripe or where you stood regarding the recent US election, fake news was rampant on both sides spreading false information, invoking anger, and deceiving the public. More recently, a fresher version of fake news has emerged as “Alternate Facts.” A term made famous by Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway as she defended the statements made by Press Secretary Sean Spicer who lectured and insisted that the crowd present for President Trump’s swearing-in was “the largest audience ever to It seems that the whole nature of the game has changed almost overnight. Even the White House press gallery isn’t immune to these developments. This week’s Saturday Night Live sketch brilliantly sums up the aversive relationship that we’re seeing develop between the media and the new administration. (Note: For the record, the photo at the bottom is NOT a C-SPAN broadcast. It’s a comedy sketch. It did not really happen. This is NOT Sean Spicer in the photo below — it’s an actor portrayal). Perhaps most ironic for me is how believable fake news can appear to be. A friend of mine, a former investigative journalist commented that “given the outright absurdity of the actual “real” news cycle,” it’s getting hard for people to sort fact from fiction.” Perhaps this says as much about society as it does about media. So Where Does All This Leave Us? Some say the solution is as simple as removing the bias from our news media. The problem is, I know quite a few (real) journalists and they are serious about reporting facts. They work in newsrooms and report the news, they tell stories, but gathering and checking facts are what define them. As they work to a set of professional standards and deliver real information. However, we’re witnessing a massive change in the way that ideas are shaped and communicated to the public. Sadly, the traditional avenues of information flow and the mutual respect that even democratic nation states have had with the media appears to be eroding. There is also a disturbing undercurrent of thought that traditional news organizations are biased, and every outlet is always serving a hidden agenda. Recent events have prompted the need for news organizations to brief their journalists on how to govern themselves in these very “interesting times.” John Daniszewski, Vice President for Standards for Associated Press in a recent blog post called for clarity regarding the definition of the so-called “alt-right.” “We should not limit ourselves to letting such groups define themselves, and instead should report their actions, associations, history and positions to reveal their actual beliefs and philosophy, as well as how others see them,” writes Daniszewski. Other news organizations are looking at recent events and taking the opportunity to internally brief their journalists. In a recent message to staff, Reuters Editor-in-Chief Steve Adler wrote about covering President Trump the Reuters way: “The first 12 days of the Trump presidency (yes, that’s all it’s been!) have been memorable for all — and especially challenging for us in the news business. It’s not every day that a U.S. president calls journalists “among the most dishonest human beings on earth” or that his chief strategist dubs the media “the opposition party.” It’s hardly surprising that the air is thick with questions and theories about how to cover the new Administration. So what is the Reuters answer? To oppose the administration? To appease it? To boycott its briefings? To use our platform to rally support for the media? All these ideas are out there, and they may be right for some news operations, but they don’t make sense for Reuters. We already know what to do because we do it every day, and we do it all over the world. To state the obvious, Reuters is a global news organization that reports independently and fairly in more than 100 countries, including many in which the media is unwelcome and frequently under attack. We don’t know yet how sharp the Trump administration’s attacks will be over time or to what extent those attacks will be accompanied by legal restrictions on our news-gathering. But we do know that we must follow the same rules that govern our work anywhere.” Adler goes on to provide a set of rules for the Reuters team that I think are very wise, especially given the current environment. Do’s: Cover what matters in people’s lives and provide them the facts they need to make better decisions. Become ever-more resourceful: If one door to information closes, open another one. Give up on hand-outs and worry less about official access. They were never all that valuable anyway. Our coverage of Iran has been outstanding, and we have virtually no official access. What we have are sources. Get out into the country and learn more about how people live, what they think, what helps and hurts them, and how the government and its actions appear to them, not to us. Keep the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles close at hand, remembering that “the integrity, independence and freedom from bias of Reuters shall at all times be fully preserved.” Don’ts: Never be intimidated, but: Don’t pick unnecessary fights or make the story about us. We may care about the inside baseball but the public generally doesn’t and might not be on our side even if it did. Don’t vent publicly about what might be understandable day-to-day frustration. In countless other countries, we keep our own counsel so we can do our reporting without being suspected of personal animus. We need to do that in the U.S., too. Don’t take too dark a view of the reporting environment: It’s an opportunity for us to practice the skills we’ve learned in much tougher places around the world and to lead by example — and therefore to provide the freshest, most useful, and most illuminating information and insight of any news organization anywhere. Winning back the public trust — Why Experts Matter Perhaps a way to help reverse this trend is to ask more of our experts within our organizations, and get them to contribute more to these important conversations. It’s about getting our academics, physicians, professionals, and leaders in their respective fields to contribute more to help the media present a more balanced set of perspectives in ways that engage the public. In this new era, it appears that many experts are invisible to the media on a range of big issues such as climate change, economic data, security, crime and healthcare policy. Opinions — not always informed opinions — are taken as fact. People without qualifications are being asked to speak on topics that require years of study, research, and experience. This is why, now more than ever, we need to see a return of intelligence and knowledge to present true facts. Credible Experts Matter Credible sources are vital in helping ensure the proper degree of research has been done. Published work, peer-reviewed studies, as well as policy that has been developed and practised all play key roles in determining an actual expert. Proven credibility cuts through rhetoric. It promotes the delivery and flow of facts as opposed to feeding only one side of a debate. Being Approachable Matters We have to agree that the current sentiment that many have toward traditional institutions and their experts is that they are not providing enough practical information of benefit to the public. The term “ivory tower” comes up frequently to describe environments such as universities and think tanks. While we need these environments of intellectual pursuit they cannot be seen as disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life. Transparency Matters Do you know where your information is actually coming from? The flow of money into the development of fake news and so-called “experts” who are pushing agendas is tremendous. We’ve seen it recently with the sugar industry — much like the tobacco industry who literally wrote the book on manipulating and re-wrapping expertise and research in the middle of the last century — setting ideas on nutrition back decades. The market is crying out for a more consistent way to discover and evaluate the credibility of experts. We need a quick and trusted way to review their education, background, publications as well as their affiliations. We need to be able to conduct a front-line background check before we give them the platform to share their perspectives on television, radio, or in print. We need to vet the expert before they reach an audience that relies on the information being communicated to form opinions and make critical decisions that affect their lives. Local News Matters Local media is shrinking. Newsrooms are currently being threatened by constant shifts in both consumption and business models. If we are to promote accurate information and win the war on actual facts, we must make it easier for local journalists to do their jobs. Mainstream media still carries a lot of weight, especially online and television where the nightly news reaches a massive audience. Though the ratings are large, the subject matter doesn’t always resonate with viewers at home. We need to do a much better job helping local media get better access to the experts in our organisations so they can localise issues and tell stories, and do it in ways that everyone can understand. For example, a story on national unemployment numbers has a different context in San Francisco than it does in Flint, Michigan. Climate change is impacting Miami a lot differently than it is in the Great Lake states. In the end, all news is local. Speed Matters News is increasingly a speed game. With social media, a 24-hour news cycle, and the race to be first, time is of the essence. But in this game, haste may not only make waste, the truth may be a casualty as well. Most recently Fox News reported on a violent shooting at a mosque in Quebec City, Canada. Six people were killed by a lone gunman. Fox News reported that the suspect was of Moroccan origin — that was false. The shooter was in fact of Canadian origin. It wasn’t until the Canadian Prime Minister’s office requested a retraction that Fox walked the story back…but it took almost two full days. In true Canadian fashion, Kate Purchase, Communications Director for Prime Minister Trudeau thanked Fox News. In the meantime, wrong information was shared across multiple platforms and seen by millions of people. This is when having your experts prepared, media-trained, and trusted internally to speak with media is key. In times of emergency and chaos, it may be the words, advice and perspective of a high-level expert that can calm a nervous public, or at the very least, clearly explain a situation and its outcomes with accuracy and trust. So Why Should This Matter to You? If you are focused on building your market visibility and brand reputation, making your organization’s experts more discoverable and responsive to media is as much a function of good public relations as it is a public service. In these days of fake news, alternate facts, and unclear agendas, an unbiased and objective point of view presented by a credible expert may be one of the few remaining pillars of integrity we have left. Experts bring credibility, reliability, and an elevated level of perspective and advice that the public can trust. It’s up to all of us to ensure our thought leaders rise above the fray and help rebuild the trust that is essential to building a civil society. How is your organization working with its experts to respond to these challenges? I’m particularly interested in speaking with communications and media relations professionals in higher education, healthcare and professional services as our team conducts more research in this area. Let us know what you think by sharing below. I read every comment.
The Many Faces of Expertise: Theres more than one way to define an expert!
As the lead researcher at ExpertFile I spend a lot of my time thinking about the nature of expertise. I often get asked about the criteria that we use to identify experts, and it’s actually a very difficult concept to pin down. One of my favourite services that we provide to our clients is sitting down with them and helping them articulate what exactly “expertise” means to them. Sometimes this is an easy question, sometimes it is very, very difficult. The fact remains that there is no definition of expertise that perfectly encapsulates every organization’s requirements. How do you begin to select your experts to showcase? Well, there are many different ways of exhibiting expertise. A lot of our clients are higher education institutions who are seeking to promote their academics. The evidence demonstrating their unique experience in their respective fields are easily encapsulated in their academic credentials, awards, grants, publications and professional affiliations. Academics are often at the cutting edge of their fields, and are very experienced telling meaningful stories about them. If a reporter is writing a story about the mountains of Pluto, then an astronomer who has dedicated their lives to the study of extra-Neptunian objects is a perfect choice. By contrast, expertise in the corporate realm is more based on personal experience than academic credentials. This significantly differentiates corporate expert marketing programs from higher education. Although education and credentials remain important, it is generally more graded with a personal experience with the topic at hand. For example, a senior engineer at Google (with extensive media experience) would obviously be a tier A source for explaining the science behind contemporary web search engines, despite potentially having no university education in computer science! (Note: Some fields in computer science, such as machine learning, have a much more academic basis). Both the astronomer and computer scientist are clearly experts, but the means that we used to evaluate their expertise are very different. I’m sure that you can see that both academics and practitioners have meaningful comments to add to news reporters. At ExpertFile, we think that the most important skill an expert can have is the ability to distill their domain-specific knowledge into a compelling, relevant and meaningful story. This ability to tell stories transcends experience, or credentials. A Harvard professor may be a nobel prize winner, but unless he can effectively communicate his research to the media and the public, he will not be perceived as an expert. In contrast, a professor at a local community college may have less august credentials, but if they can tell a good story, then they will engage with the public and media much more effectively. In fact, in some cases “lowly” adjuncts bring vibrant life-experiences and direct understanding of the real world applications of academic theory, and may therefore eclipse the atrophied viewpoints of some tenured faculty isolated for decades in the academy. So at ExpertFile, we feel that a balanced representation of both academics and practitioners at every level is crucial for creating a balanced marketplace of experts that is a valuable resource for all our users. Although our platform contains thousands of academics, some from top flight institutions, we also list thousands of incredibly credible, engaging experts with real world, contemporary experience that can often eclipse that of tenured faculty. We are very proud of our network, and curate an active and vibrant community with a diversity of different voices and perspectives on topics of breaking news interest. We don’t open our network to anyone, the ability to distill meaningful and engaging content for others is crucial, so those who are only shilling a product or self-promoting are not welcome. Some people think that only academics belong on an expert network, but at ExpertFile we believe that would exclude many people with extensive expertise. Similarly, it would be the height of elitism for us to restrict our database to tenured academics from top-tier universities. This would do our users a great disservice by removing those voices with a perspectives gained from practical experience.
Pope Francis Calls Consumerism a "Virus," Encourages Prayer and Charity
In an Advent homily on December 1, Pope Francis urged to "choose prayer and charity over consumerism" during the holiday season. "Consumerism is a virus that affects the faith at its root because it makes you believe that life depends only on what you have, and so you forget about God," Francis said. "The meaning of life is not to accumulate." Villanova's experts have weighed in on and provided their thoughts on Francis' latest remarks. Mary Hirschfeld, associate professor of theology and religious studies and author of Aquinas and the Market: Toward a Humane Economy "Francis is echoing the message the Church has consistently given on this. Pope John Paul II warned about thinking of 'progress' as having more. The essence of true progress is being more—growing as a human being, giving oneself more fully to relationships, drawing closer to God. "God created us to find our happiness in Him. We thus do have a longing for the infinite. The modern mistake is to seek that infinite in the finite goods of this life. But that can never satisfy us, which is why we always look for the next thing and the next thing. "The one thing I would ask Pope Francis is whether it is our consumerism that is driving out our desire for God, or are we throwing ourselves into consumerism because we have forgotten about God? It could well be both. But for Christians who find themselves swept up in consumerism it is worth asking whether we are seeking out the distractions of things because we are afraid of turning more fully to God. This might be a fruitful line of prayer this Advent season. "We live in a culture that thinks that happiness consists in getting more. It's built into the economic approach that informs so much public discourse. So, it's not surprising that we all struggle with this. "And plenty of secular people know this is a problem. That's why there have been episodic movements towards 'simple' living. Marie Kondo's popularity is testimony to the fact that we all recognize that 'more' doesn't lead to 'better' or 'happier.'" Eugene McCarraher, associate professor of humanities and author of The Enchantments of Mammon "While I certainly agree with Pope Francis that consumerism is a virus, I don't think it's the most harmful virus with which we have to deal. In fact, I've long thought that consumerism is way of not talking about capitalism. "Capitalism needs consumerism as a structural necessity; capitalists need people to buy a lot of things they either don't need or often don't really want. Hence, the importance of the culture industries such as advertising, marketing and public relations. I also think that criticizing consumerism can end up being a rather tiresome and ineffectual form of moralism. "Wagging a finger at people for being 'materialistic' has never really worked, and besides, material things are both necessary and good; material life should be cherished and savored. The real issue isn't the amount of material goods that people use; it's the nature of the goods and what sort of people their use helps to cultivate. So, while the pope's remarks are certainly true and pertinent, I think we might use them as a starting point for a very different kind of conversation."
Baylor Study: Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) Plus Social Media Connections Can Equal Happiness
FOMO – aka the “fear of missing out” – can have a positive impact on well-being when it leads to social media use that increases social connections, according to a new Baylor University study. James A. Roberts, Ph.D., The Ben H. Williams Professor of Marketing, and Meredith David, Ph.D., assistant professor of marketing in Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business, coauthored the study, “The Social Media Party: Fear of Missing Out (FOMO), Social Media Intensity, Connection, and Well-Being,” published in the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction. Roberts and David collaborate often and are nationally recognized experts on the effects of technology and social media on relationships and well-being. For this collaboration, the researchers conducted two studies consisting of 565 college students from a large U.S. university to determine the effect FOMO has on social media use, social connection to others and psychological well-being. FOMO is defined in the study as apprehension that others might be having a rewarding experience from which one is absent. According to Roberts, approximately 75% of young adults struggle with FOMO. “The human need to belong is an innate drive that dictates much of our behavior. Social media capitalizes on this need to belong,” Roberts said. “Social media has a dual nature. It lets us interact with others, which is good, but it also exposes us to more social opportunities than we can take part in that fosters a sense of missing out and inadequacy.” The study found: FOMO is a significant predictor of subjective well-being, and social media intensity had a slight significant effect on well-being. Social media is an omnipresent conduit for attempting to make such connections. It is likely that FOMO encourages the use of social media to stay connected. From the first study of 107 college students, David and Roberts gathered data to measure FOMO, social media intensity and social connection. Although FOMO typically has a negative connotation on social interactions, the study showed that the fear of missing out can lead to greater feelings of social connection. “We found that FOMO might actually have a positive impact on social connection through its impact on social media intensity and attachment,” Roberts said. “FOMO drives our use of social media to connect socially with others. Being socially connected leads to happier people.” The second study of 458 college students used the same measures, but also included an assessment on subjective well-being (happiness). The study tested their complete conceptual model in which subjective well-being is an ultimate outcome of FOMO (through its impact on social media intensity and social connection). Roberts said that social media can be a positive resource to help those with FOMO create social interactions, if it is being used actively through online actions such as posting, liking and commenting. “The problem is that people often turn to social media but use it passively – such as creeping on people or viewing pages without interacting – which can then lead to lower levels of happiness because creeping does not foster social connection,” Roberts said. “FOMO can lead to happier people if it drives people to use social media to connect but not simply to ‘creep’ on others.” ABOUT THE STUDY AND AUTHORS James A. Roberts, Ph.D., The Ben H. Williams Professor of Marketing, and Meredith David, Ph.D., assistant professor of marketing in Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business, coauthored the study, “The Social Media Party: Fear of Missing Out (FOMO), Social Media Intensity, Connection, and Well-Being,” which is published in the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction. OTHER RESEARCH BY ROBERTS AND DAVID Cellphones Can Damage Romantic Relationships, Lead to Depression People Who Are “Phone Snubbed” By Others Often Turn To Their Own Phones, Social Media For Acceptance Bosses Who “Phone Snub” Their Employees Risk Losing Trust and Engagement When ‘Religiosity’ Competes with Materialism, Charitable Giving Takes a Hit ABOUT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked research institution. The University provides a vibrant campus community for more than 17,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 90 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions. ABOUT HANKAMER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY At Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business, integrity stands shoulder-to-shoulder with analytic and strategic strengths. The School’s top-ranked programs combine rigorous classroom learning, hands-on experience in the real world, a solid foundation in Christian values and a global outlook. Making up approximately 25 percent of the University’s total enrollment, undergraduate students choose from 16 major areas of study. Graduate students choose from full-time, executive or online MBA or other specialized master’s programs, and Ph.D. programs in Information Systems, Entrepreneurship or Health Services Research. The Business School also has campuses located in Austin and Dallas, Texas. Visit www.baylor.edu/business and follow on Twitter at twitter.com/Baylor_Business.
