ImaginativePRO Blog

PARENTAL WARNING: MEDICAL EXPERTS CONFIRM THAT SOCIAL MEDIA CAN BE BAD FOR THE WELL BEING OF YOUR KIDS

Scarcely a week goes by without the news media circulating a questionable, but highly reportable, study purporting to document the ills caused by social media. This week is no exception: the latest entry comes from Case Western Reserve's School of Medicine, with a study warning that excessive use of social media -- specifically, "hypertexting" (sending more than 120 messages per school day) and "hypernetworking" (spending more than three hours per day on sites like Facebook) -- is linked to dangerous health problems and antisocial behavior in teens.

Among the Case Western findings, teens who hypertext are twice as likely to have tried alcohol; 3.5 times more likely to have had sex; 40% more likely to have tried cigarettes; 41% more likely to have used illicit drugs; 43% more likely to be binge drinkers; 55% more likely to have been in a physical fight; and 90% more likely to report four or more sexual partners. Hypernetworkers were 60% more likely to have four or more sexual partners; 62% more likely to have tried cigarettes; 69% more likely to be binge drinkers; 69% more likely to have had sex; 79% more likely to have tried alcohol; 84% more likely to have used illicit drugs; and 94% more likely to have been in a physical fight.

According to lead researcher Scott Frank, "The startling results of this study suggest that when left unchecked texting and other widely popular methods of staying connected can have dangerous health effects on teenagers. This should be a wake-up call for parents to not only help their children stay safe by not texting and driving, but by discouraging excessive use of the cell phone or social websites in general."

This would seem to suggest a causal link between texting and social networking and these negative outcomes -- and Frank speculated in an interview with CNN (but not the study itself) that all the texting and social media use enables "high-tech peer pressure." But he also concedes that the study "does not demonstrate cause and effect," which seems to contradict that statement. In fact, he adds: "We are not saying texting causes these behaviors." So what are we saying? Well, it's kind of ambiguous: "We can recognize that these kinds of connections ... may be facilitating or enabling these kinds of behaviors, but we certainly can't think of (the online connections) as causing them."

"Facilitating" versus "causing" -- perhaps a minor distinction, at first glance. But once you accept that texting and social networks aren't actually causing these behaviors, they become just two more members of a group of correlated behaviors which may describe -- but can't explain -- a certain kind of personality, more prone to engage in risky and self-destructive activity.

Once again, I would argue that excessive social media use and texting are just symptoms of social ills that already existed for some time. It's well known that adolescents, struggling with unstable identities and mood swings, are more likely to engage in self-destructive behavior. I believe behaviors like "hypertexting" and "hypernetworking" are closely related to the sense of incompleteness and insecurity which bedevils many teens (not to mention a good number of adults): like alcohol, tobacco, drugs and sex, they serve to occupy a restless, wandering, attention-seeking personality, which believes itself totally unable to find peace and tranquility on its own terms.

I should also point out that the Case Western study is simply a snapshot of teen behaviors at one moment in time. It doesn't examine changes in these behaviors over time, making it even harder to draw any conclusions about correlation versus causation. On the other hand, many indices for negative behaviors among teens have remained flat over the last decade -- coinciding with the social media boom. The proportion of teens ages 15-19 having sex before marriage has remained stable at 42% from 2002-2010, according to National Survey of Family Growth conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile the proportion of eighth graders who believe smoking marijuana regularly is harmful remained flat at around 70% from 2002-2009, according to a national study by the University of Michigan.

COMMENTARY:    This article confirms my greatest fears -- Zuck is a bad influence and could cause permanent damage to the social, physical and mental well being of your kids.  

Courtesy of an article dated November 10, 2010 appearing in MediaPost Publications The Social Graf

 

2010 CORPORATE 500 EQUALITY INDEX REPORTS ON THE BEST AND WORST PLACES TO WORK IF YOU ARE GAY

Crack data viz designer Tiffany Farrant shows us who's hot and who's not on the Fortune 500 Corporate Equality Index.

If you’re gay, you might want to rethink a job at ExxonMobil. Better yet, ExxonMobil might want to rethink its policy on gays.

The big-oil biz tied with Philip Morris International as the lowest ranking companies in this tremendous multi-part infographic on how LGBT-friendly the top 100 Fortune 500 corporations make their workplaces. Designed by Tiffany Farrant for Meet The Boss TV, the data visualization ranks both individual businesses and entire sectors, drawing up a black-and-white picture of tolerance in corporate America today -- of who has embraced LGBT diversity and who still acts like Stonewall never happened.

The data Farrant used is something called the 2011 Corporate Equality Index (CEI). It was developed by the LGBT civil-rights organization Human Rights Campaign, and it rates companies on a scale of 0 to 100 on criteria like whether they prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, host office-wide LGBT councils, and offer health insurance and other benefits to same-sex partners.

Farrant threw all the indices on a wheel, then colored them neon green, so the more green you see, the better the company’s LGBT policy. She also also arranged businesses around the wheel clockwise, according to their Fortune 500 ranking -- a clever design move, because it shows how they fare compared with companies of similar means. So ExxonMobil, No. 1 on the Fortune 500 list, looks like a jerk next to the others around it (Walmart excluded). The aluminum giant Alcoa (No. 90), on the other hand, looks like a saint. Click the image below for more detail:

Overall, there’s an awful lot of gray, which seems to be a stark indictment of many of the nation’s biggest corporations. Laser in on the criteria they skimp on (see below), and it’s pretty clear that cash is the cardinal concern here. Just 66 percent of the companies offer same-sex partner health insurance, whereas 94 percent provide diversity training. One obviously costs more than the other. This suggests that their half-baked policies are less a matter of unchecked homophobia than good ol’ fashioned nickel and diming.

The good news: Of the 615 companies rated, more than half scored perfect 100s. As Meet The Boss TV reports, that’s a huge improvement over 2002 -- the year the index was introduced -- when just 13 companies got top marks. Clearly, we're seeing lots of progress on equality in the workplace. The legal profession, in particular, is so gay-friendly it may as well wrap a rainbow flag around Lady Justice. ExxonMobile oughta take some lessons from its many, many lawyers.

COMMENTARY:   Big Oil companies, tobacco giant Phillip Morris and aluminum giant Alcoa all scored pathetically low grades. What gives with that shit?  I was surprised that Berkshire Hathaway, News Corp and  the healthcare providers also got low grades.   I was talking with a friend of mine at a national restaurant chain about this, and he told me that many restaurants are the same way.  That thought never occurred to me, until this Corporate 100 gay rating system came out.   It stands to reason that if some companies have a strong anti-gay bias, that they may have racial biases as well.  How did your company fare?

Courtesy of an article dated November 10, 2010 appearing in Fast Company Design 

 

EDUARDO SAVERIN, FACEBOOK CO-FOUNDER, SPEAKS OUT ABOUT ZUCK AND FACEBOOK

 

Eduardo Saverin is media shy, a billionaire and the long-forgotten co-founder of Facebook, at least until Andrew Garfield portrayed him in the film The Social Network. Now he has decided to start speaking out.

Let's look at the characters in the movie, shall we:

In a blog post for CNBC, Saverin uncharacteristically opened up about the experience of having a key part of his life be dramatized on the big screen. While the vast majority of his post is a cheerleader piece on the merits of entrepreneurship and “intellectual capital,” he does admit that he was humbled by the experience of watching someone portray him. He also goes out of his way to praise both Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook’s effect on the world:

“With Facebook, we built a product because we believed in it and its function, and wanted it to exist.

Today, Facebook affects the world in so many more ways than just its initial execution at Harvard. Mark Zuckerberg successfully developed an entirely new world for daily interactions. Today, the Facebook platform brings a social layer to many of the ordinary actions we conduct online everyday.”

Saverin has shied away from the media ever since leaving the company. Saverin was Zuckerberg’s best friend, the company’s first investor, and the original business manager and CFO when it first launched in Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room.

 

Instead of moving out with Zuckerberg to Palo Alto to grow the company though, he decided to work as a finance intern and the two began to have major conflicts over the direction of Facebook. Eventually the company was restructured, leaving Saverin out in the cold. His co-founder title was stripped and his share of Facebook reportedly dropped from 30% to less than 5%, for which he sued Facebook in 2009.

 

Eventually both sides settled and his status as co-founder was restored. He was also awarded roughly 5% of Facebook’s shares, making his net worth somewhere in the range of $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion.

It’s interesting that Saverin has decided to resurface today. He wouldn’t talk to David Kirkpatrick for his book The Facebook Effect. Even his Facebook page is bare; it only has two posts. All it says is that he’s a “technology entrepreneur and investor.”

Perhaps his CNBC piece is just a one-time thing for the reclusive Facebook co-founder, but we think it’s more likely that we’ll see more from Saverin in the coming months. If he has an entrepreneurial project in the works, he certainly knows he can get press, attention and funding for it. We still would like to know more though, such as which parts of The Social Network he thought were inaccurate, the current status of his relationship with Zuckerberg, and what he plans to do next.

COMMENTARY:   One of the dark and murky characters in the story of Facebook is Sean Parker, founder of Napster, who befriended Zuck, and later became Facebook's first CEO, and instrumental in obtaining $500,000 in venture capital.   It was Sean Parker who forced out Eduardo Saverin and instrumental in diluting  Eduardo's 30% equity interest in Facebook to less than 1%.  This is based on information contained in the book "The Accidental Billionaire" by Ben Mezrich.  

Back in March 2009, Facebook employees were notified by letter not to talk to anybody about the movie "The Social Network".  Here's that link for your reading enjoyment.

BTW, I saw the movie "The Social Network", and it zucked.  The only good part in the entire film was those two Asian chicks giving Zuck and Eduardo zuck jobs in a men's room stall.  Eduardo came good, not so sure about Zuck though.  What is this this fetish white dudes have about Asian chicks anyway?   Here's the website link for Brenda Song, one of the Asian cuties in the movie.

Eduardo, just in case you read this, can we connect on Facebook and Twitter.  Seriously, I'm sorry for all the funny jokes I made about you.  

Courtesy of an article dated October 15, 2010 appearing in Mashable/Social Media     

SAN FRANCISCO'S HOTTEST CRIME SPOTS REVEALED AND MAPPED IN 3-D

A stunning set of maps from Doug McCune renders San Francisco crime as elevation.

A stunning set of maps from Doug McCune renders San Francisco crime as elevation. Land peaks and crests, according to the SFPD's 2009 incident data.

The stories told here aren't especially surprising. Certain crimes, like car theft and assault, are more or less evenly distributed across the city (yes, even in Pac Heights), whereas others, like drugs (see below), are confined to specific areas--making for a sort of mini mountain range in the poorer parts of town.

But as a concise guide to San Francisco, these maps beat anything Rand McNally prints. They ought to pass them out at the tourism bureau, so clueless out-of-towners know precisely which neighborhoods to avoid. Or, depending on their tastes, which to frequent.

That's the prostitution map. The smaller of the two peaks is part of the Tenderloin district--hence forth known as Mount Loin--and the larger peak is Shotwell Street, both of whose names suggest that hookers and whimsical happenstance walk the streets of San Francisco side by side.

COMMENTARY:   Location-based mapping at its best.  Hopefully somebody will come up with a crafty iPhone app covering all the major metro's.  Excellent way for citizens and tourists to know where NOT to go.

Courtesy of an article dated June 8, 2010 appearing in Fast Company

I WENT TO SEE "THE SOCIAL NETWORK" MOVIE, AND YOU CAN TRUST ME, IT ZUCKED

Well, I finally saw the Facebook movie.

And I loved it.  <<--sucker, with no taste in movies!!

True, it paints Harvard as  a stuffy cartoon-scape. True, it treats women as as video-game props, sex tools, and platforms for coke-snorting. And, true, Mark Zuckerberg's character comes off as a bit of an asshole. (But based on the other evidence I've seen, this would seem to be a fair representation of the reality at the time. And, thanks to Aaron Sorkin's writing and Jesse Eisenberg's delivery, even the assholishness is charming.)

But all this is secondary to the main message of the movie, which is a celebration of what makes a vibrant corner of our economy--and our country--great.

What's the Facebook movie really about?

It's about a college sophomore who says "fuck you" to authority, follows his passion, and creates something great. In so doing, he works ridiculously hard, inspires his colleagues, blows past the comfortable establishment, and becomes rich beyond belief.

In other words, the Facebook movie is the latest incarnation of the American Dream.

Courtney Comstock argued recently that "The Social Network" is this generation's "Wall Street."  Oliver Stone's 1980s movie, you might recall, was supposed to paint such a repellent image of greed and shallowness of the financial industry that it would drive people people to be productive and actually make things.  Instead, it made a whole generation of college grads desperate to work on Wall Street.

If we're lucky, "The Social Network" will have a similarly galvanizing impact on American entrepreneurship and the technology industry.

The one thing that comes off universally well in the movie, after all, is Facebook--the product that the flawed characters Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, and Sean Parker, et al, create.  Even as the humans in the movie stumble around screwing themselves and each other, in other words, the product of their efforts is presented as insanely great.  And the fact that it makes them all billions--all of them, even the apparently shafted Eduardo--is just icing on the cake.

What the US economy needs right now is more Mark Zuckerbergs--more people willing to follow their passions, forgo convention, and make things that are insanely great.  What we don't need are "final" clubs aristocracy, and established ways of doing things.

With luck, that will be the legacy of the Facebook movie.

COMMENTARY:  I also saw "The Social Network" and found the film very boring, portraying Harvard as a bastian of heavy drinking, coke snorting and hedonism, self-grandized spoiled little brats, with Asian chicks portrayed as opportunistic little whores.  

The Zuck character was shallow and extremely boring.  Nothing like in the book "The Accidental Billionaire".  Entirely too much time was spent in a law firm conference room, with attorney's cross-examining Zuck for stealing the idea for Facebook (then the thefacebook.com)  from their clients, the Winklevoss twins.   I found the latter two character's even more disgusting than Zuck, if that is possible. Those fucking heavily piped suits they wore at the Wembly Regatta after-race party really zucked.  Reminded me of some of those character's from a movie about Yale students trying to get into that Skull Club.

I did find Justin Timberlake's acting very good.  He played Sean Parker, the founder of the over-sued and defunct Napster.   Parker was Facebook's first CEO, before he was canned for partying with teenagers.  Trust me, Sean Parker doesn't look anything like Justin Timberlake.   Timberlake may be nominated for an Academy Award, but I doubt the film will get anymore awards.  

Overall I give "The Social Network" two stars out of five.  What does it say about the social networking generation?  Probably more negative things and positive things.   

Courtesy of an article dated October 8, 2010 appearing in Silicon Alley Insider Business Insider

SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE CORP, A CREEPY STARTUP USED BY EMPLOYERS TO SCREEN APPLICANTS, BY WHAT THEY SAY OR DO ONLINE

A Santa Barbara, Calif., start-up is officially launching a social media screening and monitoring service Tuesday that the nation’s 14.9 million unemployed might want to know about before their next job interview.

Social Intelligence Corp. is essentially taking the traditional background checks that are commonly used by corporate human resource departments to look for things like criminal records and moving them online to track social media networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube, LinkedIn, and individual blogs.

“You cannot believe the things that we see. The amount of references to drugs and alcohol and the amount of provocative photos and the things that people say is jaw dropping,” says Max Drucker, chief executive of Social Intelligence Corp. “People that we see that are applying for jobs that have this kind of really incriminating information out there.”

The background screening services market generates some $3 billion in annual revenue, but Drucker claims that most companies are simply using Google on an ad hoc basis for quick online searches on prospective employees and do little to monitor the online habits of potential and existing employees.

Social Intelligence Corp. takes personal information given to the company by its clients and uses its own software to search the web for user-generated content, collecting a broad array of links and categorizing data to generate matches. The data is reviewed manually by human beings and the company generates a report that only includes information an employer client has requested, filtering out legally sensitive information like a prospective employee’s sexual orientation, race or religion.

Operating as a consumer reporting agency, Social Intelligence Corp. says its social network screening process is compliant with the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The company says it does not engage in old-school spy tactics like social engineering. It does not, for example, try to friend people on Facebook, using only information made available on public profiles.

Federal law enforcement is apparently having trouble meeting its objectives by tracking online social networks. But according to Drucker, his company has had little trouble uncovering dirt on people. He says a person Social Intelligence Corp. investigated online was found to have a threatening photo on a MySpace page showing the individual holding a gun and making an aggressive pose. One investigated person left inappropriate and profane comments on a blog entry and another posted a racist video clip on a message board.

At age 36 Drucker says he founded Social Intelligence Corp. earlier this year and that he is backed by professional money. He declined to identify his financial backers. Drucker previously founded Steal Card, a software development company focused on creating web-based applications for insurance companies that was purchased by ChoicePoint in 2006 for an undisclosed sum. “People need to exercise good judgment and understand what they post publicly is public and an employer has a right to know about it,” says Drucker.

Companies already know a tremendous amount about you in the name of generating credit scores and assessing your risk not only for your employer, but also health insurers, mortgage lenders, banks, and the like. Privacy advocates have been losing battles for years, but outfits like Social Intelligence Corp. are certain to get their fair share of scrutiny.

Drucker claims that the standardized process Social Intelligence Corp is offering is better for everyone since companies have an obligation to assess employment risks. In addition, he rightly claims that it’s undeniable that companies are going to search the web to investigate prospective employees. Drucker says a company is particularly exposed to risk if it’s not conducting proper due diligence on an employee who is publicly behaving on the Internet in a way that indicates risk for the organization.

“You need to understand if you are a publicly-traded company and one of your employees is talking about that company in Yahoo finance message boards,” says Drucker. “If someone drinks alcohol that is not relevant for most employers, but if you are in the transportation industry, you don’t want a truck driver that has pictures of them partying on their Facebook profile.”

COMMENTARY:    I find it amazing the type of startups that the social media revolution is sprouting.  Sooner or later a company like Social Intelligence Corp (what an appropriate name) would rears its ugly head to assist employers in unearthing unsavory or "incriminating" things we are saying online about ourselves, former wives and girlfriends, products, companies, CEO's, etc. or images and videos we are uploading to Internet sites like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.  

Social Intelligence Corp is the type of company that you often associate with the image of "Big Brother", akin to foreign dictatorships, the U.S. federal government and its clandestine organizations like the FBI, CIA, NSA that nose into our personal lives, tap our phone calls and intercept our email, and accumulate huge reams of data about our personal lives, in the hopes of finding something they can use against us.    

It is my understanding from other articles I have read, that employers not only use credit bureau information, but are surfing the Web to find out about us and how we "behave" online, then use that  information to determine whether they want to hire us.   There is something definitely creepy and distasteful about these employer practices, and I believe that we should tighten Internet privacy laws and pass legislation to prevent this invasion into our personal lives 

Mr. Drucker is quoted as saying, "People need to exercise good judgment and understand what they post publicly is public and an employer has a right to know about it.”  I could not disagree more.  This idea that whatever we say or post online can be used as "evidence" against us leaves me wondering whether anyone will ever be hired.  I am sure we have all reluctantly said or posted things online, and I am definitely guilty of this, but to use that information to brand us as unhirable just plain stinks. 

I am in the process of reviewing Social Intelligence Corp's website, and one of their services is Special Intelligence Monitoring.  Here's how Mr. Drucker describes that service:

Once employees have been hired, their online behavior poses a possible threat to your company. Employees may criticize managers or coworkers on a social networking site, post questionable photos on a blog, or regularly update personal sites while on the clock. Therefore, it is vital that employers implement and enforce a strong social media policy.

Social Intelligence offers nearly real-time surveillance of employees’

online behavior (based on e-mail, SMS, and workflow) using customizable reports, summaries, and screenshots to document activity. Findings are prioritized by predefined, color-coded alerts, ensuring that employers see only the information they desire. Consistent monitoring creates awareness and strict adherence among employees, thereby reducing “cyber slacking,” fraud, and negative company publicity. Social media monitoring leads to an increase in overall productivity and a significant improvement in your bottom line.

FEATURES

• Active monitoring of publicly-available employee social media activity
• Real-time notifications and alerts
• Manual review of every flagged incident (of questionable content) by social media experts, prior to company review
• Customizable filters to monitor for company-specific activities
• Simple, easy-to-understand results

BENEFITS

• Limits internal risks and legal liability from inside and outside parties
• Enforces your company’s social media policy
• Protects employees’ privacy while protecting the company
• Avoids potential disasters, such as company leaks and other forms of major corporate embarrassment
• Proactively identifies potential problems before they happen

Boy, the above is truly SCARY, not just CREEPY

If we can block our email addresses and telephone numbers from spammers, we ought to be able to block employers or government organizations from playing the "Big Brother" act on us.  Write to your U.S. Congressman and Senator.  Let's stop this practice before it gets totally out of hand.

Courtesy of an article dated October 2, 2010 appearing in Forbes

 

ZUCK MAKES FORBES' AMERICA'S RICHEST PEOPLE LIST AGAIN, NOW WORTH $6.9 BILLION

Forbes is out with its controversial list of America’s richest people, and there’s a surprise in the techie sphere. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, at No. 35, catapulted past Apple chief Steve Jobs (N. 42) and Google CEO Eric Schmidt (No. 48). Heck, he’s apparently richer–mostly on paper–than seasoned tycoons like News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch (No. 38), Hollywood mogul David Geffen (No. 54) and brokerage baron Charles Schwab (No. 83). Zuckerberg, who last year was listed at No. 158 with a $2 billion net worth, is now sitting on $6.9 billion, according to Forbes, which also profiles the man who “63% of Americans don’t know enough about.” At least Zuck is putting some of his paper-based fortune to use: He’s donating up to $100 million of Facebook stock to the Newark, N.J., school system. Good timing, considering the new movie based on him, The Social Network, casts Zuckerberg in a negative light.

COMMENTARY:  Mark Zuckerberg is worth $7 billion dollars.  When I read the book, "The Accidental Billionaire", the story of Zuck and Facebook, it was mentioned that Zuck had asian fever a.k.a. asian fetish. Hey Mark, one trip to Rio de Janeiro will change all of that.  

Courtesy of an article dated September 23, 2010 appearing in The Wall Street Journal's Venture Capital Dispatch

CRAIGSLIST CANCELS 'PROSTITUTION' ADS, COULD COST THEM $45 MILLION, OTHER SITE'S FILL VOID

The top 10 U.S. sex sites will generate an estimated $63 million in advertising revenues during 2010, according to a new report released by the AIM Group this morning. The report, "Sex Ads: Where The Money Is," is being released on the cusp of a U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee meeting on the sex trafficking of minors, and indicates that Craigslist's decision to pull out of the "adult services" trade is altering the online sex advertising marketplace.

Ads for prostitutes and adult escort services generate "a ton of money," says AIM Group Founder Peter Zollman, noting that, if anything, the group's estimates are "extremely conservative," and that the actual market for online sex ads is much greater.

The Web sites AIM Group analyzed "offer tens of thousands of ads for sex services every day, and many of the second-tier sites are working hard to grab revenue that Craigslist has given up," Zollman states.

Following public scrutiny and potential regulatory pressure, Craigslist pulled out of the adult services advertising business on Sept. 3, a move AIM estimates will cost the site as much as $15 million in prostitution advertising revenues this year. AIM estimates that Craigslist's annual prostitution ad revenues were about $45 million.

AIM says it has been tracking the market since 2003 at the request of an anonymous private non-profit foundation that fights sex trafficking in children and women.

AIM projects that the nine other top 10 sites after Craigslist will generate nearly $33 million this year from an array of sex service ads offering "body rubs," "escort services" and similar thinly disguised prostitution services.

Backpage.com, operated by Village Voice Media, will generate an estimated $17.5 million in online and print prostitution advertising in 2010, AIM projects, making it a distant No. 2 to market leader Craigslist.

Two other sites generated estimated listings revenue of $5.4 million and $2.6 million, with still more revenue from banner ads and other "erotic" services.

"There are hundreds of Web sites where prostitutes advertise, and many of them are likely to grow as the effects of the Craigslist decision play out," Zollman predicts. AIM cited the example of an ad published on Backpage.com that promoted a three-step process for posting ads for $5 on a relatively new site for "adult services."

COMMENTARY:  It's FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, dude.  Craig Newmark, shame on you. You backed down. Now it will cost you $45 million.  What a creampuff.  BTW, bring those SEX ads back.  

Courtesy of an article dated September 15, 2010 appearing in MediaPost Publications Online Media Daily