by Adam Alter
“September” is a: Dan Charnas, “The Song That Never Ends: Why Earth, Wind & Fire’s ‘September’ Sustains,” NPR, September 19, 2014, www.npr.org/2014/09/19/349621429/the-song-that-never-ends-why-earth-wind-fires-september-sustains; interview with Verdine White about the melody and popularity of “September” at Songfacts: www.songfacts.com/blog/interviews/verdine_white_of_earth_wind_fire/.
In October 2014: On Serial and Making a Murderer: Louise Kiernan, “‘Serial’ Podcast Producers Talk Storytelling, Structure and If They Know Whodunnit,” Nieman Storyboard, October 30, 2014, http://niemanstoryboard.org/stories/serial-podcast-producers-talk-storytelling-structure-and-if-they-know-whodunnit/; Jeff Labrecque, “‘Serial’ Podcast Makes Thursdays a Must-Listen Event,” Entertainment Weekly, October 30, 2014, www.ew.com/article/2014/10/30/serial-podcast-thursdays; Josephine Yurcaba, “This American Crime: Sarah Koenig on Her Hit Podcast ‘Serial,’” Rolling Stone, October 24, 2014, www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/sarah-koenig-on-serial-20141024; Maria Elena Fernandez, “‘Serial’: The Highly Addictive Spinoff Podcast of ‘This American Life,’” NBC News, October 30, 2014, www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/viral/serial-highly-addictive-spinoff-podcast-american-life-n235751; John Boone, “The 13 Stages of Being Addicted to ‘Serial,’” ET Online, November 12, 2014, www.etonline.com/news/153862_the_13_stages_of_being_addicted_to_serial/; Yoni Heisler, “‘Making a Murderer’ Is the Most Addictive Show Netflix Has Ever Released,” Yahoo Tech, January 14, 2016, www.yahoo.com/tech/making-murderer-most-addictive-show-netflix-ever-released-143343536.html.
When David Chase: James Greenberg, “This Magic Moment,” Directors Guild of America, Spring 2015, www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/1502-Spring-2015/Shot-to-Remember-The-Sopranos.aspx; Alan Sepinwall, “David Chase Speaks!,” NJ.com, June 11, 2007, blog.nj.com/alltv/2007/06/david_chase_speaks.html; Maureen Ryan, “Are You Kidding Me? That Was the Ending of ‘The Sopranos’?,” Chicago Tribune, June 10, 2007, featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2007/06/are_you_kidding.html.
But, in 2001: Gregory S. Berns, Samuel M. McClure, Giuseppe Pagnoni, and P. Read Montague, “Predictability Modulates Human Brain Response to Reward,” Journal of Neuroscience 21, no. 8 (April 2001): 2793–98. See also: Gregory S. Berns, Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2005).
Darleen Meier, who: Tara Parker-Pope, “This Is Your Brain at the Mall: Why Shopping Makes You Feel So Good,” Wall Street Journal, December 6, 2005, online.wsj.com/ad/article/cigna/SB113382650575214543.html; Amanda M. Fairbanks, “Gilt Addicts Anonymous: The Daily Online Flash Sale Fixation, Huffington Post, December 22, 2011, www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/22/gilt-shopping-addiction_n_1164035.html; Elaheh Nozari, “Inside the Facebook Group for People Addicted to QVC,” The Kernel, January 31, 2016, kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/headline-story/15703/qvc-shopping-addiction-facebook-group/; Darleen Meier’s blog entries: darlingdarleen.com/2010/12/gilt-addic/, darlingdarleen.com/2010/10/gi/; message board posts by Cassandra, another Gilt addict: forum.purseblog.com/general-shopping/woes-of-a-gilt-addict-should-i-ban-658398.html.
Psychologists Eric Johnson: Eric J. Johnson and Daniel Goldstein, “Do Defaults Save Lives?,” Science, 302, no. 5649 (November 2003): 1338–39.
Search term popularity: Netflix research on binge-watching: Kelly West, “Unsurprising: Netflix Survey Indicates People Like to Binge-Watch TV,” CinemaBlend, 2014, www.cinemablend.com/television/Unsurprising-Netflix-Survey-Indicates-People-Like-Binge-Watch-TV-61045.html.
Netflix found similar: John Koblin. “Netflix Studied Your Binge-watching Habit. That Didn’t Take Long,” New York Times, June 8, 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/06/09/business/media/netflix-studied-your-binge-watching-habit-it-didnt-take-long.html; “Netflix & Binge: New Binge Scale Reveals TV Series We Devour and Those We Savor,” Netflix, June 8, 2016. media.netflix.com/en/press-releases/netflix-binge-new-binge-scale-reveals-tv-series-we-devour-and-those-we-savor-1.
CHAPTER 9: SOCIAL INTERACTION
In December 2009: On the divergent fortunes of Instagram and Hipstamatic: Shane Richmond, “Instagram, Hipstamatic, and the Mobile Technology Movement,” Telegraph, August 19, 2011, www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8710979/Instagram-Hipstamatic-and-the-mobile-photography-movement.html; Marty Yawnick, “Q&A: Hipstamatic: The Story Behind the Plastic App with the Golden Shutter,” Life in Lofi, January 7, 2010, lifeinlofi.com/2010/01/07/qa-hipstamatic-the-story-behind-the-plastic-app-with-the-golden-shutter/; Marty Yawnick, “News: Wausau City Pages Uncovers the Real Hipstamatic Backstory?,” Life in Lofi, December 23, 2010, lifeinlofi.com/2010/12/23/news-wausau-city-pages-uncovers-the-real-hipstamatic-backstory/; the (arguably fabricated) “history” of Hipstamatic and original Hipstamatic 100 camera: history.hipstamatic.com/; Libby Plummer, “Hipstamatic: Behind the Lens,” Pocket-lint, November 16, 2010, www.pocket-lint.com/news/106994-hipstamatic-iphone-app-android-interview. Damon Winter’s photos that contributed to Instagram’s early rise: James Estrin, “Finding the Right Tool to Tell a War Story,” New York Times, November 21, 2010, lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/finding-the-right-tool-to-tell-a-war-story/; Katherine Rushton, “Who’s Getting Rich from Facebook’s $1bn Instagram deal?,” Telegraph, April 10, 2012, www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/9195380/Whos-getting-rich-from-Facebooks-1bn-Instagram-deal.html; an excellent article on how Facebook’s purchase of Instagram affected Hipstamatic’s dejected founders: Nicole Carter and Andrew MacLean, “The Photo App Facebook Didn’t Buy: Hipstamatic,” Inc.com, April 12, 2012, www.inc.com/nicole-carter-and-andrew-maclean/photo-app-facebook-didnt-buy-hipstamatic.html; Joanna Stern, “Facebook Buys Instagram for $1 Billion,” ABCNews.com, April 9, 2012, abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/04/facebook-buys-instagram-for-1-billion/.
When students at: David Dunning, Self-Insight: Roadblocks and Detours on the Path to Knowing Thyself (New York: Psychology Press, 2005); David Dunning, Judith A. Meyerowitz, and Amy D. Holzberg, “Ambiguity and Self-Evaluation: The Role of Idiosyncratic Trait Definitions in Self-Serving Assessments of Ability,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57, no. 6 (December 1989): 1082–90.
Psychologists call this the: Roy F. Baumeister, Ellen Bratslavsky, Catrin Finkenauer, and Kathleen D. Vohs, “Bad Is Stronger Than Good,” Review of General Psychology 5, no. 4 (2001): 323–70; Mark D. Pagel, William W. Erdly, and Joseph Becker, “Social Networks: We Get By with (and in Spite of) a Little Help from Our Friends,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 53, no. 4 (October 1987): 793–804; John F. Finch and others, “Positive and Negative Social Ties among Older Adults: Measurement Models and the Prediction of Psychological Distress and Well-Being,” American Journal of Community Psychology 17, no. 5 (October 1989): 585–605; Brenda Major and others, “Mixed Messages: Implications of Social Conflict and Social Support Within Close Relationships for Adjustment to a Stressful Life Event,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 72, no. 6 (June 1997): 1349–63; Amiram D. Vinokur and Michelle van Ryn, “Social Support and Undermining in Close Relationships: Their Independent Effects on the Mental Health of Unemployed Persons,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65, no. 2 (1993): 350–59; Hans Kreitler and Shulamith Kreitler, “Unhappy Memories of the ‘Happy Past’: Studies in Cognitive Dissonance,” British Journal of Psychology 59, no. 2 (May 1968): 157–66; Mark R. Leary, Ellen S. Tambor, Sonja K. Terdal, and Deborah L. Downs, “Self-Esteem As an Interpersonal Monitor: The Sociometer Hypothesis,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 68, no. 3 (1995): 518–30.
Essena O’Neill, a: Elle Hunt, “Essena O’Neill Quits Instagram Claiming Social Media ‘Is Not Real Life,’” Guardian, November 3, 2015, www.theguardian.com/media/2015/nov/03/instagram-star-essena-oneill-quits-2d-life-to-reveal-true-story-behind-images; Megan McCluskey, “Instagram Star Essena O’Neill Breaks Her Silence on Quitting Social Media,” Time, January 5, 2015, time.com/4167856/essena-oneill-breaks-silence-on-quitting-social-media/; O’Neill descri
bes her perspective in this video: Essena O’Neill, “Essena O’Neill—Why I REALLY Am Quitting Social Media,” YouTube, November 3, 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmAbwTQvWX8.
The site, which: On Hot or Not and its founders: Alexia Tsotsis, “Facemash.com, Home of Zuckerberg’s Facebook Predecessor, for Sale,” TechCrunch, October 5, 2010, techcrunch.com/2010/10/05/facemash-sale/; Alan Farnham, “Hot or Not’s Co-Founders: Where Are They Now?,” ABCNews.com, June 2, 2014, abcnews.go.com/Business/founders-hot-today/story?id=23901082; David Pescovitz, “Cool Alumni: HOTorNOT.com Founders James Hong and Jim Young,” Lab Notes, October 1, 2004, coe.berkeley.edu/labnotes/1004/coolalum.html; Liz Gannes, “Hot or Not Creator James Hong Doesn’t Care If He Strikes It Rich or Not with New App,” Recode.net, November 21, 2014. recode.net/2014/11/21/james-hong-doesnt-want-to-be-a-billionaire-but-he-does-want-you-to-think-hes-relevant/.
One user who: Manitou2121 appended the following note below his Hot or Not composite images: “These women do not exist. They each are a composite of about thirty faces that I created to find out the current standard of good looks on the Internet. On the popular Hot or Not website, people rate others’ attractiveness on a scale of 1 to 10. An average score based on hundreds or even thousands of individual ratings takes only a few days to emerge. I collected some photos from the site, sorted them by rank and used SquirlzMorph to create multimorph composites from them. Unlike projects like Face of Tomorrow or Beauty Check where the subjects are posed for the purpose, the portraits are blurry because the source images are low resolution with differences in posture, hair styles, glasses, etc., so that I could use only thiry-six control points for the morphs. What did I conclude about good looks from these virtual faces? First, morphs tend to be prettier than their sources because face asymmetries and skin blemishes average out. However, the low score images show that fat is not attractive. The high scores tend to have narrow faces. I will leave it to you to find more differences and to do a similar project for men.” commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hotornot_comparisons_manitou2121.jpg.
Psychologists call this perfect: Marilynn B. Brewer, “The Social Self: On Being the Same and Different at the Same Time,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 17, no. 5 (October 1991): 475–82; Marilynn B. Brewer and Sonia Roccas, “Individual Values, Social Identity, and Optimal Distinctiveness,” in Individual Self, Relative Self, Collective Self, C. Sedikides & M. Brewer, eds. (Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press, 2001), 219–37.
Hilarie Cash, a: Many of Cash’s ideas on the importance of face-to-face interactions are reflected in: Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon, A General Theory of Love (New York: Random House, 2001).
Cash suggested I: Background on Andy Doan’s ideas and amblyopia: Andrew K. Przybylski, “Electronic Gaming and Psychosocial Adjustment,” Pediatrics, 134, (2014): e716-e722; Colin Blakemore, and Grahame F. Cooper, “Development of the Brain Depends on the Visual Environment,” Nature 228 (October 1970): 477–78; Wilder Penfield and Lamar Roberts, Speech and Brain-Mechanisms (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959).
One study found: Details on the study are available at the iKeepSafe website: ikeepsafe.org/be-a-pro/balance/too-much-time-online/.
CHAPTER 10: NIPPING ADDICTIONS AT BIRTH
In the summer of 2012: Experiment and background literature on the summer of 2012: Yalda T. Uhls and others, “Five Days at Outdoor Education Camp Without Screens Improves Preteen Skills with Nonverbal Emotion Cues,” Computers in Human Behavior 39 (October 2014): 387–92; Sandra L. Hofferth, “Home Media and Children’s Achievement and Behavior,” Child Development 81, no. 5 (September–October 2010): 1598–1619; Internet World Stats: www.Internetworldstats.com/stats.htm; Victoria J. Rideout, Ulla G. Foehr, and Donald F. Roberts, Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds (Menlo Park: CA: Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010); Amanda Lenhart, Teens, Smartphones & Texting (Washingon, DC: Pew Research Center, 2010); Jay N. Giedd, “The Digital Revolution and Adolescent Brain Evolution,” Journal of Adolescent Health 51, no. 2 (August 2012): 101–5; Stephen Nowicki and John Carton, “The Measurement of Emotional Intensity from Facial Expressions,” Journal of Social Psychology 133, no. 5 (November 1993): 749–50; Stephen Nowicki, Manual for the Receptive Tests of the DANVA2. To find sample items from the DANVA test, including the adult test, see: psychology.emory.edu/labs/interpersonal/Adult/danva.swf.
Why shouldn’t kids: In preparing this chapter, I read dozens of reports on screen exposure among kids. They explored not only whether kids should be exposed to screens, but when exposure should begin, how much was okay, and how screens should be introduced. These reports and references include: Claire Lerner and Rachel Barr, “Screen Sense: Setting the Record Straight,” 2014, www.zerotothree.org/parenting-resources/screen-sense-setting-the-record-straight; in particular, see this exchange at the Huffington Post, which consisted of one column decrying screens, and two replies that challenged and clarified the original column: Cris Rowan, “10 Reasons Why Handheld Devices Should Be Banned for Children under 12,” Huffington Post, March 6, 2014, m.huffpost.com/us/entry/10-reasons-why-handheld-devices-should-be-banned_b_4899218.html, David Kleeman, “10 Reasons Why We Need Research Literacy, Not Scare Columns,” Huffington Post, March 11, 2014, www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kleeman/10-reasons-why-we-need-re_b_4940987.html, Lisa Nielsen, “10 Points Where the Research Behind Banning Handheld Devices in Children Is Flawed,” Huffington Post, March 24, 2014, www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-nielsen/10-reasons-why-the-resear_b_5004413.html?1395687657; UserExperiencesWorks, “A Magazine Is an iPad That Does Not Work,” YouTube, October 6, 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXV-yaFmQNk; American Academy of Pediatrics, “Media and Children,” 2015, www.aap.org/en-us/advocacy-and-policy/aap-health-initiatives/pages/media-and-children.aspx; Lisa Guernsey, “Common-Sense, Science-Based Advice on Toddler Screen Time,” Slate, November 13, 2014, www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/11/zero_to_three_issues_common_sense_advice_on_toddler_screen_time.html; Farhad Manjoo, “Go Ahead, a Little TV Won’t Hurt Him,” Slate, October 12, 2011, www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/10/how_much_tv_should_kids_watch_why_doctors_prohibitions_on_screen.html; Kaiser Foundation, “The Media Family: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers, Preschoolers, and Their Parents,” 2006, kaiserfamilyfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/7500.pdf; Erika Hoff, “How Social Contexts Support and Shape Language Development,” Developmental Review 26, no. 1 (March 2006): 55–88; Nancy Darling and Laurence Steinberg, “Parenting Style As Context: An Integrative Model,” Psychological Bulletin 113, no. 3 (1993): 487–96; Annie Bernier, Stephanie M. Carlson, and Natasha Whipple, “From External Regulation to Self-Regulation: Early Parenting Precursors of Young Children’s Executive Functioning,” Child Development 81, no. 1 (January 2010): 326–39; Susan H. Landry, Karen E. Smith, and Paul R. Swank, “The Importance of Parenting During Early Childhood for School-Age Development,” Developmental Neuropsychology 24, nos. 2–3 (2003): 559–91; Sarah Roseberry, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, and Roberta M. Golinkoff, “Skype Me! Socially Contingent Interactions Help Toddlers Learn Language,” Child Development 85, no. 3 (May–June 2014): 956–70; Angeline S. Lillard and Jennifer Peterson, “The Immediate Impact of Different Types of Television on Young Children’s Executive Function,” Pediatrics 128, No. 4 (October 2011): 644–49; N. Brito, R. Barr, P. McIntyre, and G. Simcock, “Long-Term Transfer of Learning from Books and Video During Toddlerhood,” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111, no. 1 (January 2012): 108–19; Rachel Barr and Harlene Hayne, “Developmental Changes in Imitation from Television During Infancy,” Child Development 70, no. 5 (September–October 1999): 1067–81; Jane E. Brody, “Screen Addiction Is Taking a Toll on Children,” New York Times, July 6, 2015, well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/06/screen-addiction-is-taking-a-toll-on-children/; Conor Dougherty, “Addicted to Your Phone? There’s Help for That,” New York Times, July 11, 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/sunday-review/addicted-to-your-phone-theres-help-for-th
at.html; Alejandrina Cristia and Amanda Seidl, “Parental Reports on Touch Screen Use in Early Childhood,” Plos One 10(6) (2015): e0128338, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0128338; C. S. Green and D. Bavelier, “Exercising Your Brain: A Review of Human Brain Plasticity and Training-Induced Learning,” Psychology and Aging 23, no. 4 (December 2008): 692–701; Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and others, “Putting Education in ‘Educational’ Apps: Lessons from the Science of Learning, Psychological Science in the Public Interest 16, no. 1 (2015): 3–34; Deborah L. Linebarger, Rachel Barr, Matthew A. Lapierre, and Jessica T. Piotrowski, “Associations Between Parenting, Media Use, Cumulative Risk, and Children’s Executive Functioning,” Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics 35, no. 6 (July–August 2014): 367–77; Jessi Hempel, “How about a Social Media Sabbatical? Wired Readers Weigh In,” Wired, August 5, 2015, www.wired.com/2015/08/social-media-sabbatical-wired-readers-weigh/; “‘Digital Amnesia’ Leaves Us Vulnerable, Survey Suggests,” CBC News, October 8, 2015, www.cbc.ca/news/technology/digital-amnesia-kaspersky-1.3262600 (link to the report available in the body of the article.)
(David Denby, a: David Denby, “Do Teens Read Seriously Anymore?,” New Yorker, February 23, 2016, www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/books-smell-like-old-people-the-decline-of-teen-reading.
The M.I.T. psychologist: See: Sherry Turkle, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age (New York: Penguin Press, 2015); Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (New York: Basic Books, 2011).
Catherine Steiner-Adair, the psychologist: Catherine Steiner-Adair, The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age (New York: Harper, 2013).
