News by Subject Social & Behavior

A study by NTU Singapore has found that as the type of COVID-19 misinformation rectified by Singapore's mainstream news media evolved over the course of the pandemic, the role played by the media in debunking those myths became increasingly important to citizens in the nation's fight to manage the outbreak.

When it comes to what users share on Twitter, women and users who never attended college voluntarily disclose more personal information than users from other socioeconomic and demographic backgrounds -- potentially making these populations more susceptible to online privacy threats, according to a recent study led by the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology.

New research from Aarhus BSS at Aarhus University shows that openness about the effectiveness and side effects of vaccines bolster confidence in the health authorities, and this is a crucial factor if we are to defeat the coronavirus pandemic.

How the media frame stories about science affects the public's perception about scientific accuracy and reliability, and one particular type of narrative can help ameliorate the harm to science's reputation sometimes caused by different journalistic approaches to scientific storytelling, according to a new study led by a University at Buffalo researcher.

Scientists gain insight into how citizen participation in science is practised in Spain and propose a series of recommendations for its improvement.

Sleep deprivation - from lifestyle choices, pandemic stress, or late-night computer study - can quickly lead to loss of energy and function during the day and even feelings of anger and depression, an Australian sleep institute study has shown. The study, led by Flinders University, asked 34 health teenagers (20 males) aged between 15 and 17 to spent 10 days and nine nights in a specially designed sleep centre.

There is no scientific evidence that shows that smartphones and digital technology harm our biological cognitive abilities.

When the analysis of digital data reaches its limits, methods that focus on observations made by individuals can be useful. In contexts such as the coronavirus pandemic, a method called human social sensing can elicit information that is difficult to obtain from digital trace data. Prof. Frauke Kreuter at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich is now using this method with the global "Covid Trends & Impact Survey" to predict the course of the pandemic.

Researchers have long documented a link between threat sensitivity and social conservatism. However, a new UCLA study found Republicans' and independents' inclinations to embrace protective behaviors (mask-wearing, physical distancing, sanitizing) in response to the COVID-19 threat in proportion to their degree of conservatism were overruled by distrust in science and liberal-moderate info sources, as well as a focus on negative economic impacts of lockdowns and perceived infringement upon personal liberties.