Over the last decade, research has focused on studying predictive personality traits that may underlie bullying. Two such traits are self-esteem and narcissism. Self-esteem is associated with overall acceptance of oneself, feelings of worthiness and self-confidence. Low self-esteem has long been theorized to be a risk factor for aggression and antisocial behavior . Likewise, the […]
Social networks and digital platforms allow adolescents to interact with each other and to develop and maintain positive interpersonal relationships and support networks that are critical in their development. In general, teens benefit from socialization opportunities such as keeping in touch, sharing images, or interchanging ideas. In addition, social networking encourages participation, creative expression, and […]
Most internet users are by now aware of the vulnerability of their personal data. When the news broke that tech companies misuse and manipulate our personal data, there was a widespread “techlash” against the corporate giants Facebook, Amazon and Google. The explicit motive for data harvesting is the prediction of consumer wants and needs. And […]
Machine-learning systems are increasingly worming their way through our everyday lives, challenging our moral and social values and the rules that govern them. These days, virtual assistants threaten the privacy of the home; news recommenders shape the way we understand the world; risk-prediction systems tip social workers on which children to protect from abuse; while […]
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the number of people studying Ukrainian on Duolingo, a language learning website and mobile app, has increased by more than 500%. Most of those who are taking up Ukrainian are probably unaware that there is a long-running controversy about this particular form of speech. One side views […]
Witchcraft involves the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, those accused of witchcraft were usually women who were believed to have attacked their own community and often to be in communion with evil beings. Witchcraft powers were acquired by inheritance or initiation […]
In the mid-1990s, there was research going on at Stanford University that would change the way we think about computers. The Media Equation experiments were simple: participants were asked to interact with a computer that acted socially for a few minutes after which, they were asked to give feedback about the interaction. Participants would provide […]
The transformation of a bundle of more or less deep insights on a few voting procedures, as we saw in a preceding entry, into something like a general logico-mathematical theory about the aggregation of individual preferences into a collective choice was the work of a single man, Kenneth Arrow, in his 1951 book Social choice […]
In 2000 and 2001, the use of child slaves on cocoa farms in West Africa was exposed in a series of documentaries and pieces of investigative journalism, sparking an international outcry . This series of events was far from unprecedented. As discussed in my paper, since the 19th century, when cocoa was first introduced to […]
That collective decisions made through voting may lead to some weird consequences is something probably well known since the first time one tribe started to use some kind of voting in order to reach an agreement. Contrarily to what happens in many other areas of human wisdom, we don’t have any deep reflections on the […]