The relationship between social media use and sleep quality among undergraduate students

Insufficient sleep is a growing health problem among university students, especially for freshmen during their first quarter/semester of college. Little research has studied how social media technologies impact sleep quality among college students. This study aims to determine the relationship between social media use and sleep quality among freshman undergraduates during their first quarter in college. Specifically, we explored whether variations in Twitter use across the time of day and day of the week would be associated with self-reported sleep quality. We conducted a study of freshman Twitter-using students (N?=?197) over their first quarter of college, between October and December of 2015. We collected students’ tweets, labeled the content of the tweets according to different emotional states, and gave theme weekly surveys on sleep quality. Tweeting more frequently on weekday late nights was associated with lower sleep quality (β?=??0.937, SE?=?0.352); tweeting more frequently on weekday evenings was associated with better quality sleep (β?=?0.189, SE?=?0.097). Tweets during the weekday that were labeled related to the emotion of fear were associated with lower sleep quality (β?=??0.302, SE?=?0.131). Results suggest that social media use is associated with sleep quality among students. Results provided can be used to inform future interventions to improve sleep quality among college students.     

Tests for an end-of-sample bubble in financial time series

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we examine the issue of detecting explosive behavior in economic and financial time series when an explosive episode is both ongoing at the end of the sample and of finite length. We propose a testing strategy based on a subsampling method in which a suitable test statistic is calculated on a finite number of end-of-sample observations, with a critical value obtained using subsample test statistics calculated on the remaining observations. This approach also has the practical advantage that, by virtue of how the critical values are obtained, it can deliver tests which are robust to, among other things, conditional heteroskedasticity and serial correlation in the driving shocks. We also explore modifications of the raw statistics to account for unconditional heteroskedasticity using studentization and a White-type correction. We evaluate the finite sample size and power properties of our proposed procedures and find that they offer promising levels of power, suggesting the possibility for earlier detection of end-of-sample bubble episodes compared to existing procedures.     

Defamilization/familization measures and women's pension income—The case of Taiwan

This paper examines how defamilization and familization measures can affect women's capacity to accumulate pension income and their subsequent standard of living after retirement. Firstly, it highlights the concepts of defamilization and familization and discusses the potential of these measures in assisting women to save pension income through the “commodification” and “decommodification” of labor. Secondly, it examines the major pension policies and examples of defamilization and familization measures in Taiwan. It shows how the current limited provision of such measures could create “double jeopardy” for women, affecting access to paid employment or resources to enable women who wish to undertake caring responsibilities to do so, ultimately impacting their capacity to accumulate pension income. Thirdly, it suggests ways to strengthen defamilization and familization measures in order to enable women to accumulate sufficient retirement income on the basis of three preconditions: policy attention to the reciprocal relationship between familization/defamilization measures and pension schemes for women; a recognition of differences between women in their preferred strategies to accumulate pension income; and an emphasis on a life course perspective to understand the double jeopardies faced by women in saving for retirement.     

The Role of Gay Identity Confusion and Outness in Sex-Seeking on Mobile Dating Apps Among Men Who Have Sex With Men: A Conditional Process Analysis

Mobile dating apps are now a popular platform for men who have sex with men (MSM) to connect with others. Based on the uses and gratifications (U&G) theory, this study explores the relationship between sex-seeking and the number of casual sex partners met through MSM-based mobile dating apps (Grindr, Jack’d, and SCRUFF). The conditional process analysis (N = 401) shows that this relationship was significant and was mediated by the intensity of app use. That is, sex-seeking indirectly affected the number of casual sex partners through the intensity of app use. Furthermore, gay identity confusion and outness to the world moderated this indirect effect: it was stronger when the user was either more confused about his sexuality or was less out to the world. This research introduces an alternative way to incorporate psychographics variables into the U&G framework.     

Theorizing New Media: Reflexivity,Knowledge, and the Web 2.0*

A recent wave of popular and scholarly discourse has hailed the arrival of the Web 2.0, marking a new generation of Internet users who share and collaborate on popular social networking sites such as MySpace and user‐generated communities such as YouTube and Wikipedia. Social and cultural critics have attempted to take stock of the implications of these various technological changes with specific emphasis on the state of knowledge in contemporary society. This article aims to theoretically examine knowledge in the context of new media technologies with particular attention paid to the notion of “reflexivity.” Focusing on the work of Scott Lash, whose theory of reflexivity radically differs from various other interpretations, I suggest that knowledge, in its modern formulation—as reasoned, stable, and linear—must be rethought for the information age, critiquing some of the predominant scholarly and popular media criticisms that suggests media to be mere enhancements of human forms of communication, knowledge, and sense‐making. I conclude by considering some of the ontological dimensions of the transformations in the dynamics of knowledge in new media technologies.     

A case for using adaptive platforms in the development and implementation of urban-centred adaptive management plans

The recurring challenges in developing and coordinating social frameworks for the effective adaptive management of environmental resources in urban environments may be addressed by developing platforms, similar to those promoted by collective action in the management of common pool resources. This paper compares how these two frameworks perceive and foster social organization vis-à-vis management action, particularly at the local scale of resource use. The significant potential for incorporation of platforms into the adaptive management framework is discussed, based on a set of issues identified in collective action research as important in the development of platforms. An urban-centred case study, the Las Vegas Wash Comprehensive Adaptive Management Plan, illustrates how an adaptive management framework, when its social components come together in a mutually supportive, heuristic way, begins to generate what in collective action is called a platform. The paper further explores how platforms may be more explicitly incorporated into the adaptive management framework to address some of the more persistent social organization difficulties for which adaptive management has been faulted, especially regarding scale issues and the urban context. A revised adaptive management model including a platform is provided, and suggestions made about issues that may be studied using this model.     

The optimal majority with an endogenous status quo

Using the voting procedure proposed by Baron (1996), the consequences are examined of changing the majority required to change legislation. When the majority required is greater than fifty percent, and when voters behave strategically, the first policy proposed (on a stationary equilibrium path) is never defeated subsequently. Which policy gets proposed first depends on which voter gets to make the first proposal. But increasing the required majority induces a mean–preserving spread on the distribution of these policies, if voters' types are distributed symmetrically. Thus before the voting procedure begins, voters would prefer unanimously to see the required majority reduced. I would like to thank an anonymous referee, and an associate editor of this journal, for very helpful comments.     

FEAR IN THE NEWS

Fear pervades popular culture and the news media. Whether used as a noun, verb, adverb, or adjective, an ongoing study finds that the word "fear'pervades news reports across all sections of newspapers, and is shown to move or "travel'from one topic to another. The use of fear and the thematic emphases spawned by entertainment formats are consistent with a "discourse of fear,'or the pervasive communication, symbolic awareness and expectation that danger and risk are a central feature of the effective environment. A qualitative content analysis of a decade of news coverage in The Arizona Republic and several other major American news media (e.g., the Los Angeles Times , and ABC News) reveals that the word "fear'appears more often than it did several years ago, particularly in headlines, where its use has more than doubled. Comparative materials obtained through the Lexis/Nexis information base also reveals that certain themes are associated with a shifting focus of fear over the years (e.g., violence, drugs, AIDS), with the most recent increases associated with reports about children. Analysis suggests that this use of fear is consistent with popular culture oriented to pursuing a "problem frame'and entertainment formats, which also have social implications for social policy and reliance on formal agents of social control.     

LEADERSHIP AND MEMBERSHIP IN THE NUCLEAR FREEZE MOVEMENT:

Participation in social movement activities is distinguished from occupancy of leadership positions in social movement organizations. Two alternative theoretical models derived from the resource mobilization literature, the progression and circulation models, are summarized and their implications regarding participation and leadership are specified. Hypotheses are enumerated for the explanatory factors of individual's self-interest and resources; attitudes, beliefs, and ideology; past organizational experience; background characteristics; and the nature of the association of the individual to the organization. Particular attention is paid to areas where the theoretical models indicate different relationships between the explanatory factors and the outcome variables of participation level and leadership status, and critical tests between the two models are specified. The hypotheses and critical tests are applied to data gathered from a survey of participants in the Cleveland nuclear freeze organization. Self-interest, resource and background characteristics are not found to be associated with either participation level or leadership status. Past experiences and beliefs are important in determining participation levels whereas leadership status is largely explained by the nature of organizational-individual association. The results of the critical testing indicate the circulation model fits the data better than the progression model. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed and some additional factors helpful in explaining the results are considered.