Social Media Causing A ‘Distancing Phenomena’ To Take Place -

Social Media Causing A ‘Distancing Phenomena’ To Take Place - 



With over 73 percent of online adults now using a social networking site, social media has dramatically impacted the world in both positive and negative ways. It has left many people to wonder how and if social media can mentally affect people.
Lemoyne College professor of psychology Krystine Batcho believes that social media has made changes for the better and also not so great for society.
“Overall we’ve benefited greatly from social media as a society,” Batcho said. “But I think there are a lot of fears of what’s happening that we’ve made interactions with other people too impersonal and a distancing phenomena is taking place.”
Batcho explained that what a person does in cyberspace is quite different than what someone can do face-to-face in an actual conversation.

“Cyber-bullying is a great example of how social media communication differs from face-to-face,” Batcho, who has been a licensed psychologist in New York state for over 30 years, stated. “Studies suggest that it takes place in a more extreme way over social media because the authors feel no responsibility.”
In recent years, there have been several instances where teens and adults have committed suicide because of being bullied over social media by their peers, Batcho added.
“They probably wouldn’t engage in bullying activity if they were face- to-face because of the consequences if they were caught in person by authority figures,” she said. “There’s a lot of ambiguity with social media, especially with the next generation developing social media skills.”
In addition to cyber-bullying via social media, Batcho noted that social media usage by teens and younger kids sparks a greater fear for some in society.
“The greater fear of what’s perhaps taking place is that kids are not learning how to behave in a face-to-face conversation,” Batcho explained. “What could be happening in cyberspace may not translate to real life. What you do you in cyberspace is quite different than what you do face-to-face and kids may be losing those important social skills.”
Michael S. Broder, Ph.D., who is a renowned psychologist and bestselling author, agrees with Batcho.
“I think that with kids, it’s a lot easier to communicate certain things online than it is to in person,” Broder said. “Easier, I mean kids who have a problem relating socially have found a way to avoid learning those skills and I don’t think that’s a good thing at all.”
Broder, who is the author of Stage Climbing: The Shortest Path to Your Highest Potential, added that using social media can have numerous negative outcomes that can affect a person’s mental health.
“The bullying, the things that happen that have unintended consequences, sexting in conversations over social media, and sending nude pictures around, are all things that are permanent once online,” Broder explained. “It’s sent all over the place and these are things that can haunt you 20 to 30 years later. That’s the downside of it and I don’t think there has to be regulations, but parental supervision. Kids don’t seem to think long term when they do those kinds of things.”
Broder, an expert in cognitive behavioral therapy, shared that he has seen several situations where social media has mentally affected people, including some of his adult patients.
“I’ve certainly seen situations where people have had adverse effects when things that they posted and thought that they were going to be seen by just their community of friends, somehow winds up getting more main stream than that it,” Broder said. “It can happen easily and I’ve seen people have real regrets about it.
“I had somebody tell me once in a session, that they really thought Facebook was a good thing, but she thinks they should outlaw it because it cost her her reputation at work,” he added.
According to a Pew Research study, 63 percent of Facebook users visit the site at least once a day with 40 percent doing so multiple times throughout the day. The study also found that roughly 71 percent of online adults are Facebook users as of December 2013.
Batcho feels that there’s no doubt social media, including sites like Facebook, can mentally affect some people.
“There’s no doubt that when social media is used in place of real connections, that it can mentally cause a number of things to happen to them,” she stated. “Many people are talking about an addiction to social media and that people have become dependent on it. It has brought on anxiety and has made some people feel nervous or worried when they can’t access it.”
She added that when people start to view social media relationships in place of or better than real life experiences it could be used as an escape from reality.
“The greater the social media use over time, the life satisfaction decreases,” Batcho asserted. “I think why we have conflicting evidence at the moment is because we have to analyze the dynamics taking place. So for one person, social media could be very beneficial, but for another it could have a very negative impact on them. You have to think about what is motivating the internet experiences people are having in the first place to predict whether they will benefit or not on the relationship.”
Batcho explained that psychologically, real-life interactions and social media interactions do not meet the same needs when compared.
“Real life interactions add a whole extra layer to how people benefit with relationships for other people than cyber ones,” Batcho said.
Both Batcho and Broder agree that social media has more positive benefits for society than negatives citing how news is communicated globally through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and also that people can connect with others across the globe.
“Social media has allowed us to reach far beyond the ordinary fear,” Batcho said. “You can suddenly make social connections with people all over the world, people who share different world views, religions, values, and politics. I think the benefits trump the dangers or risks.”

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http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/04/16/psychologist-social-media-causing-a-distancing-phenomena-to-take-place/

When ‘Liking’ a Brand Online Voids the Right to Sue -

When ‘Liking’ a Brand Online Voids the Right to Sue - 



Might downloading a 50-cent coupon for Cheerios cost you legal rights?

General Mills, the maker of cereals like Cheerios and Chex as well as brands like Bisquick and Betty Crocker, has quietly added language to its website to alert consumers that they give up their right to sue the company if they download coupons, “join” it in online communities like Facebook, enter a company-sponsored sweepstakes or contest or interact with it in a variety of other ways.

Instead, anyone who has received anything that could be construed as a benefit and who then has a dispute with the company over its products will have to use informal negotiation via email or go through arbitration to seek relief, according to the new terms posted on its site.

In language added on Tuesday after The New York Times contacted it about the changes, General Mills seemed to go even further, suggesting that buying its products would bind consumers to those terms.

“We’ve updated our privacy policy,” the company wrote in a thin, gray bar across the top of its home page. “Please note we also have new legal terms which require all disputes related to the purchase or use of any General Mills product or service to be resolved through binding arbitration.”

The change in legal terms, which occurred shortly after a judge refused to dismiss a case brought against the company by consumers in California, made General Mills one of the first, if not the first, major food companies to seek to impose what legal experts call “forced arbitration” on consumers.

“Although this is the first case I’ve seen of a food company moving in this direction, others will follow — why wouldn’t you?” said Julia Duncan, director of federal programs and an arbitration expert at the American Association for Justice, a trade group representing plaintiff trial lawyers. “It’s essentially trying to protect the company from all accountability, even when it lies, or say, an employee deliberately adds broken glass to a product.”

General Mills declined to make anyone available for an interview about the changes. “While it rarely happens, arbitration is an efficient way to resolve disputes — and many companies take a similar approach,” the company said in a statement. “We even cover the cost of arbitration in most cases. So this is just a policy update, and we’ve tried to communicate it in a clear and visible way.”

A growing number of companies have adopted similar policies over the years, especially after a 2011 Supreme Court decision, AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, that paved the way for businesses to bar consumers claiming fraud from joining together in a single arbitration. The decision allowed companies to forbid class-action lawsuits with the use of a standard-form contract requiring that disputes be resolved through the informal mechanism of one-on-one arbitration.

Credit card and mobile phone companies have included such limitations on consumers in their contracts, and in 2008, the magazine Mother Jones published an article about a Whataburger fast-food restaurant that hung a sign on its door warning customers that simply by entering the premises, they agreed to settle disputes through arbitration.

Companies have continued to push for expanded protection against litigation, but legal experts said that a food company trying to limit its customers’ ability to litigate against it raised the stakes in a new way.

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What if a child allergic to peanuts ate a product that contained trace amounts of nuts but mistakenly did not include that information on its packaging? Food recalls for mislabeling, including failures to identify nuts in products, are not uncommon.

“When you’re talking about food, you’re also talking about things that can kill people,” said Scott L. Nelson, a lawyer at Public Citizen, a nonprofit advocacy group. “There is a huge difference in the stakes, between the benefit you’re getting from this supposed contract you’re entering into by, say, using the company’s website to download a coupon, and the rights they’re saying you’re giving up. That makes this agreement a lot broader than others out there.”

Big food companies are concerned about the growing number of consumers filing class-action lawsuits against them over labeling, ingredients and claims of health threats. Almost every major gathering of industry executives has at least one session on fighting litigation.

Last year, General Mills paid $8.5 million to settle lawsuits over positive health claims made on the packaging of its Yoplait Yoplus yogurt, saying it did not agree with the plaintiff’s accusations but wanted to end the litigation. In December 2012, it agreed to settle another suit by taking the word “strawberry” off the packaging label for Strawberry Fruit Roll-Ups, which did not contain strawberries.

General Mills amended its legal terms after a judge in California on March 26 ruled against its motion to dismiss a case brought by two mothers who contended that the company deceptively marketed its Nature Valley products as “natural” when they contained processed and genetically engineered ingredients.

“The front of the Nature Valley products’ packaging prominently displays the term ‘100% Natural’ that could lead a reasonable consumer to believe the products contain only natural ingredients,” wrote the district judge, William H. Orrick.

He wrote that the packaging claim “appears to be false” because the products contain processed ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup and maltodextrin.

Arbitration experts said courts would probably require General Mills to prove that a customer was aware of its new policy before issuing decisions denying legal action against the company.

The policy is so broadly written, lawyers say, that it is likely to raise interesting legal questions.

For instance, on Tuesday an order was placed through the company’s online store for a Cheerios bowl, before General Mills posted the notice about the change to its legal terms on its home page.

At no point did the order system suggest changes had been made to the legal terms governing the buyer. It offered a link to the company’s privacy policy, and two opt-out boxes for receiving promotional materials through email.

Whether a court would rule that, under the new policy, the buyer of the bowl could not sue General Mills was unclear, since the General Mills home page now included a message about the changes it had made to its legal terms.

“A transaction has taken place that, according to General Mills, includes an agreement to submit to informal negotiation or arbitration in the event of a dispute,” Mr. Nelson said.

He said he did not think a court would agree to enforce the policy if a consumer merely visited a General Mills website, “but we really don’t know.”

“You can bet,” he said, “there will be some subpoenas for computer hard drives in the future.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/business/when-liking-a-brand-online-voids-the-right-to-sue.html?hp&_r=1