Category Archives: Human Behavior

Human Behavior

AI And Remote Monitoring Technologies Play A Critical Role In Tackling Pandemics Like The COVID-19 – BW Businessworld

In December 2019, Canada-based Artificial Intelligence backed platform BlueDot spotted a cluster of pneumonia-like illnesses spreading in Wuhan, China. Scanning health data from multiple sources, the platform was able to identify the contagion, warning its clients about an impending global outbreak. BluDots prediction came much before WHO officially warned the world about the novel coronavirus threat.

AI-based data analytics and predictive modelling techniques give an in-depth insight into the spread of diseases and helps forecast future outbreaks in time to be able to prevent them. This is just one example of how the use of Artificial Intelligence is helping the human race identify, tackle and manage such diseases. To be fair, the world is not new to pandemics. In fact, over the past 10 years a series of such outbreaks have jolted the world --- be it SARS, Ebola, Nipah or COVID -19 -- the latest and the most devastating of zoonotic diseases to have hit the globe. While the world is still grossly under-prepared to deal with such pandemics, new age digital and Artificial Intelligence backed technology using biosensors and remote monitoring is offering remarkable new ways to tackle such health crisis.

Much like other fields, AI has also boosted healthcare with intelligent machines that can emulate human behavior, offer greater precision and can analyze loads of scattered data and make sense of it. According to a market research, the global artificial intelligence in healthcare market is expected to reach USD 31.3 billion by 2025.

Some factors fueling this surge include increasing adoption of precision medicine, use of big data in healthcare and co-opting of cost cutting technologies in healthcare.

Speeding diagnosis and flattening the disease curve

With faster diagnosis critical to containing the disease spread and flattening the curve, Artificial Intelligence backed interventions are emerging key solutions in the global fight against COVID-19. A number of new AI-based inventions are helping the medical fraternity improve its diagnosis capability. Researchers in China have claimed to have successfully used AI to diagnose COVID-19 from CT Scans of lungs, which is a much faster diagnostic solution that the sputum test currently being used. Another set of researchers in the US and UK have developed an AI model that can predict whether someone is likely to have COVID-19 based on their symptoms. According to the researchers this may provide help for populations where access to testing is limited.

Similarly, a team of biotechnology students and a professor from Mumbai has claimed to have developed an AI tool to test COVID-19 through voice-based diagnosis using a smartphone.

Clearly, AI based tools offer the new age solution to diagnose, tackle and address such pandemics in the future.

Mass screening of patients

Experience has shown that countries that were successful in widening their testing net were the ones that fared better in the fight against COVID-19. A wider testing net allows access to more accurate information about disease penetration and Spread. This in turn allows for better informed policy decisions. Screening of people in public places, offices, hospitals or public transport systems such as airports, railway stations etc is another area that needs to be taken seriously. Accurate screening can allow authorities to better curtail entry of suspected people ad contain the disease spread. However, thermally screening thousands of people every day at such joints is an uphill difficult task and also raises the threat of a large crowd gathering in waiting queues to be screened. AI-based mass screening technology can be an effective answer to this. In fact, Baidu, a Chinese multinational has already built AI-based solutions to effectively screen large populations and detect a change in their body temperature while they are on the move. This system can examine about 200 people per minute without disrupting the flow of people. Such technologies are ideal to be implemented in crowded areas, hospitals, railway stations, airports, etc to quickly identify suspected patients and quarantine them.

In Israel, a health insurance providing organization is using AI technology to run a data screening on its members to identify those who are most at risk of severe COVID-19 complications. This tool draws upon data such as age, BMI, existing health conditions and previous history of hospital admissions to spot at-risk individuals and fast track their diagnosis.

Effective monitoring of patients

Another critical usage of AI technology is in improving treatment outcomes and installing better patient monitoring mechanisms. COVID-19 patients, particularly those deemed high risk, need constant monitoring of health parameters. However, with hospitals inundated with patients, manual monitoring of patients is not easy. AI based tools offer a valuable solution to automate monitoring of patients parameters such as heart rate, temperature, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, among others. Digital solutions such as the ones created by Helyxon in collaboration with IIT Madras are helping hospitals across the world institute better patient monitoring mechanisms. Not just in hospitals, these digital systems offer an effective way to monitor patients quarantined at home as well. Helyxons devices use biosensors and keep a track of the bodys vital parameters. The devices keep a track of the spikes and aberrations and whenever an anomaly is observed a system-generated call alert is made to the user while an automatic escalation to the local provider is done. Interestingly, the devices are also equipped with Geo-fencing tracking alerts to keep a track of patients movements and ensure isolated patients do not violate the provisions of quarantine.

Use of AI platforms, biosensor devices and remote monitoring technologies is helping create better disease management protocols by improving diagnosis, screening and monitoring drives. The use of such technology has also made it easier for researchers to find relevant data and studies to acquire new insights or approaches to address the COVID-19 outbreak.

Here is the original post:
AI And Remote Monitoring Technologies Play A Critical Role In Tackling Pandemics Like The COVID-19 - BW Businessworld

Human Behavior

Confronting Past and Present Evils with Constructive Responses – The Times of Israel

The evils imposed on us by this weeks crisis might be better channeled into proactive rather than reactive measures designed to foment hatred at institutions designed to serve and protect all the people. Although sincerely motivated, grandiose acts of protests such as rallies and marches must be weighed against staying safe during this pandemic.

How then can we who are filled with horror express our intense desire to seek an immediate justice for those responsible for the unjust killing of a handcuffed African-American? The video of this tragic event vividly captures a police officer holding a mans neck in a choke-hold with his knee. That man, George Floyd, gasped that he could not breathe. Yet, the officer did nothing to ease the fatal pressure. Nor did the other three officers who just stood by and watched. The actions of the four are recorded for all to watch and hear the reality of racism being carried out, yet again, to its extreme. The question posed now, is how to best respond and achieve some lasting changes in the system? Pandemic crisis notwithstanding, surely fairness, morality and ethical behavior is the stuff that law is made of in democratic societies. A zero tolerance for acts of abuse should be the standard of practice of any police department in any place or time. Complete transparency of all who serve should be a matter of public record.

A heartfelt sorrow goes out to the victim, to George Floyds family and friends, and to all those in the past who had to pay the ultimate price for racists in power. Still, whatever our color, religion or ethnicity, we cannot go out and advocate a take-over of streets, shops and businesses, along with breaking windows and otherwise giving vent to deep-seated feelings of injustice. In the words of black business leader Robert Woodson, The violent protests in Minneapolis and around the country are devastating the people in whose name they demand justice.

That said, is it too much to ask that we will learn from what we see? Whether in time of crisis or not, public pressure expressed through social media, TV and newspapers, should be placed on any agency or institution to immediately fire any official who uses his or her authority to practice discrimination. In cases where physical harm is committed, the offender should face a court of law.

Dr. Bernice King reminded us recently of her fathers enduring message in the power of togetherness that we all must stand together and fight injustice by non-violent methods. We want to change things and we want it now. But change never comes through violence. It is not a solution. Violence in fact creates more violence. The black mayor of Minneapolis understood this notion of standing together. Mayor Jacob Frey did not state that it is the right of retribution for blacks and other minorities who have been singled out for abuse by those agencies designed to protect the people. Instead he speaks of what is right for our city, our community.

Jews are no strangers to acts of bias, hatred and murder. Six million paid the ultimate price when bigotry was the legal order of the day. In the years since World War II, we have witnessed three generations of a resurgence of anti-Semitic outbreaks and hate crimes. Perhaps the massive media coverage that the coronavirus has generated will also focus light on the odious breakdown of just and moral human behavior. Perhaps had there been press coverage of what was known or surmised about where the trainloads of Jews were heading, they could not have operated so effectively. Let us ensure that never happens again. Let us speak up individually and collectively for justice and for peace and work together to prevail over racism and prejudice without resorting to violence.

Dr. Karen Sutton is associate professor of history at the Lander College for Women, a division of Touro College, in New York City.

View original post here:
Confronting Past and Present Evils with Constructive Responses - The Times of Israel

Human Behavior

Anxiety in kids: Symptoms and solutions – Reviewed

All kids have worries and fears. In typical times, a scary movie may inspire a week of a child running to your bedroom to sleep, a big neighborhood dog may alter your walking route for months, and a new school year may result in weeks of worry. Oftentimes, anxiety triggers will come and go in children, but the disruption of children's lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic and other events is causing heightened and prolonged anxiety in children.

"Everybody's baseline is changing right now and kids are feeling that. They are looking for grounding. They are looking to connect," says John Piacentini, Ph.D., ABPP and the director of both the Center for Child Anxiety, Resilience, Education and Support (CARES) and the Child OCD, Anxiety and Tic Disorders Program at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior.

If your younger child is more clingy, is regressing in sleep, or if bathroom accidents and baby-talk have suddenly reemerged after both seemed long behind you, you aren't alone.

Since so many routines of daily life are on hold and children's means of emotional outlets, like playgrounds, playdates, and after-school programs, are off-limits, you may have started to see the telltale signs of anxious behavior in your child. If your younger child is more clingy, is regressing in sleep, or if bathroom accidents and baby-talk have suddenly reemerged after both seemed long behind you, you aren't alone.

"Children are seeking predictability and control and we see anxious, aggressive, and regressive behaviors when they feel out of control or overwhelmed," says Lynn Lyons, LICSW and the author of Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents: 7 Ways to Stop the Worry Cycle and Raise Courageous and Independent Children.

Credit: Getty Images / Melpomenem

Look for more tantrums when kids are anxious.

Stress and anxiety can show up in all kinds of ways in children of all ages. You may see tantrums, irritability, aggression, anger, andcommonlyregressive behaviors. "Regression is not unusual in normal times, and these are not normal times. Development isnt a straight line, but we do see these behaviors when a child is stressed or there is a lot of change going on, says Lyons.

Sleep regression and bathroom training regressions are common in smaller children, but according to the experts we spoke to, all children can experience some form of regression in times of high stress. For older kids, you may see them lose confidence in tasks they've mastered, their sleep may be disrupted, or they may ask for more help than usual with their homework. When you see clinginess at any age it could be a sign of a child feeling anxious or distressed.

Look for kids avoiding tasks that may have been second nature a few months ago.

Piacentini also says to look for physical symptoms, like nausea and headaches, and he points out that avoidance behaviors are also a sign of stress. An older child may resist filling out applications or finishing their homework, and a younger one may resist washing their hands, picking up toys, or leaving the house. Look for kids avoiding tasks that may have been second nature a few months ago.

According to Piacentini, anxiety is completely normal. Its expected in new challenges or situations. "Anxiety is a part of our existence. It serves to keep us safe," he says. You may now see kids lashing out and showing belligerent or angry behaviors, and this is their way of dealing with something that they can't fully comprehend.

He says that now is not the time to focus on what they may say or do, but why they may be doing it. "This is really a time for empathy and connection. It's OK for you to acknowledge their feelings and let them know that Mommy and Daddy feel that way, too. If a child is anxious and a parent reacts with their own anxiety or anger it can lead to worsening a kid's anxiety. Now is the time to be predictable and as even-keeled as possible with our kids."

Both Lyons and Piacentini advise parents to take a look at themselves and what sort of anxiety they might be having that they are passing on to their children. "I put a big emphasis on parental behaviors," says Lyons. "Little kids dont really know whats going on right now. They arent picking up the details of what's on the news. They are picking up on their parents' behaviors and older kids are using parents as means for knowing how much to worry," says Lyons.

"If you are emotionally reactive your children will absorb that and they'll give it back to you in their own way."

She advises that parents pay attention to the emotional tone they set in the home. "You really want to pay attention to catastrophic language. What are they hearing on the news and what are they hearing when you're talking to your partner? Are you a worrier? If so, the first step is to manage that," she says. Lyons recommends that parents really pay attention to their own facial expressions, body language, and the tone of how they speak. "If you are emotionally reactive your children will absorb that and they'll give it back to you in their own way," she says.

During anxious times, children are looking to parents for grounding. It can be tempting for parents to throw structure out the window when a child is showing signs of stress, but all of the experts we spoke to say it's important to maintain structure when kids are feeling like their world is out of control.

"Kids are more dependent on parents than ever right now, and parents need to be predictable," says Piacentini. He says if a child is feeling sad or upset, it shouldn't mean that they can avoid what they are expected to do. "If we give in to their anxiety and let them get out of what they need to do, we are rewarding the anxiety." He recommends staying on routine, giving choices, and rewarding children for making a positive effort. "Kids need to stay active and they need to keep doing what we expect them to do."

He says you can build in choice to make them feel more in control, but only give them choices that you are comfortable with, such as you can eat the carrots or the tomatoes, or you can get dressed before you brush your teeth or after. If your child doesn't want to sleep in their own bed, or they are avoiding cleaning up after play time, it may seem like giving into those little habits aren't a big deal, but Piacentini says that the more the negative habits are reinforced the more insidious they become. "Maintain the rules, structures and routines that have always been in place. You can give a little leeway, you can give extra comfort and support, but don't fully collapse the structure," he says.

Credit: Getty Images / fizkes

Take the time to talk with your children about their concerns.

Lyons cautions that trying to eliminate worry is the furthest thing from productive. As soon as you try to eliminate worry and anxiety you exacerbate it. "When parents try to fix things and try to make worry go away they feed into it," says Lyons. "The more you try to get rid of worry the stronger it gets."

She says it's natural to want to jump in and prevent distress, but when we do so we turn anxiety and fear into a beast that needs to be avoided. She recommends talking with kids in simple terms and letting them know that there is uncertainty all around us and that it's scary but it's also OK to be uncertain. "It's OK not to have all the answers for your child. Let them work through their questions and let them know that you are OK without knowing the outcome. It's a fact of life that we aren't always going to be able to predict the future and it's a skill or kids to learn to be OK with that," says Lyons.

Credit: Getty Images / fizkes

Connect with your children through daily play.

Schedules are awry and parents are overwhelmed but now is really the time to factor in any connection time you can. According to Jeanine Rousso, LMHC, LPC, RPT-S a play therapist in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, when you give time for cuddles, or stop to play, it helps to stop a child's nervous system from going into fight or flight mode.

"If everyone is stressed and high anxiety, then that's where the kids are going to be during this time. If you're able to stop, connect, play with them, and cuddle them, that's how you can protect them against feeling trauma during this time," says Rousso.

When you give time for cuddles, or stop to play, it helps to stop a child's nervous system from going into fight or flight mode.

She recommends daily connection in the form of play and 30 minutes per week, per child, of what she calls "hardcore play." "Its rare that a kid will talk through their anxiety. Play can be such a great way for kids to process things," she says. She recommends 100% child-lead play. "This is their time for them to feel in control. Don't ask questions, don't give suggestions. Just allow them to take the lead." If youre looking for ideas, consider some of our favorite outdoor games that kids and adults enjoy.

Rousso also recommends play that can redirect a child's behavior. She likes play that focuses on breathing techniques. "I like to encourage kids to blow out a pretend cup of hot chocolate. Or get them blowing bubbles. Incorporate deep breaths into play to help them calm and redirect themselves."

If your child lashes out or if they struggle with simple tasks that they seemed to master in the past, it may be tempting to scold them or put pressure on them to complete tasks expected of them in the way they've always done. It's OK to cave in and help them when they are asking for your support.

When they are asking for help cleaning their room or washing their hands, or when they are having a hard time going to sleep or they are wetting their pants, they are exhibiting stress in those moments as a stand-in for the overall stress they are feeling, says Lyons. "It's OK to be with them and to reassure them," she says. "I like to say, 'It looks like you are having a rough time, what can we do about that?' and offer help. If they are showing anger, offer them support, have them sit on your lap and have a hug and then get up together to help them do what they need to do."

Help a child into bed and tell them you'll be back in five minutes to check on them. Hand them the toys to clean their room. Stand by them as they wash their hands and reassure them they are doing it just right. This isn't about rewarding bad behavior, it's about understanding your child's way of communicating stress when they aren't able to find the words themselves.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is, these behaviors aren't personal and they aren't about your child disrespecting you or the rules you have at home. "It may be hard to hear but they are most likely reflecting your stress back at you in the only way they know how," says Lyons.

If a parent is anxious or distressed, angry or disconnected, the likely of that child having anxiety is greater. "These things are contagious. Check your own distress and what you are demonstrating to your child. If you can remind yourself to remain calm when your child is exhibiting stressful behaviors, you are teaching your child how to respond more positively to stress."

Originally posted here:
Anxiety in kids: Symptoms and solutions - Reviewed

Human Behavior

Much Nothing about Ado: The Uselessness of Dehumanized Darwinism – Discovery Institute

Humans are mere animals in Darwinian thinking. The same evolutionary mechanisms and selective pressures that make fruit flies cooperate, or fish to swarm, or rams to bash their heads together, cause Homo sapiens to form political parties, revolt against kings, or cheer at baseball games. Human exceptionalism is omitted from their equations. According to Darwinians, every human behavior, as well as every fish behavior or fruit fly behavior or chimpanzee behavior, is a consequence of natural selection. If this premise were scientific, evolutionary anthropologists should be able to model human behavior and make predictions.

Suppose a scientist tells you about his new model. It goes like this:

If we assume X, then Y might result under particular circumstances, as long as we hold A constant, as Dr. Wizard surmised in his widely accepted model of the evolution of human and non-human animal behavior H. But according to our revised model, the situation is more complex. It turns out that B is a function of C, which affects A in unpredictable ways, resulting in chaotic behavior, depending on whether selection is taken into account. When selection is not considered, stable cyclic behavior is a possible outcome, at least in some studies, but those models do not correlate with field observations. Our revised model finds that D(E) has been overlooked, which is likely influenced by F(P), and since A is not always constant, as has been assumed, one might get a stable equilibrium, or a cycle, or chaos, depending on the weather. Its complicated.

Are you impressed by this advance toward the scientific understanding of human nature?

Something very similar to it was just published in PNAS by four scientists from Stanford and Tel Aviv Universities pretending to explain Cultural evolution of conformity and anticonformity. Conformity might be illustrated by a fruit fly imitating its neighbors behavior, or a teen following what the other teens are doing. Anticonformity might be a bird leaving the flock, or a man defying his states coronavirus lockdown guidelines. To Kaleda Krebs Denton, Yoav Ram, Uri Liberman, and Marcus W. Feldman, the subjects in the population make no difference, because Were all in this [Darwinian thing] together.

The evolutionary dynamics of cultural variants under conformist- and anticonformist-biased transmission have implications for humans and nonhuman animals. Humans display both conformist and anticonformist biases, and models of conformist-biased transmission have been proposed to explain large-scale human cooperation. Nonhuman animals have been shown to display conformist biases in mating and foraging decisions. Here, we investigate established mathematical models of conformist and anticonformist bias with and without selection and find complex dynamics, including multiple stable polymorphic equilibria, stable cycles, and chaos. [Emphasis added.]

This paper illustrates two things: (1) Darwinian theory is utterly useless when applied to human behavior, and (2) no amount of mathematical hand-waving can fix bad premises.

Admittedly, there may be a little predictability to human behavior in regard to conformity. When a wave starts in a football stadium, most people (but not all) will cheerfully join in to keep it going. Every parent worries about peer pressure their offspring will face at college. Military recruits are drilled to obey orders, fearing the bad consequences of disobedience. But people are not fish! Papers like this one relegate humans to pawns of evolutionary forces. Its a denial of free will. And its absurd; if a person conforms, natural selection did it. If the person does not conform, natural selection did that, too. Natural selection is Darwins catch-all explanation for everything, even opposite things. Daniel Dennett called it a universal acid, but didnt catch the fact that it dissolves its container, too evolutionary theory itself! In the end, it explains absolutely nothing.

Nave readers of this PNAS paper might be intimidated by the math. You can ignore the following example paragraph, because it is so vague, it has nothing to do with the real world. Human behavior is a subject that matters to all of us, but this Darwinian approach to behavior signifies much nothing (emptiness) about ado (fuss, or busy activity about something that matters). To borrow another line from Shakespeare, it is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The real message is in the theory rescue words between the symbols:

It might be expected that if p=12 is the unique polymorphic equilibrium, then either p=0 and p=1 are both stable and p=12 is not stable, or both p=0 and p=1 are not stable and p=12 is stable, since it is a protected polymorphism. In fact, when p=0 and p=1 are both stable, there is global convergence to one of them; p=12 is not stable, such that [0,12) is the domain of attraction of p=0 and (12,1] that of p=1. However, when both p=0 and p=1 are not stable, then even when p=12 is the unique polymorphic equilibrium, it is possible that p=12 is not stable. For example, following Eq. B8 in SI Appendix, section B, let n=1+(12)n2n1j=kD(j)n(nj)(2jn). From Eq. 4, the lower bound of n occurs when D(j)=j for all kjn1, in which case all of the D(j) s are negative and p=12 is unique by Result 3. SI Appendix, Table S1 presents the lower bounds on n for n=3,4,,20. The bounds on D, namely, j

On and on this paper goes, manipulating symbols this way and that, qualifying every situation with exceptions, ending with a final dramatic letdown:

Our detailed analysis of the two-population case without selection illustrates how complex the relationship between migration and conformist transmission can be. If the conformity coefficients are the same in both populations, two polymorphic equilibria other than (12,12), as well as the fixation states (0,0) and (1,1), can be stable if the migration rate is less than 18 and the conformity coefficient is large enough (Eq. 64). However, if this coefficient is small enough, only the fixation states are stable.

Thus the claim that conformist transmission generates a population-level process that creates and maintains group boundaries and cultural differences through time (ref. 4, p. 231) is not always true.

Does their model make any predictions? No. Is it falsifiable? No. Did it advance human understanding in any measurable way? Certainly not. In fact, it undermined earlier models that tried to do the same thing by noting more exceptions and omissions. Whatever it is trying to model is critically dependent on unprovable assumptions and false premises, namely, that humans are mere animals. It is hard to find any redeeming value in this exercise, and yet the NAS printed it gleefully, because it is Darwinian.

Theres a stronger reason for dismissing this paper. As Nancy Pearcey has shown on ID the Future, Darwinians almost always fail to apply their own models to themselves. If these four authors really believed their own assumptions, the act of writing the paper was a consequence of natural selection, too. They didnt mean any of it. They were not searching for unbiased truth. They merely wanted to boost their own fitness, and the best way to do it was to take the conformist position on Darwinism. One could go further and say their minds were not even involved; the words on the page came about by selection pressure.

Another article in PNAS is downright scary. In an article on Science and Culture (sound familiar?), David Adam advocates spinning fictions by scientists. The title is, Science and Culture: Design fiction skirts reality to provoke discussion and debate. By design fiction, he means that researchers are learning how to create fake realities, in order to watch how humans react. He starts with an example:

In October 2015, researchers presented an unusual paper at a computer science conference in London. The paper described the promising results of a pilot project in which a local community used surveillance drones to enforce car parking restrictions and to identify dog owners who failed to clean up after their pets. Controlled by four elderly retirees, the drones buzzed around the city and directed council officials on the ground.

The paper and its accompanying video generated lively discussion about the ethics and regulation of drone use among delegates at the CHI PLAY conference. But there was a catch: The paper, the video, and the pilot scheme were fictional, as the researchers admitted at the end of both the paper and the presentation.

David Adam doesnt appear to have any ethical qualms about misleading people in this way. It generated lively discussion, thats all. The ethical qualms were about drone use not about the fictional scheme, and fibbing for science. The experiment was provocative by design.

Design fiction is one of a number of overlapping terms that have emerged in the last decade or so to describe the process by which designers, researchers, artists, engineers, and technologists devise and sometimes present or publish scenarios to provoke debate.

Is that not like evidence that Russians are trying to divide Americans by provoking discord from both sides of the aisle? The popular YouTube channel Smarter Every Day spoke with the leading social media giants to show how the Internet is filled with bots using high tech to manipulate public opinion. What if science journals did that? What if they decided never to reveal that their design fiction research was all fictional? Who could trust any research ever again?

Circling around, why not just dismiss the PNAS paper about the evolution of conformity and call it design fiction? If it is fine for the researchers to dissemble, it is fine for their readers to dismiss it as Darwinian fiction. Were onto them. We are human beings. We dont get pushed around by blind, unguided processes like natural selection. We use our minds. If they respond with the claim that natural selection nudged you into the anticonformist position, we can counter with, And natural selection nudged you to write this paper.

Photo: Football fans do The Wave at the University of Michigan, by Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA / CC BY-SA.

See more here:
Much Nothing about Ado: The Uselessness of Dehumanized Darwinism - Discovery Institute

Human Behavior

What Jobs Can I Get With a PhD in Human Behavior? | Work …

The study of human behavior encompasses a variety of disciplines, including psychology, sociology, human development and behavior analysis. Because a doctorate in human behavior offers expert knowledge in mental disorders, social behaviors and relationships, it is suitable for careers in human and social service workers, as well as academia.

A career in human services might encompass a number of jobs, from counselors, community planners and behavior specialists to advocates who champion certain causes and consultants who provide expertise to social services agencies and other clients. Experienced human service workers should find plenty of advancement opportunities once they receive a doctorate in human behavior. For example, this advanced degree can better prepare someone to train, motivate and manage others. Consequently, she might pursue a career as a program administrator, director of development, director of advocacy, or executive director of a non-profit group or social services agency.

Most people with a Ph.D. in human behavior teach at the undergraduate and graduate level. In addition to teaching basic classes in psychology, some advanced courses might also be taught. This includes classes in organizational behavior, social psychology, human development, behavioral research and abnormal psychology. Along with teaching college, those with a Ph.D. in human behavior can find work as guest lecturers, motivational speakers or professional seminar leaders.

A300 mobile placeholder

Many behavioral scientists work in the private sector. Most often they are employed in human resources, corporate training, sales or organizational development. They might use their knowledge of human behavior to build teams, implement corporate policy changes, develop training and leadership programs, create a marketing strategy, or recruit talented individuals.

Human behavior doctoral programs provide extensive education and knowledge in certain areas of research. This includes training in statistics, research methodology and behavioral assessment. Those with a Ph.D. in human behavior can pursue research job opportunities at colleges, government agencies, non-profit foundations and law enforcement department. For example, they might work as researchers or analysts in the field of criminal profiling and forensics.

See the original post:
What Jobs Can I Get With a PhD in Human Behavior? | Work ...

Human Behavior

Should you fly yet? Here’s what an epidemiologist and an exposure scientist say – CNN

Editor's Note The views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer. CNN is showcasing the work of The Conversation, a collaboration between journalists and academics to provide news analysis and commentary. The content is produced solely by The Conversation.

(CNN) We don't know about you, but we're ready to travel. And that typically means flying.

We have been thinking through this issue as moms and as an exposure scientist and infectious disease epidemiologist. While we've decided personally that we're not going to fly right now, we will walk you through our thought process on what to consider and how to minimize your risks.

Why the fear of flying?

The primary concern with flying -- or traveling by bus or train -- is sitting within six feet of an infected person. Remember: Even asymptomatic people can transmit. Your risk of infection directly corresponds to your dose of exposure, which is determined by your duration of time exposed and the amount of virus-contaminated droplets in the air.

A secondary concern is contact with contaminated surfaces. When an infected person contaminates a shared armrest, airport restroom handle, seat tray or other item, the virus can survive for hours though it degrades over time. If you touch that surface and then touch your mouth or nose, you put yourself at risk of infection.

Before you book, think

While there is no way to make air travel 100% safe, there are ways to make it safer. It's important to think through the particulars for each trip.

One approach to your decision-making is to use what occupational health experts call the hierarchy of controls. This approach does two things. It focuses on strategies to control exposures close to the source. Second, it minimizes how much you have to rely on individual human behavior to control exposure. It's important to remember you may be infectious and everyone around you may also be infectious.

The best way to control exposure is to eliminate the hazard. Since we cannot eliminate the new coronavirus, ask yourself if you can eliminate the trip. Think extra hard if you are older or have preexisting conditions, or if you are going to visit someone in that position.

If you are healthy and those you visit are healthy, think about ways to substitute the hazard. Is it possible to drive? This would allow you to have more control over minimizing your exposures, particularly if the distance is less than a day of travel.

You're going, now what?

If you choose to fly, check out airlines' policies on seating and boarding. Some are minimizing capacity and spacing passengers by not using middle seats and having empty rows. Others are boarding from the back of the plane. Some that were criticized for filling their planes to capacity have announced plans to allow customers to cancel their flights if the flight goes over 70% passenger seating capacity.

Federal and state guidance is changing constantly, so make sure you look up the most recent guidance from government agencies and the airlines and airport you are using for additional advice, and current policies or restrictions.

While this may sound counterintuitive, consider booking multiple, shorter flights. This will decrease the likelihood of having to use the lavatory and the duration of exposure to an infectious person on the plane.

After you book, select a window seat if possible. If you consider the six-foot radius circle around you, having a wall on one side would directly reduce the number of people you are exposed to during the flight in half, not to mention all the people going up and down the aisle.

Also, check out your airline to see their engineering controls that are designed or put into practice to isolate hazards. These include ventilation systems, on-board barriers and electrostatic disinfectant sprays on flights.

When the ventilation system on planes is operating, planes have a very high ratio of outside fresh air to recirculated air -- about 10 times higher than most commercial buildings. Plus, most planes' ventilation systems have HEPA filters. These are at least 99.9% effective at removing particles that are 0.3 microns in diameter and more efficient at removing both smaller and larger particles.

A passenger at Pittsburgh International Airport travels through security on May 7, 2020.

Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

How to be safe from shuttle to seat

From checking in, to going through security to boarding, you will be touching many surfaces. To minimize risk:

Bring hand wipes to disinfect surfaces such as your seat belt and your personal belongings, like your passport. If you cannot find hand wipes, bring a small washcloth soaked in a bleach solution in a zip bag. This would probably freak TSA out less than your personal spray bottle, and viruses are not likely to grow on a cloth with a bleach solution. But remember: More bleach is not better and can be unsafe. You only need one tablespoon in four cups of water to be effective.

Bring plastic zip bags for personal items that others may handle, such as your ID. Bring extra bags so you can put these things in a new bag after you get the chance to disinfect them.

Wash your hands or use hand sanitizer as often as you can. While soap and water is most effective, hand sanitizer is helpful after you wash to get any parts you may have missed.

Once you get to your window seat, stay put.

Wear a mask. If you already have an N95 respirator, consider using it but others can also provide protection. We do not recommend purchasing N95 until health care workers have an adequate supply. Technically, it should also be tested to make sure you have a good fit. We do not recommend the use of gloves, as that can lead to a false sense of security and has been associated with reduced hand hygiene practices.

If you are thinking about flying with kids, there are special considerations. Getting a young child to adhere to wearing a mask and maintaining good hygiene behaviors at home is hard enough; it may be impossible to do so when flying. Children under 2 should not wear a mask.

Each day, we are all constantly faced with decisions about our own personal comfort with risk. Arming yourself with specific knowledge about your airport and airline, and maximizing your use of protective measures that you have control over, can reduce your risk. A good analogy might be that every time you get in the car to drive somewhere there is risk of an accident, but there is a big difference between driving the speed limit with your seat belt on and driving blindfolded, 60 miles an hour through the middle of town.

Paloma Beamer is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at University of Arizona. She is President of the International Society of Exposure Science, a not-for-profit organization and receives funding from NIH, EPA, Agricola Alta Pozo Manuel and the Pima County Health Department.

Read this article:
Should you fly yet? Here's what an epidemiologist and an exposure scientist say - CNN

Human Behavior

Social Science in the Time of COVID: A Conversation with Caltech’s Ralph Adolphs – Pasadena Now

Editors note: This piece is part of ancontinuing serieson Caltech scientists who are researching the COVID-19 pandemic, each according to their own specialty. From biology, to chemistry, to social sciences, and computing, the keys to fighting the disease are waiting to be discovered.

In times of crisis and uncertainty, it is often a human tendency to look for someone to blame and fear as well as someone to trust and follow. Stress and uncertainty also cause a range of emotions and biases in decision making, leading people to generally become more conservative and risk averse. This influences a host of social behaviors, from altruism and acts of kindness, to voting in politics, to compliance withor protest againstthe very regulations that are being imposed to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ralph Adolphs, Caltechs Bren Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Biology, usually conducts research on human volunteers at the Caltech Brain Imaging Center (which he also directs) to try to understand how the fundamental biology of the brain, as revealed through neural activity, produces the breadth of human feelings, abilities, and these social behaviors. But now, amid months of stay-at-home orders that have kept human subjects off campus and out of his lab, Adolphs has teamed up with several colleagues to craft a long-term internet-based study that examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced peoples emotions, attitudes, and biases. Over the course of the year, they will collect a robust trove of data, and although analysis of that data is just starting, they hope what they find will be helpful to social scientists and those designing public policy in the future.

Collaborators on the project includeMichael Alvarez, professor of political and computational social science at Caltech; Gideon Yaffe of Yale Law School; and former Caltech colleagues Damian Stanley (now faculty at the Derner School of Psychology at Adelphi University in New York) and Uri Maoz (now faculty at nearby Chapman University).

We recently spoke to Adolphs about the research he is conducting and what he hopes to learn.

We think that many, many psychological variables will change, and so we are trying to measure most of them. This includes emotions, daily behaviors, attitudes of many kinds, and also biases that influence peoples behavior but of which they are often unaware. Its been well studied that people are biased against those who are not like themselves. For example, Republicans and Democrats are biased against one another, as are people of different religions. Among other things, we are interested in how those kinds of biases will change as a result of what people see in the news and the world around them.

All this psychological change also speaks to a larger unanswered question. We all know that some psychological variables can change easily and quicklyfor instance momentary emotions. But others, like personality traits, seem more resistant to change, at least on a short timescale. Given a huge and persistent stressor like the COVID pandemic, how much can we expect people to actually change? In a sense, this is allowing us to map out which parts of a person can change and what parts stay fairly immutable no matter how much the environment changes.

Experiments in the social sciences are difficult because you have a lot of confounding factors that make it difficult to isolate a cause and because you often have rather weak effects. Additionally, in most studies, participants just know that its an experiment, not the real thing. But now with the COVID pandemic, everyone in the country has been exposed to a major stressor with real consequences, and this is an opportunity to study how that is affecting them.

Were doing an ambitious and expensive longitudinal data collection. Each week, over the internet, we are asking the same questions of the same 1,000-plus people from all 50 states. We are asking about their identification with various political, religious, racial, ethnic, and social groupsas well as about their experiences related to COVID, adherence to public health recommendations, and trust in political and scientific leadersand about various psychological factors such as personality, mood, and coping behaviors. For example, we are acquiring detailed measurements of peoples emotions, through a number of questionnaires that assess a range of emotions. How do peoples emotions reflect the COVID-related regulations in their state and county? Do people become happier when parks and beaches are opened up again, or do some of them actually become more anxious? By relating the outcomes of these assessments to the large amount of background data we have on the participants, we can build models that provide better explanations. It might turn out that people with certain personality traits are the ones that become anxious rather than happy when parks open, and our data could test that.

We have done six waves of data collection by now, and our hope is to track these 1,000 people and their attitudes through the rest of the year. Its going to be a really unique data set, and we plan to make all the data available for other researchers to use as well.

There are lots of large databases similar to ours, but, to the best of my knowledge, none like this in response to the COVID pandemic. In general, social scientists measure only a few variables, not the full array of surveys and tasks that we have in our study. Several of the tasks in our study were designed specifically to probe psychological change in relation to COVID-related topicsfor instance, change in peoples attitudes toward masks or toward health care workers. The longitudinal nature of the study is also noteworthy. There are sophisticated data analysis tools that social scientists at Caltech use to build quantitative models of human behavior; one main limitation is that you need a lot of data. Well, well have that data now.

We hope that a lot of the information we collect will be useful to people developing public health policy. We need basic data about what kinds of changes people are willing to make to their behavior and what kinds of attitudes, emotions, and context could best persuade them to do so. For instance, wearing face masks has not been a social norm in America, but this is changing in some groups. Why? What motivates that change? Who is most resistant to it? What factors could we identify to maximize compliance?

But as I mentioned, the study is collecting such a rich array of measures that I think it will be a treasure trove for social scientists on quite a number of topics: Which psychological variables can change rapidly, and which are stable over time? How are emotions and social attitudes influencing political partisanship, and how will all these psychological changes influence our upcoming federal elections? By collecting all of these measures on every one of our participants, repeatedly over time, we will be able to look not only at how peoples psychology can change over time but also at how all the different psychological variables influence one another.

Adolphs is an affiliated faculty member of theTianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience.

Further description of the study and the group can be found athttp://conte.caltech.edu/content/covid-dynamic

Details on the questionnaires and tasks can be found athttps://osf.io/sb6qx.

Get all the latest Pasadena news, more than 10 fresh stories daily, 7 days a week at 7 a.m.

Here is the original post:
Social Science in the Time of COVID: A Conversation with Caltech's Ralph Adolphs - Pasadena Now

Human Behavior

Young Children’s Use of Smartphones and Tablets | American Academy of Pediatrics – AAP News

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Child mobile device use is increasingly prevalent, but research is limited by parent-report survey methods that may not capture the complex ways devices are used. We aimed to implement mobile device sampling, a set of novel methods for objectively measuring child mobile device use.

METHODS: We recruited 346 English-speaking parents and guardians of children aged 3 to 5 years to take part in a prospective cohort study of child media use. All interactions with participants were through e-mail, online surveys, and mobile device sampling; we used a passive-sensing application (Chronicle) in Android devices and screenshots of the battery feature in iOS devices. Baseline data were analyzed to describe usage behaviors and compare sampling output with parent-reported duration of use.

RESULTS: The sample comprised 126 Android users (35 tablets, 91 smartphones) and 220 iOS users (143 tablets, 77 smartphones); 35.0% of children had their own device. The most commonly used applications were YouTube, YouTube Kids, Internet browser, quick search or Siri, and streaming video services. Average daily usage among the 121 children with their own device was 115.3 minutes/day (SD 115.1; range 0.20632.5) and was similar between Android and iOS devices. Compared with mobile device sampling output, most parents underestimated (35.7%) or overestimated (34.8%) their childs use.

CONCLUSIONS: Mobile device sampling is an unobtrusive and accurate method for assessing mobile device use. Parent-reported duration of mobile device use in young children has low accuracy, and use of objective measures is needed in future research.

Previous studies of young childrens mobile device use rely on parent recall or time-use diaries, which may be inaccurate or carry high participant burden. No previous studies in children have harnessed application usage data already collected by mobile devices.

Mobile device sampling (passive sensing for Android and screenshots from iOS devices) is an acceptable and feasible objective method for assessing mobile device use. Parent-reported duration of their childs mobile device use had low accuracy compared with objective output.

Childrens use of mobile and interactive media has increased rapidly over the past decade.1 Recent estimates reveal that the majority of parents own smartphones,2 on which they allow their children to play games or watch videos. Up to 75% of young children have their own tablets,3 and infants are estimated to start handling mobile devices during the first year of life,1 but research on modern media has been limited by a lack of precise measurement tools.

Research on traditional screen media, such as television, historically used parent recall of child media use duration to test associations with outcomes such as sleep problems, obesity, and externalizing behavior.4 Similarly, studies of the benefits of educational television programming relied on parent recall and content analysis of linear, noninteractive programs.5,6 As the proportion of time that children spend on mobile platforms increases,1 media researchers are posed with a challenge of measuring on-demand, portable, and intermittent mobile device usage.7,8 Participant recall accuracy of mobile device use may be low because exposure occurs in small bursts8 (less likely to be remembered than longer interactions9), and parents may find it difficult to monitor content when children use handheld devices individually.10

Mobile devices collect usage data that could feasibly be harnessed for the purposes of research studies. Analysis of various data streams (eg, accelerometer, Bluetooth, location) has been used in public health research to predict patterns of human behavior11 but collects more data than is necessary for the purposes of media use measurement. In a few studies, researchers have used commercially available or prototype applications (apps) (ie, created by researchers) to test hypotheses in adults regarding mental health and smartphone use12 or motivations for using different apps,13 but no previous research has been conducted by using similar measures on the devices of children. Harnessing mobile data from childrens devices may provide more accurate data collection with lower participant and researcher burden.

Our objective for the current study was to implement novel mobile device sampling methods in a community-based sample of preschool-aged children to describe their mobile device usage and compare parent report of child use with mobile device sampling output. We describe the development of this method, important considerations during implementation, and types of variables that can be generated for research. On the basis of pilot research revealing that most of parents recall of their own mobile device use is inaccurate,14 we hypothesized that most parents would be inaccurate in reporting their childs mobile device use.

The Preschooler Tablet Study is a longitudinal cohort study (Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development grant R21HD094051) in which associations between early childhood digital media use, emotion regulation, and executive functioning are examined. Data were collected through online surveys and e-mail communication with participants, mobile device sampling, and an online time-use diary completed by parents at baseline and at the 3- and 6-month follow-up. Data from the baseline data collection wave (August 2018 to May 2019) are included in the present article. The study was approved by the University of Michigan Institutional Review Board.

Parents of young children were recruited via flyers posted in community centers, preschools, child care centers, and pediatric clinics in southeast Michigan as well as our universitys online participant registry and social media advertisements. Interested parents who contacted the study team were e-mailed a link to an eligibility questionnaire. Eligibility criteria included the following: (1) the parent was the legal guardian of a 3- to 4.99-year-old child, (2) the parent lived with the child at least 5 days/week, (3) the parent understood English sufficiently to complete questionnaires and provide consent, and (4) the family owned at least one Android or iOS tablet or smartphone. Children did not need to regularly use mobile devices to be included in the study. Exclusion criteria included presence of child developmental delays, use of psychotropic medication, and the childs mobile device being a Kindle or Amazon Fire (n = 43 interested but excluded), which do not use the standard Android operating system.

Because all interactions with the research team were electronic, we anticipated a high rate of attrition. Of 487 parents who consented to take part in the study, 64 (13%) submitted no study data after providing informed consent and receiving electronic reminders.

After providing online consent for themselves and their child, parents were e-mailed study instructions and a link to online Research Electronic Data Capture15,16 surveys, in which parents reported their childs age, sex, race and/or ethnicity, preschool or child care enrollment, and prematurity; their own age, sex, educational attainment, marital status, and employment status; and household income and size (from which we calculated the income-to-needs ratio).

Parents then completed an abbreviated version (36 items) of the Media Assessment Qualtrics Survey, which is used to assess child, parent, and household media use practices. In this survey, parents were asked, Thinking about a typical [weekday or weekend], how much time does your child spend using 1) an iPad, tablet, LeapPad, iTouch, or similar mobile device (not including a smartphone) and 2) a smartphone for things like texting, playing games, watching videos, or surfing the Internet (dont count time spent talking on the phone)? Responses were never, <30 minutes, 30 minutes to 1 hour, 1 to 2 hours, 2 to 3 hours, 3 to 4 hours, 4 to 5 hours, and >5 hours. Because mobile sampling included both weekdays and weekends, we created a weighted categorical variable that reflected parent estimates of their childs usual smartphone or tablet use throughout the week.

During eligibility screening, parents indicated what type(s) of mobile device(s), if any, the child regularly had access to or used. If the child used >1 device, we sampled the device used more frequently and asked the parent to avoid letting the child play on other devices that week. We provided video and visual instructions specific for tracking the device on a study Web site (see Mobile Device Sampling Methods: Installation and Data Collection in the Supplemental Information).

Android users were instructed to download a study app, Chronicle, from the Google Play store (Supplemental Figs 1 and 2). The Chronicle app was developed by OpenLattice, Inc, in collaboration with the Comprehensive Assessment of Family Media Exposure Consortium. It queries the Google UsageStatsManager application programming interface (API), which provides data about app usage on all Android devices running version 5.0 or later and transmits data automatically to the OpenLattice platform. Chronicle was pilot tested on a range of Android devices in June 2018 to July 2018, which allowed app debugging to ensure accuracy by comparing handwritten usage logs with raw output.

In the informed consent document, parents were informed that Chronicle only collects app name, timestamp, and a masked device identification but does not collect personal information (eg, contacts, content of messages, Web sites viewed) and that data are stored in a secure server and not shared with third-party companies. After installing Chronicle, parents were e-mailed a unique link routing their app data to the research team on the OpenLattice platform. The app user interface is simple, only providing a timestamp of the last data upload (see Android Mobile Devices in the Supplemental Information), and runs in the background with no need for user interaction. Data are continually collected locally on the device and uploaded every 15 minutes when connected to WiFi. After 9 days, participants were instructed to uninstall Chronicle after confirming that data had been uploaded that day (ie, in case the devices had been recently disconnected from WiFi). The study team then exported the Chronicle data file through the Chronicle Web application in comma-separated values (CSV) format and conducted data cleaning and processing steps as described in the Chronicle Data Cleaning Methods section of the Supplemental Information.

For children who used an iPhone or iPad, we asked parents to take a screenshot of the devices battery page (under Settings) 7 days after completing the surveys. Instructions for taking screenshots, including the specific buttons that need to be tapped to visualize app usage over the past 7 to 10 days, were provided via the study Web site (see Apple Mobile Devices in the Supplemental Information; see also Supplemental Fig 3).

When parents sent screenshots that did not follow study instructions, the study team responded by e-mail the same day, offering clarification on screenshot methods and requesting that new ones be sent. However, if screenshots were still incorrectly taken at this point, they were flagged for potential errors and manually inspected before inclusion in final data sets. Research assistants manually entered all screenshot data (app name, number of minutes) into spreadsheets.

At the end of the sampling period, parents were asked whether the device had been shared with any other family members that week. If the parents responded yes (70.6% of Android users; 61.8% of iOS users), they completed a data form listing the names of the apps their child used that week. We created a subset of data files to include only the apps that children used during the sampling period.

We developed a coding scheme to categorize apps on the basis of app store labels (eg, educational, age category), video chat, YouTube, streaming video, and other common categories such as eBooks or music (see Supplemental Table 4 for coding scheme; interrater reliability = 0.720.94).

First, for all children with complete mobile device data (n = 346), we analyzed differences in sociodemographic characteristics by operating system and shared or unshared status. We calculated frequencies of the most commonly played apps and the number of different apps played by each child during the sampling week.

For children with their own, unshared mobile Android or iOS device (n = 121), we created summary variables representing each childs average daily duration of device use, average daily duration of app categories, and average daily duration of specific apps played during the sampling period. We chose not to calculate daily duration from shared mobile devices because of the risk of overestimating duration of apps such as YouTube, Safari, or Netflix, which are commonly used by both children and parents.

For children with unshared Android devices (n = 37), whose output provides date and timestamps, we additionally calculated average usage by day of the week, proportion of days the child used the device, and average number of daily pickups. For illustrative purposes, we plotted the average hourly app category usage of 6 child participants (4 with heavy use, 2 with lighter use) to demonstrate diurnal visualizations of mobile device usage.

Finally, we calculated accuracy of parent-reported mobile device use by determining if each childs average daily usage (based on mobile sampling output) fell within the weighted parent-reported time category. If parent report was inaccurate, we calculated the difference between actual daily usage and the upper or lower bounds of the parent-reported category.

All processing of raw timestamped data into user logs was performed in Python,17 all mobile device sampling analyses were conducted by using data.table in R 3.5.2,18,19 and analyses of demographics and comparison of parent report with sampling output were conducted by using SAS version 9.4 (SAS Institute, Inc, Cary, NC).20

Of the 423 parents who provided any data, 58 (13%) were excluded because of incomplete mobile device data. Reasons for missing mobile device data included the following: could not (n = 7) or decided not to (n = 2) install Chronicle, <2 days of data appeared on server (usually because of server maintenance; n = 13), failed to send iOS screenshots (n = 20), screenshots were incorrect (n = 4) or blank (n = 4), and the app list for shared devices was not submitted (n = 8). Participants with missing mobile device data had no significant sociodemographic differences compared with included participants. In addition, 19 children were reported to have never used mobile devices at baseline, so mobile device sampling was not performed; these children were more likely to have parents with higher educational attainment (2 test; P = .02).

Characteristics of the full sample (N = 346) and the unshared device subsample (n = 121) are shown in Table 1. Participants comprised 126 Android users (35 tablets, 91 smartphones) and 220 iOS users (143 tablets, 77 smartphones). Children with iOS devices were more likely to have higher-income families (2-sample Wilcoxon rank test; P < .0001), married parents (2 test; P = .03), and parents with higher educational attainment (2 test; P < .0001).

Participant Demographic Characteristics and Mobile Device Usage

In the full sample, children used between 1 and 85 different apps over the course of the sampling week; the 20 most commonly played apps are listed in Table 2.

Most Commonly Played Apps Among 346 Preschool-Aged Children Who Underwent Mobile Device Sampling for 1 Week

Average daily usage among the 121 children with their own tablet (n = 100) or smartphone (n = 21) was 115.3 minutes (SD 115.1; range 0.20632.5) and was similar between Android (117.7; SD 143.2) and iOS (114.2; SD 101.3) users. More than half (59.5%) of children used their device for an average of 1 hour/day, including 18 (14.9%) who averaged 4 hours/day (Table 1).

Average daily use of the most commonly played apps by children with unshared devices is shown in Table 3; YouTube, YouTube Kids, and streaming video services revealed the highest daily duration, whereas the browser and Quick Search Box or Siri were accessed by a large number of children but used for briefer periods of time.

Average Daily Duration of Most Commonly Played Apps Among 121 Preschool-Aged Children With Their Own Mobile Devices

Among Android users, average pickup frequency was 3.82 per day (SD 5.48), children used devices on most (69.0%) days of sampling (SD 27.1%; range 25%100%), and duration was longest on Fridays and Saturdays (Supplemental Fig 4). Example data visualizations of average usage of different app categories (eg, educational apps, streaming video) and diurnal patterns for specific participants are available in Supplemental Figs 5 and 6, respectively.

Of 115 participants with unshared devices and complete parent-report data, 41 (35.7%) parents underestimated, 34 (29.6%) were accurate, and 40 (34.8%) overestimated their childs device use. Accuracy did not vary by operating system (Android 25.7% versus iOS 31.3%; P = .49). For inaccurate reporters, actual usage was on average 69.7 minutes (SD 67.5) above or below the parent-reported category bounds (median 50.7; range 0.86332.5 minutes). Parents were more likely to overreport when their childs average usage was <1 hour/day and underreport if their childs average usage was 1 hour/day (2 test; P = .001).

This is the first study to use an objective form of mobile devicebased data collection (a method we term mobile device sampling) to examine young childrens tablet and smartphone usage. We found high variability in daily mobile device usage in children with their own smartphones or tablets, with 15% of children averaging 4 hours per day. The most commonly used apps were YouTube and YouTube Kids, followed by browsers, the camera and photograph gallery, and video streaming services such as Netflix.

Compared with our previous pilot research in which we used passive sensing in parents,14 we had significantly lower rates of missing data when using the Chronicle app for Android and screenshot-based data collection for iOS. However, we had an 10% missing data rate for Chronicle, which we are addressing by (1) screening participants to ensure Chronicle compatibility before enrollment, (2) developing new features on the OpenLattice platform to increase stability and reliability of data uploads, and (3) providing in-person installation or phone troubleshooting.

Strengths of this approach include highly reliable data because the Google usage statistics API is maintained by Google and used by thousands of vendors. Participating parents found the mobile sampling methods highly acceptable and were informed of how their childs data would be collected, handled, and destroyed.

A main limitation of our current app is that it cannot identify the user of shared devices, which is important in early childhood when many children do not have their own devices. However, our subset approach allowed us to generate a list of apps used by children who share mobile devices with family members that can be coded for educational value,21 presence of advertising,22 or age-appropriate content. For example, we documented that preschool-aged children use YouTube (36.7% of our sample), general audience apps such as Cookie Jam and Candy Crush (30.6% of our sample), gambling apps such as Cashman, and violent apps such as Terrorist Shooter, Flip the Gun, and Granny, which are intended for use by teenagers and adults. These findings also have implications for child privacy because general audience apps and platforms may not place restrictions on the data they collect or distribute to third-party advertising companies.23

We found low accuracy of parent-reported mobile device duration compared with mobile sampling output, which is consistent with our previous research in parents.24 Inaccurate parents showed an average error of >60 minutes compared with their childs actual daily device use. We therefore suggest that mobile device sampling may be an important future data collection tool for pediatric, adolescent, or adult research. For example, by using Chronicle, it is possible to define variables such as the number of checks of specific apps (eg, social media) per hour, usage during time periods when family meals or routines might occur, or overnight usage. At present, timestamped data are not available for iOS, and data transfer from screenshots is labor intensive; development of similar iOS tracking tools will therefore be necessary to fully assess childrens media landscapes. Mobile sampling will need to be used in combination with methods that capture media use on other platforms (eg, television, video game consoles) and other sensors that detect whether the user is awake (eg, Fitbit) or interacting with others (eg, LENA).

Limitations of our overall study design are worthy of mention. Use of online recruitment allowed for rapid enrollment of multiple families simultaneously because we did not have to schedule study visits, but it also led to higher rates of attrition immediately after enrollment. Our sample was more highly educated and had lower racial and/or ethnic diversity than the general population; future research in nonEnglish-speaking populations is needed once our app interface is updated for other languages. Parents were aware of their childs mobile device usage being tracked, which may have changed their usage behavior. Children may have used other mobile devices during the sampling period, so our results represent a minimum estimate of their true usage. Our app categorization approach was also limited by the fact that apps commonly disappear from app stores and may no longer appear when searched for several months later.

We describe development of a novel mobile device sampling method in which implementation allowed for description of the smartphone and tablet use behaviors of preschool-aged children. Given the limitations of parent report, such objective measurement tools must be developed and refined so that health research (and evidence-based guidelines) can reflect the complex ways modern media are used.

FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE: Dr Radesky is a consultant for and is on the Board of Directors of Melissa & Doug Toys and receives research support from Common Sense Media; the other authors have indicated they have no financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose.

FUNDING: Funded by the Institute for Digital Media and Child Development for development of the passive-sensing technology and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (grant 1R21HD094051) for the Preschooler Tablet Study. Research Electronic Data Capture and recruitment support was provided through the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research (Clinical and Translational Science Award UL1TR002240). Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST: The authors have indicated they have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose

COMPANION PAPER: A companion to this article can be found online at http://www.pediatrics.org/cgi/doi/10.1542/peds.2020-1242.

Read more from the original source:
Young Children's Use of Smartphones and Tablets | American Academy of Pediatrics - AAP News

Human Behavior

Rep. Ayanna Pressley Calls For Focus To Remain On Peaceful Activism, Passing Legislation That Condemns Police Brutality – wgbh.org

On Monday, after an hours-long peaceful protest calling for the end of police brutality in Boston turned toward violent clashes between police officers and individuals, Rep. Ayanna Pressley called for the focus to remain on the peaceful activism, and on the reasons why protests and activism remain necessary today to fight racist policies that have been in place for decades.

"Community organizers are community builders. They are not destroyers," Pressley said on Boston Public Radio Monday. "And it is deeply painful that there are forces at work to infiltrate and to undermine the good work, the vigilant work, of people who are committed to peace and justice in earnest, despite how slow coming that has been."

Pressley became audibly emotional when discussing how many years the fight for racial equality in the United States has gone on for, mentioning the work of Rep. John Lewis, the Freedrom Rider with whom she serves in U.S. Congress.

"I'm just trying to keep it together, honestly," Pressley said, calling recent events "a traumatic deja vu." She said that "the Black Lives Matter movement is a continuation of the work of many Freedom Riders and activists that came before us."

"There is so much brutality and murder and lynching and choking and surveying and policing. You know, it's just so much trauma, just intergenerational trauma," she said. "And what is maddening about it is that it can be stopped."

Pressley said she believes that the best way to combat "draconian laws, discriminatory laws [that have] codified hurt" for years is to pass new legislation that "can codify healing."

Pressley and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota filed a resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday "condemning police brutality, excessive force and racial profiling," she said, following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other black Americans by police. Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who was seen on video pressing his knee into Floyd's neck as he said he couldn't breathe, was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter on Friday.

"We need to enact uniform standards and restrictions on the use of force and the elimination of special protections, protecting police officers and departments from being held accountable in case of brutality and abuse," Pressley said. Congress "must act as the conscience for our nation" and pass the legislation, she said.

Pressley, who was a Boston City Councilor before becoming a U.S. congresswoman, said that it will take action from all levels of government to enact change.

"I know when you're talking about systemic injustice, sometimes people will chalk it up to culture, but culture is human behavior. And it can be changed," Pressley said. "And I think that begins by holding all accountable, from this White House to our State House to our City Hall, to root out the scourge of police brutality and the many other intersectional injustices that also play a part."

The congresswoman also acknowledged that the protests are taking place during a pandemic that has disproportionately affected black people and other people of color, which, combined with structural racism, has culminated in feelings of "loss and trauma and fear" for many.

When asked how white people who do not understand the reasons for the recent protests and activism should better educate themselves, Pressley said people must be intentional and specific in their organizing and who they choose to vote for.

"It's not enough to just say you're not a racist. You have to be actively anti-racist," she said.

"There are numerous pieces of legislation ... that we all need to continue to apply the pressure to see expedited and advance," Pressley said. "This is about saving lives. Justice is about dignity. You know, and that's what's exhausting is that you have to keep organizing just to affirm your very humanity and your dignity."

View post:
Rep. Ayanna Pressley Calls For Focus To Remain On Peaceful Activism, Passing Legislation That Condemns Police Brutality - wgbh.org

Human Behavior

Author’s new book Biology of Religion receives a warm literary welcome – MENAFN.COM

(MENAFN - GetNews)

Readers' Favorite announces the review of the Non-Fiction - Religion/Philosophy book "Biology of Religion" by Fil Munas, currently available at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/057818303X .

Readers' Favorite is one of the largest book review and award contest sites on the Internet. They have earned the respect of renowned publishers like Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Harper Collins, and have received the "Best Websites for Authors" and "Honoring Excellence" awards from the Association of Independent Authors. They are also fully accredited by the BBB (A+ rating), which is a rarity among Book Review and Book Award Contest companies.

Reviewed By Liz Konkel for Readers' Favorite

Biology of Religion by Fil Munas explores religion as it pertains to human behavior with the goal of the book being to answer the basic question about what religious behavior is. The book includes thorough facts and well-researched history to present paleontological evidence dating back to the earliest records of religious behavior. Munas explores different interconnections with religion through morality, marriage, and patriarchy. The book goes through various religions which offer different worldviews and perspectives with each playing a key role in understanding religious behavior and its function. The five existential domains of behaviors, an understanding of how death and sapience and the three primary epiphenomena are also delved into throughout the book.

This is a unique book through its approach to religion via the lens of behavior with evidence provided dating to early history and explored through various cultures. Fil Munas dives into religion through an explanation of the basic understanding of behavior through a psychological, historical, and scientific perspective. Biology of Religion opens with a look at behavior itself that explains the domains of behavior - including feeding, reproduction, economics, and politics. The rest of the book focuses on providing an understanding of religion as a natural part of our behavior and how it has shaped society throughout history. Part of understanding behavior is to understand the biology of it which includes natural selection, paleolithic humans, and sapience. The writing is thorough, well-researched, easy to understand, and thought-provoking. Munas will open your mind to new ideas about religion while making you think differently about behavior and sparking discussions. Patriarchy, war, and altruism are explored as three primary epiphenomena linked to behavior and religion.

The functions of religion explored, as are morality, family, law, and government. Each of these concepts is an important aspect of understanding religious behavior with each giving a thorough account of various religions around the world and throughout history. This includes Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Taoism, Shintoism, and Zoroastrianism, among others. Those interested in learning more about religion and behavior will enjoy this thought-provoking read. Biology of Religion explores concepts that include death and natural selection, epiphenomena, and the functions of religion.

You can learn more about Fil Munas and "Biology of Religion" at https://readersfavorite.com/book-review/biology-of-religion where you can read reviews and the author's biography, as well as connect with the author directly or through their website and social media pages.

Media Contact Company Name: Readers' Favorite LLC Contact Person: Media Relations Email: Send Email Phone: 800-RF-REVIEW City: Louisville State: KY 40202 Country: United States Website: https://readersfavorite.com

MENAFN0106202000703268ID1100256961

Link:
Author's new book Biology of Religion receives a warm literary welcome - MENAFN.COM