BACKGROUND To date, there has been very little work investigating behaviour changes induced by interventions that are designed to increase help seeking. The present paper examines the effects of two Internet depression websites on help seeking. METHODS 414 individuals with elevated scores on a depression assessment scale were randomly allocated to a depression information website, a cognitive...

While many associations between neighborhood characteristics and individual well-being have been reported, there is a lack of longitudinal studies that could provide evidence for or against causal interpretations of neighborhood effects. This study examined whether neighborhood urbanicity and socioeconomic status were associated with within-individual variation in depression, mistrust and socia...

This article presents the results of a study concerning the use of online profile pages by adolescents to know more about "offline" friends and acquaintances. Previous research has indicated that social networking sites (SNSs) are used to gather information on new online contacts. However, several studies have demonstrated a substantial overlap between offline and online social networks. Hence,...

Smoking-related behaviors and attitudes of significant others (especially friends and parents) are among the most consistent predictors of adolescent smoking. However, theorists remain divided on whether the behaviors of significant others influence adolescent smoking directly or indirectly, and the relative influence of parental and peer smoking on adolescents' own smoking is still a matter of...

The Facebook News Feed prioritizes posts for display by ranking them more prominently in the News Feed, based on users’ past interactions with the system. This study investigated constraints imposed on social interactions by the algorithm, by triggering participants’ awareness of “missed posts” in their Friends’ Timelines that they did not remember seeing before. If the algorithm prioritizes po...

OBJECTIVES The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of driving cessation on social integration and perceived support from relatives and friends among older adults. METHODS Data came from the population-based Baltimore Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study. We restricted analyses to participants aged 60+ with a history of driving (n=398). Social integration (number and frequency of ...

Social-networking functions are increasingly embedded in online rating systems. These functions alter the rating context in which consumer ratings are generated. In this paper, we empirically investigate online friends’ social influence in online book ratings. Our quasi-experiment research design exploits the temporal sequence of social-networking events and ratings and offers a new method for ...

So you’ve decided you want to go to the movies with a friend. How will you go about deciding what to see? You’ll probably start by asking a few friends what they have seen. Once you’ve gotten a few opinions, you’ll have to consult the friend accompanying you, who also most likely spoke to several of her friends, to reach a final decision. If there is one particular movie that nearly everyone yo...