By ELIZABETH BERNSTEIN
Notice to my friends: I love you all dearly.
But I don’t give a hoot that you are “having a busy Monday,” your child “took 30 minutes to brush his teeth,” your dog “just ate an ant trap” or you want to “save the piglets.” And I really, really don’t care which Addams Family member you most resemble. (I could have told you the answer before you took the quiz on Facebook.)
Here’s where you and I went wrong: We took our friendship online. First we began communicating more by email than by phone. Then we switched to “instant messaging” or “texting.” We “friended” each other on Facebook, and began communicating by “tweeting” our thoughts—in 140 characters or less—via Twitter.
All this online social networking was supposed to make us closer. And in some ways it has. Thanks to the Internet, many of us have gotten back in touch with friends from high school and college, shared old and new photos, and become better acquainted with some people we might never have grown close to offline.
Last year, when a friend of mine was hit by a car and went into a coma, his friends and family were able to easily and instantly share news of his medical progress—and send well wishes and support—thanks to a Web page his mom created for him.
But there’s a danger here, too. If we’re not careful, our online interactions can hurt our real-life relationships.
Like many people, I’m experiencing Facebook Fatigue. I’m tired of loved ones—you know who you are—who claim they are too busy to pick up the phone, or even write a decent email, yet spend hours on social-media sites, uploading photos of their children or parties, forwarding inane quizzes, posting quirky, sometimes nonsensical one-liners or tweeting their latest whereabouts. (“Anyone know a good restaurant in Berlin?”)
One of the big problems is how we converse. Typing still leaves something to be desired as a communication tool; it lacks the nuances that can be expressed by body language and voice inflection. “Online, people can’t see the yawn,” says Patricia Wallace, a psychologist at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Talented Youth and author of “The Psychology of the Internet.”
But let’s face it, the problem is much greater than which tools we use to communicate. It’s what we are actually saying that’s really mucking up our relationships. “Oh my God, a college friend just updated her Facebook status to say that her ‘teeth are itching for a flossing!’” shrieked a friend of mine recently. “That’s gross. I don’t want to hear about what’s going on inside her mouth.”
That prompted me to check my own Facebook page, only to find that three of my pals—none of whom know each other—had the exact same status update: “Zzzzzzz.” They promptly put me to “zzzzzzz.”
This brings us to our first dilemma: Amidst all this heightened chatter, we’re not saying much that’s interesting, folks. Rather, we’re breaking a cardinal rule of companionship: Thou Shalt Not Bore Thy Friends.
“It’s called narcissism,” says Matt Brown, a 36-year-old business-development manager for a chain of hair salons and spas in Seattle. He’s particularly annoyed by a friend who works at an auto dealership who tweets every time he sells a car, a married couple who bicker on Facebook’s public walls and another couple so “mooshy-gooshy” they sit in the same room of their house posting love messages to each other for all to see. “Why is your life so frickin’ important and entertaining that we need to know?” Mr. Brown says.
‘I Just Ate a Frito Pie’
Gwen Jewett, for her part, is sick of meal status updates. “A few of my friends like to post several times a day about what they are eating: ‘I just ate a Frito pie.’ ‘I am enjoying a double hot-fudge sundae at home tonight.’ ‘Just ate a whole pizza with sausage, peppers and double cheese,’” says the 49-year-old career coach in suburban Dallas. “My question is this: If we didn’t call each other on the phone every time we ate before, why do we need the alerts now?”
For others, boredom isn’t the biggest challenge of managing Internet relationships. Consider, for example, how people you know often seem different online—not just gussied up or more polished, but bolder, too, displaying sides of their personalities you have never seen before.
Alex Gilbert, 27, who works for a nonprofit in Houston that teaches creative writing to kids, is still puzzling over an old friend—”a particularly masculine-type dude”—who plays in a heavy-metal band and heads a motorcycle club yet posts videos on Facebook of “uber cute” kittens. “It’s not fodder for your real-life conversation,” Mr. Gilbert says. “We’re not going to get together and talk about how cute kittens are.”
James Hills discovered that a colleague is gay via Facebook, but he says that didn’t bother him. It was after his friend joined groups that cater to hairy men, such as “Furball NYC,” that he was left feeling awkward. “This is something I just didn’t need to know,” says Mr. Hills, who is 32 and president of a marketing firm in Elgin, Ill. “I’d feel the same way if it was a straight friend joining a leather-and-lace group.”
And then there’s jealousy. In all that information you’re posting about your life—your vacation, your kids, your promotions at work, even that margarita you just drank—someone is bound to find something to envy. When it comes to relationships, such online revelations can make breaking up even harder to do.
“Facebook prolongs the period it takes to get over someone, because you have an open window into their life, whether you want to or not,” says Yianni Garcia of New York, a consultant who helps companies use social media. “You see their updates, their pictures and their relationship status.”
Mr. Garcia, 24, felt the sting of Facebook jealousy personally last spring, after he split up with his boyfriend. For a few weeks, he continued to visit his ex’s Facebook page, scrutinizing his new friends. Then one day he discovered that his former boyfriend had blocked him from accessing his profile.
Why? “He said he’d only ‘unfriended’ me to protect himself, because if someone flirted with me he would feel jealous,” Mr. Garcia says.
Facebook can also be a mecca for passive-aggressive behavior. “Suddenly, things you wouldn’t say out loud in conversation are OK to say because you’re sitting behind a computer screen,” says Kimberly Kaye, 26, an arts writer in New York. She was surprised when friends who had politely discussed health-care reform over dinner later grew much more antagonistic when they continued the argument online.
Just ask Heather White. She says her college roommate at the University of Georgia started an argument over text about who should clean their apartment. Ms. White, 22, who was home visiting her parents at the time, asked her friend to call her so they could discuss the issue. Her friend never did.
A few days later, Ms. White, who graduated in May, updated her Facebook status, commenting that her favorite country duo, Brooks & Dunn, just broke up. Almost immediately, her roommate responded, writing publicly on her wall: “Just like us.” The two women have barely spoken since then.
Band-Aid Tactics
So what’s the solution, short of “unfriending” or “unfollowing” everyone who annoys you? You can use the “hide” button on Facebook to stop getting your friends’ status updates—they’ll never know—or use TwitterSnooze, a Web site that allows you to temporarily suspend tweets from someone you follow. (Warning: They’ll get a notice from Twitter when you begin reading their tweets again.)
But these are really just Band-Aid tactics. To improve our interactions, we need to change our conduct, not just cover it up. First, watch your own behavior, asking yourself before you post anything: “Is this something I’d want someone to tell me?” “Run it by that focus group of one,” says Johns Hopkins’s Dr. Wallace.
And positively reward others, responding only when they write something interesting, ignoring them when they are boring or obnoxious. (Commenting negatively will only start a very public war.)
If all that fails, you can always start a new group: “Get Facebook to Create an Eye-Roll Button Now!”
By JAMES CHAPMAN
Drinking, promiscuity and a cycle of low aspiration mean Britain is becoming the ‘bad parent’ of the western world.
A vast study of youngsters’ well-being in 30 industrialised nations ranked Britain among the worst for health, lifestyles and school standards relative to public spending levels.
Underage teenagers in Britain are more likely to get drunk than those in any other country, and the proportions of teenage mothers and single-parent families are among the highest in the survey.
Binge: A third of all 13 and 15-year-olds have been drunk at least twice, according to the OECD study (file picture)
In ‘risky behaviour’ – a combination of drinking, smoking and teenage pregnancy – Britain’s performance is worse than all nations other than Turkey and Mexico.
Educational achievement is low given the billions poured in by Labour, with more than one in ten youngsters aged 15 to 19 not in school, training or work. This is the fourth highest rate in the 30 countries, ahead only of Italy, Turkey and Mexico.
Last night a youth charity warned: ‘Unless we can start to improve this situation the UK risks becoming the bad parent of Europe.’
The report, published by the economic thinktank the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, compared data from 30 leading countries on children’s welfare.
Staggering: Drunkenness is more common among girls
It found that public spending on children in Britain is well above average, at more than £90,000 from birth to the age of 18. Family incomes are relatively healthy, too, ranking eighth out of the 30 countries studied.
But education results remained low relative to spending levels, the report said, while concluding that social mobility was stalled, with children finding it hard to break out of their class structures and earn more than their parents.
‘In the United Kingdom . . . each new generation is more likely to find themselves in the same position in the earnings distribution as their parents,’ it said.
A third of children aged of 13 and 15 in Britain had been drunk at least twice, despite being too young to be served alcohol, compared with 12 per cent of American youngsters and 14 per cent of French.
Unlike in many other countries, drunkenness was more common among girls, with half of 15-year-olds having got drunk at least twice against 44 per cent of boys.
Teenage pregnancy is also far higher than average across the OECD. The UK has the fourth highest teenage pregnancy rate after Mexico, Turkey and the United States. In Britain, 23.4 teenage girls per 1,000 gave birth in 2005.
Britain ranked a poor 20th out of the 30 in terms of children’s ‘health and safety’, with infant mortality rates higher than average and among the lowest numbers of toddlers being vaccinated against measles.
Faring the worst: A third of children aged 13 to 15 have been drunk at least twice, compared to 12 per cent of American teenagers (file picture)
Only 70 per cent of under-16s in England live with both parents, a figure-which falls to 68 per cent in Scotland and 66 in Wales. This is well below the OECD average of 75 per cent.
However the OECD analysis insisted there was ‘no unambiguous proof’ that growing up in a single parent family had anything more than a ‘small’ impact on the outcomes for children.
On the plus side, the report said that children in the UK enjoy school much more than many of their international counterparts. Bullying is less frequent and teenage suicides are less common in the UK than in most other industrialised countries.
The report echoes research two years ago from Unicef that put British children bottom of the 21 most advanced countries.
That report cited family breakdown, drink, drugs, teenage sex and fear of violence as the issues confronting teenagers.
Last night Joyce Moseley, chief executive of youth charity Catch22, said: ‘The UK has consistently scored poorly in OECD reports on the levels of young people not in work, education or training; teenage pregnancy and youth substance abuse.
‘Unless we can start to improve this situation the UK risks becoming the bad parent of Europe.
‘The OECD makes it clear that although the UK spends more than most on young people, the money is poorly targeted for older children.
‘It is important that the good work done in the early years is backed up with consistency and targeted support for the most vulnerable young people.’
Tory schools spokesman Nick Gibb said: ‘The low levels of social mobility and high levels of inequality are a serious cause for concern.
‘The OECD is right that money needs to be targeted at poorer pupils if we are to close the educational gap between the top and the bottom.
‘That is why two years ago, the Conservatives proposed a plan for education reform with an explicit pupil premium attached to children from less well-off backgrounds.
‘Labour has failed a generation of children which is why we need a Conservative Government that takes the necessary steps to remove this block on opportunity.’
Children’s Minister Dawn Primarolo said: ‘It is disappointing to see the UK rated so low for risky behaviours.’
But she added: ‘We have introduced a number of initiatives to help teenagers and their families make informed decisions about their behaviour, including the plans to introduce statutory Personal, Sexual and Health Education (PSHE) lessons to equip young people with the knowledge, understanding and practical skills to live healthy, safe, fulfilled and responsible lives.’
By SHIRLEY S. WANG
If you’re one of those people whom mosquitoes tend to favor, maybe it’s because you aren’t sufficiently stressed-out.
Insects have very keen powers of smell that direct them to their targets. But for researchers trying to figure out what attracts or repels the pests, sorting through the 300 to 400 distinct chemical odors that the human body produces has proved daunting.
Now scientists at Rothamsted Research in the U.K. have been making headway at understanding why some people can end up with dozens of bites after a backyard barbecue, while others remain unscathed. The researchers have identified a handful of the body’s chemical odors—some of which may be related to stress—that are present in significantly larger concentrations in people that the bugs are happier to leave alone. If efforts to synthesize these particular chemicals are successful, the result could be an all-natural mosquito repellent that is more effective and safer than products currently available.
“Mosquitoes fly through an aerial soup of chemicals, but can home in on those that draw them to humans,” says James Logan, a researcher at Rothamsted, one of the world’s oldest agricultural-research institutions. But when the combination of human odors is wrong, he says, “the mosquito fails to recognize this signal as a potential blood meal.”
The phenomenon that some people are more prone to mosquito bites than others is well documented. In the 1990s, chemist Ulrich Bernier, now at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, began looking for what he calls the “magic compounds” that attract mosquitoes. His research helped to show that mosquitoes are attracted to humans by blends of common chemicals such as carbon dioxide, released from the skin and by exhaling, and lactic acid, which is present on the skin, especially when we exercise. But none of the known attractant chemicals explained why mosquitoes preferred some people to others.
Rothamsted’s Dr. Logan says the answer isn’t to be found in attractant chemicals. He and colleagues observed that everyone produces chemicals that mosquitoes like, but those who are unattractive to mosquitoes produce more of certain chemicals that repel them.
Misguided Mosquitoes
“The repellents were what made the difference,” says Dr. Logan, who is interested in the study of how animals communicate using smell. These chemicals may cloud or mask the attractive chemicals, or may disable mosquitoes from being able to detect those attractive odors, he suggests.
Besides delivering annoying bites, mosquitoes cause hundreds of millions of cases of disease each year. As many as 500 million cases of malaria are contracted globally each year, and more than one million people die from it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mosquitoes can also spread West Nile virus, dengue fever, yellow fever and other illnesses.
Currently the most effective repellents on the market often contain a chemical known as DEET, which has been associated in some studies with potential safety concerns, such as cancer and Gulf War syndrome. It also damages materials made of plastic. The federal Environmental Protection Agency has determined that DEET, when used as directed, is safe.
The Rothamsted team set out to get the mosquitoes’ viewpoint. The researchers separated human volunteers into two groups—those who were attractive to mosquitoes and those who weren’t. They then put each of the volunteers into body-size foil bags for two hours to collect their body odors. Using a machine known as a chromatograph, the scientists were able to separate the chemicals. They then tested each of them to see how the mosquitoes responded. By attaching microelectrodes to the insects’ antennae, the researchers could measure the electrical impulses that are generated when mosquitoes recognize a chemical.
Dr. Logan and his team have found only a small number of body chemicals—seven or eight—that were present in significantly different quantities between those people who were attractive to mosquitoes and those who weren’t. They then put their findings to the test. For this they used a so-called Y-tube olfactometer that allows mosquitoes to make a choice and fly toward or away from an individual’s hand. After applying the chemicals thought to be repellant on the hands of individuals known to be attractive, Dr. Logan found that the bugs either flew in the opposite direction or weren’t motivated by the person’s smell to fly at all.
The chemicals were then tested to determine their impact on actual biting behavior. Volunteers put their arms in a box containing mosquitoes, one arm coated with repellent chemicals and the other without, to see if the arm without the coating got bitten more.
Significant Repellency
The group’s latest paper, published in March in the Journal of Medical Entomology, identified two compounds with “significant repellency.” One of the compounds, 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one, is a skin-derived compound that has the odor of toned-down nail-polish remover, according to George Preti, an organic chemist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, who is involved in a separate line of research into insect-biting behavior. The other, identified in the paper as geranylacetone, has a pleasant odor, though there is some question about whether the chemical is formed by the human biochemical process or is picked up in the environment, Dr. Preti says.
Dr. Logan declined to comment about the specific chemicals because of proprietary concerns. He says the findings have been patented and the group is working with a commercial company to develop the compounds into a usable insect repellent. One issue that still needs to be resolved: how to develop a formulation of the repellent chemicals that will stay on the skin, rather than quickly evaporating as they do naturally. The hope is to get a product to market within a year or two, he says.
Some of the chemicals researchers identified are believed to be related to stress, Dr. Logan says. Previous research has shown that these particular chemicals could be converted from certain other molecules and this could be as a result of oxidation in the body at times of stress, he says. However, it’s not clear if the chemicals observed by the Rothamsted researchers were created in this way, and research is continuing to answer this and other questions.
Dr. Logan suggests that mosquitoes may deem hosts that emit more of these chemicals to be diseased or injured and “not a good quality blood meal.” Proteins in the blood are necessary for female mosquitoes to produce fertile eggs, and Dr. Logan says it might be evolutionarily advantageous for mosquitoes to detect and avoid such people.
Other Research
Other research includes an effort by scientists at the University of California, Riverside, who published a paper in the journal Nature last week identifying a recently discovered class of molecules that inhibit fruit flies’ and mosquitoes’ ability to detect carbon dioxide. Mosquitoes can detect carbon dioxide emissions from long ranges, so turning off the ability to detect the gas, perhaps by releasing the inhibiting molecules into the environment, may be a way of keeping the bugs at bay, the researchers suggest. Another team, at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, is launching a study into whether the taste of human skin and blood are related to the insects’ interest in biting certain individuals.
