When Happiness and Depression Meet

About a year ago I wrote about happiness and what it is that makes us happy. It turns out that what makes us happy, what motivates us, follows the philosophy of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. We do things for ourselves that help grow us and are important to us, we do things that we have to struggle with to improve ourselves, and we do things that make us part of a bigger world, and all of these three things have the capacity to make us happy or happier.

http://appliedpsychologyresearch.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/happiness-is-synthetic-so-why-not.html

I wanted today to check, basically, how users of Google search for information associated with happiness and depression. This is essentially search volume index over time. As you can see above there is a fascinating convergence between these two search volumes. As the search volume for Depression decreases over time, the search volume for Happiness has increased to almost the same volume matching Depression. Even when you ask Google to extrapolate these trends (in dotted lines) the trend continues.

The Animal Most Likely To Live In The Desert - A science and maths trend

Jack Dikian

January 2012

For those who haven’t heard about TIMSS; it the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. It is carried out every four years with Year 4 and Year 8 students. TIMSS provides data about national and international trends in mathematics and science achievement. In Australia, TIMSS is part
 of the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs’ (MCEETYA).

Survey outcomes help inform educational policy in the participating countries, TIMSS also routinely collects extensive background information that addresses concerns about the quantity, quality, and content of instruction.

TIMSS 2007 was the fourth in a cycle of internationally comparative assessments, conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). You can look at the complete report by following the link below.

http://www.acer.edu.au/documents/TIMSS_2007InformingSciencePedagogyreport.pdf

Here is an interesting benchmark looking at the Year 4 Science: Performance at the Low International Benchmark, designed to be read with the accompanying illustration.

The low international benchmark for science included knowing some simple facts about human health and the behavioural and physical characteristics of animals and humans. The item shown below presents an example of student achievement at this benchmark. Students were presented with a pictorial representation of four animals and asked to identify the animal most likely to live in the desert.

On average internationally 68 per cent of Year 4 students were able to identify the lizard as the most likely desert dweller. More than 90 per cent of students in the United States correctly answered this item, and 88 per cent of Australian students also identified the correct animal. This was significantly higher than the international average.

Country	% Full correct
United States	92
Russian Federation	89
Australia	88
Kazakhstan	86
England	84
Denmark	84
International average	68
Yemen	28

Google Plus - invite?

Jack Dikian

September 2011

So are you like me waiting for a Google Plus invite? Come-on Christian, Larry, and Sergey I’m etching to get my mittens into this. As we’ve heard Google is rolling out the service in waves and we can expect it to become a ubiquitous social option real soon. Early users of Facebook will know that if two people wanted to see each other’s updates, both needed to “friend” each other. Of course we can “like” groups now too. Twitter has always been a one-way thing. I can follow you but you do not necessarily have to follow me back.

Google Plus provides the ability to see updates from certain groups like "Work," "Friends" and/or "Family" (Circles) as well as the ability for one main stream. Here are some of the Plus features

• Circles - The idea that we share different things with different people. So sharing the right content with the right people is a plus.
• Hangouts - You will be able to let specific people or an entire circle you are hanging out and then see who drops by for a face-to-face-to-face chat.
• Sparks - By telling Sparks your interests and it will send you content that it guesses you’ll like.
• Huddle - turns different conversation threads into one simple group chat, getting everyone onto the same page.

Cartoons Make A Comeback At Facebook World - Noble Cause

Jack Dikian

December 2010

A few days ago I reactivated my Facebook account after not having used it for almost a year. As well as the usual messages, invitations, and friend suggestions – I was amazed by the number of people who had switched their profile pictures. The standout for me was a seemingly emergent use of cartoon characters as profile pictures.

Using one of Google’s lesser known products, "trends", it become obvious that there is something, probably not quite enough to call it a trend just yet, but certainly enough for me to follow a hunch. Google trends is reporting a huge jump in the volume (Search Volume Index) of people searching Facebook cartoon profile pictures. The jump, from an almost flat line (for all intensive purposes) to a large spike appearing in late 2010."

Interestingly, the United States and the United Kingdom represent spikes in search volumes for the terms “Facebook cartoon profile picture” while the countries Malaysia and the Philippines represent spikes in volume for search words “Facebook cartoon picture”.

It seems in recent weeks, users of Facebook have been searching for pictures of beloved cartoon characters from their childhood. People are switching their profile pictures to cartoon characters dating from as far back as the 50′s. Also cartoons which aired in the 60′s, 70′s and 80′s are also popular, with cartoon characters from the 90′s not lagging far behind.

And the reason for this trend, I might have been better informed if I had only stoped to read about Facebook’s latest campaign to raise awareness of child abuse. User’s have apparently been asked to change their profile picture to a cartoon character for the short campaign which ends December 7, 2010.

So why then have people in Pakistan been searching for “Facebook cartoons” since late 2008?

Another term (word) that has a large search volume is “Slacktivism”. According to Wikipedia, Slacktivism (sometimes slactivism) is a portmanteau formed out of the words slacker and activism. The word is considered a pejorative term that describes "feel-good" measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it feel satisfaction. The acts also tend to dilute awareness campaigns and require minimal personal effort from the slacktivist.

While Facebook’s campaign intentions are very admirable, I sincerely hope that change occurs beyond pictures. After further browsing, many who now display cartoons for profile pictures have not change their status.