Positively Media

How we connect and thrive through emerging technologies.

by Pamela Rutledge, Ph.D.

7 Myths About Social Media and Relationships

Humans are social animals and with social media, we're connecting all over the place. There are a lot of myths about social media and relationships that reflect two things: fear of new technologies and the underlying assumption that the old way of doing things is the "right" way. Here are seven of the most meme-worthy myths about relationships and why they're wrong. Read More

Low GPAs May Increase Social Media Use

Recent research findings suggest that high social media use was correlated with lower GPAs among female college freshmen. What's getting traction? Headlines warning that social media use may tank your kid’s grades. Sorry to disappoint if you were hoping for a quick fix, but that’s not exactly what the study results mean. Read More

#Selfies: Narcissism or Self-Exploration?

Selfies are pictures you take of yourself to post online. They are all over social networks like Facebook and Instagram—often, but not exclusively, posted by women. People’s views of selfies run the gamut, from narcissism and moral decline to my view, which is that selfies are a by-product of technology-enabled self-exploration. Read More

Social Media Doesn't Have to Make Breaking Up Harder to Do

Moving on emotionally after a break-up is hard, with or without social media. But the easy access and speed of social media sites, like Facebook, can make it easier to torment yourself and harder to move on. Here are five ways social media can help you get over a breakup. Read More

Sandy Hook Tragedy Sparks Social Media Avalanche

The Sandy Hook tragedy has created an avalanche across social media. The senseless violence has so outraged and shocked people that is has turned observers into advocates and supporters. Whether it’s showing support, lobbying for gun control, or calling for school lockdowns, people who don’t normally speak up are taking a stand. Read More

Fake and Funny: Twitter as Interactive Performance Art

Twitter invites reimagining storytelling by opening the doors to a new type of interactive performance art for creative, slightly-bent, would-be comics who spread their humor through fake Twitter accounts, like @KarltheFog, @CatFoodBreath or @TheOrangeCone Read More

Celebrity @#!! On Twitter

Some celebrities are masters at using Twitter to build a fan base. Others, like Chris Brown, suffer from not understanding the potential impact of failing to think first, tweet second. Read More

Video Games, Problem-Solving and Self-Efficacy - Part 3

Many people have the image of video games as socially isolating, if not psychologically addicting. Unlike email, texting, or even a phone call, however, playing a game with someone creates a sense of actually doing something together. Read More

Video Games, Problem-Solving and Self-Efficacy - Part 2

Video games have been at the forefront of interactive media and continue to be a significant part of the participatory media environment. The thought of a video game still may strike horror into the hearts of many, but video games are just a digital manifestation of a very basic human behavior: play. Read More

Video Games, Problem-Solving and Self-Efficacy Part 1

Standing in line at Starbucks, I was reminded that video games often get a bad rap. It's time we give them a little more credit. Video games and interactive media can have a positive impact on self-efficacy which increases resilience, optimism, and motivation. Read More

The Batman Shooter: Can We Blame the Lack of Social Media?

Senseless acts of violence, like the recent Colorado Massacre, make the world a very scary place. Like Batman, we want to restore order to an uncertain world by finding an explanation. New media often gets the blame, but this one is confusing. The shooter had no social media profiles, no web presence. How weird is that? Read More

Media Psychologist, Clinical Psychologist or Media Personality?

I get lots of questions about media psychology, such as ‘What is it?’ and ‘What do you do with it?’ A big stumbling block seems to be the common view of a media psychologist as a psychologist who appears in the media. Wrong answer. Read More

Rethinking Maslow's Hierarchy: Implications for a Socially-Connected World

In my November 2011 PT post “What Maslow Misses,” I argued that Maslow’s popular Hierarchy of Needs pyramid undervalues the role of social connection in human basic survival needs and, therefore, as a driver of behavior. Storytelling and management guru and Forbes contributor Steve Denning picked up this idea in the context of how management can better meet the psychological needs of empl Read More

Does ‘No Such Thing As Bad Publicity’ Apply To Psychologists?

Psychologists who appear in the media is a topic of much debate, especially since there is no such thing as isolated 'mass' media anymore. Bad publicity is pretty clearly bad for professionals, but no publicity or presence can be bad too when people use the Internet to check the legitimacy of services and information and can’t find you. Read More

#RIP Twitter Celebrity Death Hoaxes

Twitter has been teeming with celebrity death hoaxes. Twitter has many benefits—a lifeline during crises or an open platform for sharing ideas—but it also makes it easy to pass along fiction as fact. Parents of tweens and teens can use this as a teaching moment to talk about how easily false information can spread. Read More

Whitney Houston: Celebrate Now, Look for Answers Later

The loss of Houston is not just a private event. It is a public event; a shared cultural and emotional experience because her work was a meaningful part of our experiences. Music, like no other art, is part of our lives and we come to own it. So, today we celebrate Whitney Houston. Tomorrow is soon enough to look for answers. Read More

Shooting Your Kid’s Laptop Is No Solution to Media Literacy

The dad who shot his daughter’s laptop over a Facebook post shows the critical need for media literacy. His YouTube video response, showing the laptop’s demise at the hands of his 45 revolver, underscores the fallacy of publishing things you really want to stay private in what is fundamentally not just public, but permanent and searchable. Read More

A Dangerous Method: Engaging but Not Satisfying

The newly-released film, A Dangerous Method, is an ambitious effort to portray the complex and tumultuous evolution of the relationships and theories among the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, his protégé Carl Jung, and the patient-turned-psychoanalyst, Sabina Spielrein. The movie was beautiful and engaging but not very satisfying. But then, it is based on the untidiness of Read More

Reverse Mentoring Won’t Work

The Wall Street Journal reports that reverse mentoring has finally cracked the workplace. Reverse mentoring won’t work. It violates the very premise of the social media environment that it purports to address, ignoring the importance of a two-way flow of information and respect. What organizations need is collaborative mentoring. Read More

All the World’s a Story

Transmedia storytelling is becoming the new ‘must have’ in marketing and entertainment. With transmedia storytelling, it’s easy to be distracted by the promise of the tools and overlook the substance. Good transmedia storytelling starts with the story. The story doesn’t live in the storyworld. The story starts with, and lives in, the brain. Read More

10 Traits of Good Interactive Apps for Pre-schoolers

It’s time for people to get used to the idea that kids think media is for interacting and not watching. Parents can take comfort, however, in knowing that interactive technology allows children to actively engage in their own learning. Here are 10 things about Endemol’s Wendy’s Giant List iPad app that would make Piaget proud. Read More

Social Networks: What Maslow Misses

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model speaks to human potential in motivation. In spite of its popularity in business, marketing, and education, however, insights from social networks combined with human brain science show that our understanding of Maslow’s model misses the mark in a very fundamental way. It undervalues human connection. Read More

Unlikely Heroes: Resilience with a Dragon Tattoo

The Hollywood remake of the movie “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is scheduled for release in December. The marketing build-up, concerns over the explicit sexual violence, the intrigues of casting, and the inevitable comparison to the Swedish version have eclipsed the true power of the book—the psychology of the characters, particularly that of Lisbeth Salander. Read More

Transmedia Storytelling: It’s the Story, Stupid

'Transmedia storytelling' has become the buzz term du jour, obscuring its fundamentals. ‘Transmedia’ is an adjective. ‘Storytelling’ is the noun. However amazing and interwoven the media pieces, a storyworld is only as effective as the story it is built on because that's where the audience participates. Read More

Using Transmedia Storytelling to Raise Awareness of OCD

Stories are powerful things; they are a primal form of communication that allows us to capture and share authentic human experience. . The International OCD Foundation is putting transmedia storytelling to work to raise awareness and overcome stereotypes about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) called "Dare to Believe"... Read More

Taking Aim at Facebook: Just Whom Are We Protecting?

Social networking is the new poster child for fear. While the UK ponders restrictions, Missouri has already enacted legislation strictly limiting student-teacher online interaction. There is a political and emotional appeal in artificially suppressing people's ability to connect. But I guarantee you it won't work. Read More

Us Versus Them: It's Time for "We're All In This Together"

We need a nationwide campaign taking a cue from Virgin America's info-cartoon. The use of fear and blame makes people feel afraid and powerless. When they do, one of three things happens: 1) the act of destruction becomes an act of agency 2) they give away more rights to feel “safe” or 3) they seek out a segment of society to blame. Read More

London Riots: Blaming Social Media

After four days of riots across the UK, people are looking for answers. The violence spread rapidly, not as single oozing mass, but more like an outbreak of the measles. Its speed and range is attributed to the rioters’ use of social media. Focusing blame on social media is akin to killing the messenger and is both naïve and dangerous. Read More

Behavioral Targeting: To Track or Not to Track, That Is the Question

If the majority of people don’t want to be tracked online, advertisers and search companies are risking a public relations disaster to target consumers. The companies can target us, but in doing so, they skew search results and make our world narrower and less rich. Whatever happened to freedom of information? Read More

Hating Selena Gomez

I don’t hate Selena Gomez. But from the eyes of a passionate teenage Bieber fans, I do understand how some teens might feel the rage of rejection and lash out against the cold harsh world of reality by inappropriately targeting Ms. Gomez. Read More

Pamela Rutledge, Ph.D., M.B.A., is Director of the Media Psychology Research Center and teaches media psychology at Fielding Graduate University and UCLA Extension. more...