21–30 of 61 posts
"Are you ashamed that you find Facebook boring?" Why, yes. "Are you angst-ridden by your weak social-networking skills?" My God man, you are reading my mind "Do you look with envy on those whose friend-count dwarfs your own?" Sorry, no, you don't get 3 yes. http://changingminds.org/techniques/resisting/yes_yes_no.htm http://changingminds.org/disciplines/sales/closing/yes-set_c... When I read the first couple sentence…
NFC = Need for cognition. SNS = Social network site. "The key finding," the authors write, "is that NFC played an important role in SNS use. Specifically, high NFC individuals tended to use SNS less often than low NFC people, suggesting that effortful thinking may be associated with less social networking among young people." Moreover, "high NFC participants were significantly less likely to add new friends to their…
It seems like you're using a colloquial meaning of the phrase "need for cognition", but it has a specific well defined meaning in psychology (see the link in the blog post for a brief description, or Cacioppo, Feinstein, and Jarvis PB 1996, 197-253 for a deeper description). Whether or not NFC measures anything meaningful, and whether or not a single scale factor is sufficient for account for NFC are possibly valid o…
I have just read the fine blog post, which taught me the term "need for cognition." Having read it, I posted a Facebook link to the blog post visible to my 554 FB friends titled with the question, "The suggestion of one research finding is that people who like to use social networking sites don't like intellectual challenge. Can you think of any counterexamples?" I will see what happens over the next several hours. T…
I'm sure there are very smart people that use Facebook regularly.
This is interesting. I feel like saying "Facebook is geared to stupid people" is offensive and inaccurate, but I've definitely felt like "social" applications have a fatal flaw, which is that they can't succeed without getting progressively dumber over time. The early adopters of services like Facebook and Twitter are smart, curious, technologically-adept people like HN posters. But if the product isn't "dumbed down"…
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"Are you ashamed that you find Facebook boring?" Why, yes. "Are you angst-ridden by your weak social-networking skills?" My God man, you are reading my mind "Do you look with envy on those whose friend-count dwarfs your own?" Sorry, no, you don't get 3 yes. http://changingminds.org/techniques/resisting/yes_yes_no.htm http://changingminds.org/disciplines/sales/closing/yes-set_c... When I read the first couple sentence…
Am I alone in feeling that this headline is self-aggrandizing snobbery? Facebook succeeds by providing universal access: it must be a tool that anyone can use. Is a hammer geared to dullards? Is a coffee mug? Just because it is simple enough for everyone to use doesn't equate to being "geared for dullards". I know it's cool to hate on Facebook, but attacking them for one of their key successes is absurd. Now whether…
The best software is so simple that anyone can use it, but the converse (simple software is only used by simple people) is definitely not true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need_for_cognition cites a few surveys. Here are some facts about NFC:
"need for cognition was related weakly and negatively to being closeminded, unrelated to social desirability, and positively correlated with general intelligence" [http://psycnet.apa.org/?&fa=main.doiLanding&fuseacti...]
"currently enrolled students high in the need for cognition expressed greater life satisfaction than students low in the need for cognition" [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCR/is_2_38/ai_n6130...]
"People high in the need for cognition are more likely to form their attitudes by paying close attention to relevant arguments (i.e., via the central route to persuasion), whereas people low in the need for cognition are more likely to rely on peripheral cues, such as how attractive or credible a speaker is" [wikipedia]
"people who are high in the need for cognition scale score slightly higher in verbal intelligence tests but no higher in abstract reasoning tests" [wikipedia]
"Research has concluded that individuals high in NFC are less likely to attribute higher social desirability to more attractive individuals or to males" [wikipedia]
"The need for cognition is unrelated to social dominance orientation." [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3852/is_200101/ai_n8...]