Dari sebuah penelitian di Amerika, 54 persen profil remaja (usia 18, sampel 500 orang) di MySpace secara terbuka mengungkapkan informasi mengenai perilaku berisiko mereka (seksual, obat-obatan terlarang, atau kekerasan). Ketika sebagian subyek dikirimi e-mail yang memperingatkan mereka mengenai publikasi informasi semacam itu, hanya 14 persen yang kemudian menghapus informasi terkait dari profilnya.

Bagaimana ya dengan para ABG pengguna Friendster dan Facebook di Indonesia? Kecuali sejumlah profil yang diduga kuat ‘palsu’, saya kira (setidaknya dari profil teman-teman saya) belum ada seberani itu; paling mentok cuma majang fotonya sedang berciuman saja.

clipped from health.yahoo.com Moreno and her colleagues randomly selected 500 MySpace profiles from people who reported their age as 18. They found that 54 percent of the profiles contained information on risky behaviors, with 24 percent referencing sexual behaviors, 41 percent referring to substance abuse and 14 percent posting violent information. Factors associated with a decreased risk of posting risky behaviors included displaying religious involvement or involvement with sports or hobbies. the researchers randomly selected 190 profiles of people between 18 and 20 who displayed risky behaviors, such as sexual information. Half were sent an e-mail from a physician that pointed out that the physician had noticed risky behavior on their profile and suggested changing the displayed information. The e-mail message also provided information on where to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases. Almost 14 percent of those who got the e-mail deleted references to sexual behavior, compared with 5 percent of the others.

Ngeblog bisa membuat anda lebih terhubung dengan komunitas dan mendapat lebih banyak dukungan sosial? Bisa membuat anda lebih puas dengan kualitas pertemanan anda, baik di dunia nyata maupun maya? Mungkin anda sudah tahu itu. Tapi yang menarik adalah temuan lain dari para peneliti di Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, ini.

Sebelum meneliti mengenai efek blogging bagi kehidupan sosial, mereka terlebih dahulu meneliti perbedaan antara mereka yang berminat untuk ngeblog dan mereka yang tidak tertarik sama sekali. Hasilnya, mereka yang menjadi blogger potensial lebih tidak puas dengan hubungan pertemanan mereka dibanding mereka yang tidak tertarik ngeblog. Orang-orang ini juga merasa kurang ‘klop’ dengan lingkungan sosial dan komunitas di sekitar mereka.

Bagaimana dengan anda, apa ketidakpuasan hubungan sosial anda di dunia nyata juga sedikit-banyak mendorong anda untuk ngeblog?

clipped from www.abc.net.au Blogging can help you feel less isolated, more connected to a community and more satisfied with your friendships, both online and face-to-face, new Australian research has found. The research, from Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, found after two months of regular blogging, people felt they had better social support and friendship networks than those who did not blog. “We found potential bloggers were less satisfied with their friendships and they felt less socially integrated, they didn’t feel as much part of a community as the people who weren’t interested in blogging,” Ms Moore said. “They were also more likely to use venting or expressing your emotions as a way of coping. “It was as if they were saying ‘I’m going to do this blogging and it’s going to help me’.” And it seemed to do the trick, as the researchers’ second study shows. Bloggers reported a greater sense of belonging to a group of like-minded people and feeling more confident they could rely on others for help.