STUFF - get some

I got lots of requests to make a Help in Romance blog post due to my recent choice to alter my signiture to a heart sign in loo of any other type of mark. But I digress.

For fun I descided to track the Hul commericals that appear in three hours. it should be noted that my Hulu account signs in with my Gmail, by which I subscribe for video updates and is also linked to my Facebook and twitter pages. it should also be notable that in an attempt to earn a little extra money, I've enabled Adsense, a Google tracking program that records site information for targeting ads to visiters to my page as well as my google enabled accounts.

I arranged the ads, not by brand or type but by product type.

hygiene products                  --- 5 (men's hair)
drink ads (alcohol)               --- 2
Insta-food type products      --- 6
pharmaceuticals                   ---  1 (preg. test)
Car ads                               ---  4
bank/credit                          ---  3
Cellphone/portable device    ---  3
PSA/non-profit org.             ---  1
misc.                                    ---  4 (3 dating websites, 1 hulu promo)

So, despite my fear, these ads don't seem targeted specifically to me. However, I did recently have a relationship status change, which was noted on facebook and a blog entry I did not share. But I think these ads are more indicative of values -or perceived values- that are being advertised to. Image. My age/sex demagraphic is seemingly represented here (male, 18-30).
...or at least i'd like to say. Without any further study or deeper analyst, i can't really make any claims with certainty. At the very least, I'd need some sort of base line or larger sample size. I'd also like to compare video ads to the Facebook side-bar ads and establish a better method of identifying ad types.

... I had some more to say though it suddenly escapes me.

<3

P.S. I suspect this is a most uninteresting post for you readers á la frequent, I'll endeavor to make the next twice as entertaining.

A study

So I wanna test some theories...

Basically, in a recent class of mine, psych 280, the professor mentioned one of his studies. In brief, that study indicated that persons surveyed who used Facebook frequently had a relatively high dissatisfaction of life. This stuck with me. There is also strong evidence that suggests a person's satisfaction of life is affected by the comparisons they make. Specifically, by comparing your success to more successful person, you'll survey as having higher dissatsifaction then if  you compare your success to persons less successful. Armed with this information, I'm planning on starting an experiment. as follows

Hypothesis: Because Facebook promotes high social monitoring in it's users there is a disproportionate representation of 'positive' status updates on Facebook. This results in frequent users' having a relatively low satisfaction of life.
Thesis: Increasing the frequency of 'negative' or depressive status updates should correlate positively to satisfaction of life in Facebook friends relative to the frequency of Facebook use. Therefore, if all my future status updates of my Facebook profile reflect negative events, the attitudes of Facebook friends should trend upwards in satisfaction of life.

However, I'm lost in coming up with an method to accurately measure the feelings and attitudes pre-experiment and post-experiment of Facebook friends. First thought is by survey, but I lack much of the authority required to get reliable survey results from people (at lest so i think). The alternative is to subjectively record the number and rate the degree of positive/negative posts on Facebook. the obvious problem is that I start with the assumption that people, more often then otherwise, display themselves in a positive light on Facebook. So that Facebook is an inaccurate reflection of actual feelings/attitudes. Maybe I could ask a select group of people to engage reflectively each week and record the number of times and duration they use Facebook and their mood at those times and weigh that against the number and popularity and mood of posts I record daily on Facebook.

...this all seems like something I should ask the Psych department at ISU about.

anyway, stay well, love, Marcus Miranti