Developments and innovation in the areas of mobile information technology, digital media and social networks foster new reflections on computer-mediated communication research, especially in the ...field of self-presentation. In this context, the selfie as a self-portrait photo is interesting, because as a meaningful gesture, it actively and directly relates the content of the photo to the author of the picture. From the perspective of the selfie as an image and the impression it forms, in the first part of the research we explored the distinctive characteristics of selfie pictures; moreover, from the perspective of the potential reflection of a selfie image on the personality of its author, in the second part we related the characteristics of selfie pictures to various personality constructs (e.g., Big Five personality traits narcissism and femininity-masculinity). Important aspects of selfies especially in relation to gender include the tilt of the head, the side of the face exhibited, mood and head position, later related also to the context of the selfie picture. We found no significant relations between selfie cues and personality constructs. The face-ism index was related to entitlement, and selfie availability to neuroticism.
Problematic mobile phone use can be related to negative mental states. Some studies indicate that behavioural dependency is related to variables associated with the country of origin. The aim of our ...study was to investigate if country indicators moderated the relationship between phubbing and psychological distress. Our sample consisted of 7,315 individuals from 20 countries, who completed the Phubbing Scale and the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K6). The analyses also included country indicators: the Gender Gap Index (GGI), the Human Development Index (HDI), the Social Progress Index (SPI), Hofstede's dimensions of culture, and the World Happiness Index (WHI). Our results showed that psychological distress was related to at least one dimension of phubbing (i.e., to communication disturbance or phone obsession) in all countries, which means this relationship is culturally universal. The results of the study demonstrate the importance of testing measurement invariance to determine what type of analysis and what type of conclusion are valid in a given study or comparison. Moreover, the increasing or decreasing correlation between phubbing and distress is related to some culture-level indices.
In recent years, geographic information systems and spatial database technology are fast spreading across the tight circles of experts, working in the fields of geography and geodesy. In the first ...wave, GIS functions have been built into engineering applications, which were not just GIS centered (as for example road design, emission calculation, building site-plan etc.). The use has been accelerated through the component technology, which simplifies the insertion of GIS components into a variety of applications-including administration. We describe the upgrading of the business information system of the Slovenian road administration: basic application user interfaces were enriched with a specialized GIS component, which enables a fast and clear (geo)graphical view of the data about the selected part of the road network. The simplicity of using this intelligent digital map (as we named this specialized component) makes it possible to effectively and clearly display the relevant information, which is so necessary in the process of decision making. Besides, there is no need to leave the application the user is familiar with.
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