There is both public and scholarly concern that (passive) social media use decreases well-being by providing a fertile ground for harmful (upward) social comparison and envy. The present review ...critically summarizes evidence on this assumption. We first comprehensively synthesize existing evidence, including both prior reviews and the most recent publications (2019–2021). Results show that earlier research finds social comparison and envy to be common on social media and linked to lower well-being. Yet, increasingly, newer studies contradict this conclusion, finding positive links to well-being as well as heterogeneous, person-specific, conditional, and reverse or reciprocal effects. The review identifies four critical conceptual and methodological limitations of existing evidence, which offer new impulses for future research.
•Social media (SM) supposedly make social comparison, envy, and well-being worse.•This review finds mixed and inconsistent evidence for this claim.•Earlier studies show comparisons and envy are common on SM and linked to ill-being.•Recent studies find positive, person-specific, conditional, and reciprocal effects.•Specific causes, online/offline differences, and user agency remain open questions.
In spring 2020, COVID-19 and the ensuing social distancing and stay-at-home orders instigated abrupt changes to employment and educational infrastructure, leading to uncertainty, concern, and stress ...among United States college students. The media consumption patterns of this and other social groups across the globe were affected, with early evidence suggesting viewers were seeking both pandemic-themed media and reassuring, familiar content. A general increase in media consumption, and increased consumption of specific types of content, may have been due to media use for coping strategies. This paper examines the relationship between the stress and anxiety of university students and their strategic use of media for coping during initial social distancing periods in March-April 2020 using data from a cross-sectional survey. We examine links between specific types of media use with psychological well-being concepts, and examine the moderating roles of traits (hope, optimism, and resilience) as buffers against negative relationships between stress and anxiety and psychological well-being. Our findings indicate that stress was linked to more hedonic and less eudaimonic media use, as well as more avoidant and escapist media-based coping. Anxiety, on the other hand, was linked to more media use in general, specifically more eudaimonic media use and a full range of media-based coping strategies. In turn, escapist media was linked to negative affect, while reframing media and eudaimonic media were linked to positive affect. Avoidant coping was tied to poorer mental health, and humor coping was tied to better mental health. Hedonic and need-satisfying media use were linked to more flourishing. Hope, optimism, and resilience were all predictive of media use, with the latter two traits moderating responses to stress and anxiety. The findings give a nuanced portrait of college students' media use during a pandemic-induced shutdown, showing that media use is closely intertwined with well-being in both adaptive and maladaptive patterns.
Sharing mass media content through social network sites has become a prevalent practice that provides individuals with social utility and cultural capital. This behavior is examined here by testing ...how different self-presentational motivations may produce selective patterns of sharing media content in social networks. An other-ideal motive was expected to drive sharing of popular media, an own-ideal motive was expected to drive sharing of prestigious media, and an actual-self motive was expected to drive sharing of guilty pleasures. An online experiment (N = 168) invoked motivational situations, then asked participants to list songs and films they would share on Facebook. These media were then rated for perceptions. Predictions regarding unique and prestigious media, but not guilty pleasures, were supported. People with the other-ideal motive to fit with group tastes shared less unique music and film, and people with the own-ideal motive to present their best possible selves shared more prestigious music and film. Individual differences in need for uniqueness moderated effects of own-ideal and actual-self motives, and the intensity of Facebook use moderated the effect of other-ideal on media sharing.
•Participants reported intentions to share music and film via social network sites.•Ideal and actual self-presentational motives were induced prior to sharing.•Other-ideal motive led to sharing popular titles; own-ideal shared prestige titles.•Need for uniqueness and Facebook intensity moderated effects.
The continued rise of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections has motivated alternative strategies for target discovery and treatment of infections. Antivirulence therapies function through ...inhibition of in vivo required virulence factors to disarm the pathogen instead of directly targeting viability or growth. This approach to treating bacteria-mediated diseases may have advantages over traditional antibiotics because it targets factors specific for pathogenesis, potentially reducing selection for resistance and limiting collateral damage to the resident microbiota. This review examines vulnerable molecular mechanisms used by bacteria to cause disease and the antivirulence compounds that sabotage these virulence pathways. By expanding the study of antimicrobial targets beyond those that are essential for growth, antivirulence strategies offer new and innovative opportunities to combat infectious diseases.
•We tracked social network site browsing after inducing negative or positive mood.•The site featured upward or downward social comparison targets on two dimensions.•Negative moods led to less upward ...and more downward social comparison exposure.•Mood effect appeared for both career success and physical appearance comparisons.•Results suggest online social comparisons facilitate mood management.
Social networking sites (SNS) provide opportunities for mood management through selective exposure. This study tested the prediction that negative mood fosters self-enhancing social comparisons to SNS profiles. Participants were induced into positive or negative moods and then browsed manipulated profiles on an experimental SNS. Profiles varied in a 2×2 within-subjects design along two dimensions, ratings of career success and attractiveness, allowing for upward comparisons (high ratings) and downward comparisons (low ratings). Selective exposure was measured in seconds spent viewing profiles. Negative mood led to less exposure to upward comparisons and more to downward comparisons than positive mood. The comparison dimension did not influence selective exposure. Thus, in a negative mood, SNS users prefer self-enhancing social comparisons to manage their mood.
The present work examines the role of source vs. content cues for the confirmation bias, in which recipients spend more time with content aligning with preexisting attitudes. In addition to testing ...how both source and content cues facilitate this biased pattern of selective exposure, the study measures subsequent attitude polarization. An experiment (N = 120) presented messages with opposing political stances, associated with unbiased or slanted sources. Software tracked selective exposure in seconds, and attitudes were measured before, immediately after, and two days after message exposure. Further, information processing styles were assessed. The confirmation bias emerged regardless of source quality. Information processing styles moderated the confirmation bias as well as selective exposure to messages from unbiased vs. slanted sources. Selective exposure reinforced attitudes days later.
Temporary cardiac pacemakers used in periods of need during surgical recovery involve percutaneous leads and externalized hardware that carry risks of infection, constrain patient mobility and may ...damage the heart during lead removal. Here we report a leadless, battery-free, fully implantable cardiac pacemaker for postoperative control of cardiac rate and rhythm that undergoes complete dissolution and clearance by natural biological processes after a defined operating timeframe. We show that these devices provide effective pacing of hearts of various sizes in mouse, rat, rabbit, canine and human cardiac models, with tailored geometries and operation timescales, powered by wireless energy transfer. This approach overcomes key disadvantages of traditional temporary pacing devices and may serve as the basis for the next generation of postoperative temporary pacing technology.
Many organisms exhibit visually striking spotted or striped pigmentation patterns. Developmental models predict that such spatial patterns can form when a local autocatalytic feedback loop and a ...long-range inhibitory feedback loop interact. At its simplest, this self-organizing network only requires one self-activating activator that also activates a repressor, which inhibits the activator and diffuses to neighboring cells. However, the molecular activators and inhibitors fully fitting this versatile model remain elusive in pigmentation systems. Here, we characterize an R2R3-MYB activator and an R3-MYB repressor in monkeyflowers (Mimulus). Through experimental perturbation and mathematical modeling, we demonstrate that the properties of these two proteins correspond to an activator-inhibitor pair in a two-component, reaction-diffusion system, explaining the formation of dispersed anthocyanin spots in monkeyflower petals. Notably, disrupting this pattern impacts pollinator visitation. Thus, subtle changes in simple activator-inhibitor systems are likely essential contributors to the evolution of the remarkable diversity of pigmentation patterns in flowers.
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•An activator-inhibitor system produces spotted pigment patterning in Mimulus flowers•Expression of the inhibitor, RTO, is promoted by the activator, NEGAN•RTO protein is mobile and inhibits NEGAN function in neighboring cells•Modulating this nectar guide patterning system influences bumblebee visitation
Many species exhibit visually striking spotted or striped pigmentation patterns. By studying mutants that alter the red spots that dapple monkeyflower petals, Ding et al. uncover a simple activator-inhibitor system that conforms to long-standing theoretical predictions for how such patterns self-organize during development.
Abstract
Summary
In whole genome sequencing data, polymerase chain reaction amplification results in duplicate DNA fragments coming from the same location in the genome. The process of preparing a ...whole genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS) library, on the other hand, can create two DNA fragments from the same location that should not be considered duplicates. Currently, only one WGBS-aware duplicate marking tool exists. However, it only works with the output from a single tool, does not accept streaming input or output, and requires a substantial amount of memory relative to the input size. Dupsifter provides an aligner-agnostic duplicate marking tool that is lightweight, has streaming capabilities, and is memory efficient.
Availability and implementation
Source code and binaries are freely available at https://github.com/huishenlab/dupsifter under the MIT license. Dupsifter is implemented in C and is supported on macOS and Linux.
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