Category: Psychology

Psychology

Helping others online could boost your business

Today sees President Obama receiving his Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his initial attempts to make the world we live in a better place. His roots in working in social care make President Obama somewhat different to many previous presidents, who came from business or law. Rather than seeking

Psychology

Don’t believe all the views you read on the Internet

Many bloggers and those “Internet gurus” are alike in one respect – they often hold viewpoints which don’t quite match up with the rest of us. Indeed, you might think that much of what is written online is somewhat extreme in its position. Take, for instance, making money online. You

Psychology

Internet use boosts your brain

People who have never used the Internet before get a significant brain boost once they start going online. New research from UCLA shows that Internet “newbies” have dramatic increases in brain activity bringing them up to the levels seen in Internet “savvy” people – all in the space of a

Website eye tracking studies are fooling internet business owners

Web designers are keen to explain the predominance of the “letter-f” approach to the Internet. This comes from eye-tracking studies which show the way we look at web pages follows, broadly, an f-shape. We start in the top left hand corner, scan across and down with a quick glance across

Psychology

Your website needs to be obese

Obese people get a raw deal these days. Everywhere you look there’s advice on slimming down, diets, pictures of thin models or muscle-toned hunks. Yet the country is in the grip of a weight pandemic with predictions that 60% of the population will be obese by 2050. Today new research

Psychology

Not everyone online likes social networking

Some people don’t like social activity. Strange as it may seem – we are social creatures at heart – some individuals shun all forms of social activity. It’s not because they are hermits or strange, but because their personality makes them avoid any kind of intimacy. They don’t mind taking

Psychology

Use your pen for your blog, not the keyboard

Bloggers, by their very nature, are sat in front of their computer typing away. However, new research from the University of Washingston suggests that if blog writers were to use their pen, instead of the keyboard, their writing would improve. It appears that we use different brain processes when we

Psychology

Boost your health by taking part in Facebook

Facebook users could well end up being amongst the healthiest people on the planet. Indeed, if you don’t use social networks you may face an unhealthy future. Far from online social networks causing us problems, they may well end up being the technology which saves us all from fat-induced ill-health.

Psychology

Techno addicts don’t exist

Researchers at the highly respected Cranfield School of Management have today published a report called “Techno Addicts” which claims that “technology addiction” is having a disruptive effect on school learning, leading to a widespread acceptance of plagiarism and six out of ten pupils admitting to being addicted to the Internet.

Psychology

Multitasking will not help your website visitors

Is multitasking really a good thing? Ask a woman and she’ll tell you that females are brilliant at it, while men are, well, just rubbish at doing more than one thing at a time. Ask someone aged less than 25, male or female, and they’ll tell you they are also

Content Marketing

Local content will increase your website traffic

Your website readers are loyal to their locality. Provide them with something that’s relevent to their part of the world and they will lap it up. New research from communications experts at the University of Missouri shows that when we read something that is truly local, our brain commits more

Psychology

Usain Bolt is slow, so slow, on the Internet

Usain Bolt is a legend in his own lifetime; an amazing World Record time of 9.58 seconds for 100m – that’s over 23mph…! And if you watched this feat of athletic supremacy from the World Athletics Championships in Berlin you can’t help to have noticed that it was over almost

Psychology

Left handed people might not like your web site

Left handed people are celebrating today because it is International Left Handers Day. But new research suggests that left-handed people could view your web site entirely differently to someone who is right-handed. And the findings could have important implications for the finances of Google. Left handed or right handed? They

Psychology

Assume your website readers are smiling

Your website’s readers pose a real problem for you. Even though you might know their needs and interests well, even though you may have done loads of market research and analytics, the fact remains you cannot see them. And that means you cannot judge their response to what you are

Psychology

Fail to succeed and you succeed at failing

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again – or so we are led to believe. How many times have people told you that if you don’t fail at something you never learn? How often have you heard that Edison failed 10,000 times before he came up with a

Psychology

Barclays profits, bankers bonuses, are you jealous?

Bankers are set to receive bonuses of £4bn, less than a year after the world banking crisis which saw them saved by the taxpayers. Angry? Meanwhile, Barclays Bank is sitting pretty on a half-year profit of £3bn. Envious? Meanwhile, outside the banking sector, Firefox reported its one billionth download this

Psychology

Why is education so important? Because it will increase website traffic

Why is education important? That’s a nice philosophical question that sociologists often answer by saying it provides an opportunity for a child’s parents to go to work. But if you focus on education you will get tons of website traffic. The reason? Apart from just “passing time”, education is the

Psychology

Was the moon landing fake? The answer is important for SEO

Was the moon landing fake? The fake moon landing theory has been with us for 40 years and its enduring nature shows why there is also so much mythology about search engine optimisation. Both are rooted in the same psychological principle which could be helping damage your web presence. If