Internet Psychologist
Graham Jones 
Today is “World Wide Web Day”, when we are encouraged to celebrate the creation of the WWW. Nobody quite knows why today was selected as a global day of celebration of the web. The date does not coincide with Tim Berners-Lee’s original proposal for the web. That was submitted on 12 March 1989. Nor is it the date on which …
On Monday, the UK got a new Prime Minister, and he set to work straight away trying to make everyone happy. Even before he set foot inside Number Ten, he promised to eradicate rough sleeping. The next day, he gave every household a £45 tax cut by dropping tax on …
I am not a football expert. So, let me get this straight. I understand that the team that wins is the one that scores more goals than the other side. Is that right? Your job as a highly-paid footballer, therefore, is just to keep on scoring goals. The more the …
Tomorrow afternoon, around 9 million people will sit down to watch two grown men grunt and sweat as they fight for tennis supremacy. The Wimbledon Men’s Singles Final attracts huge audiences every year. Indeed, last year the BBC broke records, with a further 69 million viewings of the Wimbledon Championship …
Today is “Alice in Wonderland Day”, and if you head over to Oxford, you will find all sorts of events and activities to celebrate the fantasy world created by Lewis Carroll. Now, before you go down a rabbit hole investigating all those things, let me explain why we should all …
Here in the UK, we’ve had record-breaking temperatures every day this week. Yesterday, the mercury got to 37.3 degrees. We all wish we had air conditioning. Indeed, in the space of a few days, air conditioning sales in the UK have rocketed. That’s not surprising, because air conditioning remains far …
Regular readers might think this weekend’s heatwave has gone to my head. Last week, I suggested that working from home had its problems and that returning to the office might be a good idea – assuming the office is a nice place to work. Now, I’m encouraging you to give …
All this week I have been working from home. That’s because it is the end of term at university and several rooms near my office are being used for exams. To avoid disrupting students, those of us with offices close to the exam rooms decided to work from home all …
Earlier this week, I was in a meeting where someone was adamant they could spot “anything” produced by artificial intelligence. They were highly confident in their ability to detect material written by AI. The evidence, though, suggests otherwise. Several studies have investigated whether people can detect AI-generated material, and overall, …
A few weeks ago, I was in a meeting when one of my colleagues said that they would “socialise” the decision after “circling back” with us. I didn’t say anything, but I sat there thinking, “I’m too old for this game, I no longer understand what people are saying to …
A Field Guide for Business Go ahead and Google “what is internet psychology.” What comes back is a curious jumble: a few academic papers behind paywalls, some university course pages, a handful of listicles about social media addiction, and not much that tells you what the field actually is or …
A series of events this week made me think about how we make plans. It all began when I started my lecture on Tuesday about marketing planning. One student wanted to know if there was a “right way” to do planning. I said that there was definitely a wrong way …
It has been a turbulent week in UK politics. Indeed, it has been such a roller coaster of political upheaval that the news has spread worldwide. The troubles for the British Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, have made front-page news across Europe, the USA, Brazil, India, and Russia. Several reports …
Last night was an evening of contrasts. First, I watched the celebratory concert from the Royal Albert Hall in London, which honoured Sir David Attenborough on his 100th birthday. Then I turned to the special “BBC Question Time” programme discussing the results of the UK local elections held on Thursday. …
The British politician, Zack Polanski, has apologised for a social media post he published this week. The Tweet criticised the Metropolitan Police for the way they arrested a man suspected of stabbing two Jewish men in Golders Green, London. To be fair to Mr Polanski, he did not write the …