Suchergebnisse

Abstract

Aims
A wide variety of social media platforms exist, each offering tailored solutions to attract specific target audiences based on their social media needs and interests. This diversity may pose a risk factor for the development or perpetuation of harmful behaviors. Research has established a connection between social media use and increased health risk behaviors. This six-wave exploratory longitudinal study investigated the associations between active social media use, hazardous alcohol use, and problem gambling among adult social media users.


Methods
Data were collected via surveys in 6-month intervals, starting in March–April 2021 (T1: N = 1530; Mage = 46.67; SD = 16.42; 50.33% male). Of the T1 respondents, 58.10% participated in T6 (n = 889). Measures included the frequency of use of different social media platforms, the 3-item Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT-C), and the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI). Hybrid multilevel regression models were used for analyses.


Results
We found positive within-person effects of weekly Facebook use and between-person effects of weekly use of Facebook, TikTok, and gambling-related online communities on drinking. These results suggest an increase in hazardous alcohol consumption over time among the platforms' active users. Weekly Instagram use had a negative between-person effect on hazardous alcohol use. Individuals using TikTok or gambling communities weekly were more prone to problem gambling compared to non-weekly users.


Conclusions
There are risks involved in the active use of some social media services among adult users. Prevention work, including digital health interventions, should be targeted according to the appropriate user group.

Robots are increasingly being used to assist with various tasks ranging from industrial manufacturing to welfare services. This study analysed how robot acceptance at work (RAW) varies between individual and national attributes in EU 27. Eurobarometer surveys collected in 2012 (n = 26,751) and 2014 (n = 27,801) were used as data. Background factors also included country-specific data drawn from the World Bank DataBank. The study is guided by the technology acceptance model and change readiness perspective explaining robot acceptance in terms of individual and cultural attributes. Multilevel studies analysing cultural differences in technological change are exceptionally rare. The multilevel analysis of RAW performed herein accounted for individual and national factors using fixed and random intercepts in a nested data structure. Individual-level factors explained RAW better than national-level factors. Particularly, personal experiences with robots at work or elsewhere were associated with higher acceptance. At a national level, the technology orientation of the country explained RAW better than the relative risk of jobs being automated. Despite the countries' differences, personal characteristics and experiences with robots are decisive for RAW. Experiences, however, are better enabled in countries open to innovations. The findings are discussed in terms of possible mechanisms through which the technological orientation and social acceptance of robots may be related.

This study is grounded in extensive online ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with 22 people who expressed a deep interest in school shootings. Such people form a global online subculture; they share common interests and find the same cultural objects important. Media accounts of school shootings have fueled this subculture; its members participate in the re-creation and circulation of online media content and give new meanings to that content. We found that people deeply interested in school shootings do not form a homogenous group, and they are divided into four subgroups within the subculture based on members' focus and interest: researchers, fan girls, Columbiners, and copycats. Out of these, copycats are the only subgroup explicitly interested in replicating the acts, although subgroup membership can overlap, and members can move from one subgroup to another. Beyond copycats, other subgroups also participate in giving perpetrators fame and circulate reasons for the shootings. These accounts may influence future perpetrators.

School shootings have had an enormous cultural impact on discussions about youth worldwide. Studies on school shootings have not yet considered the complex nature of youth subcultures, often blaming particular subcultures or cultural products. This article analyzes how school shooters use different cultural products including books, films and, especially, music. The interest lies in examining how particular cultural products are woven into the fabric of the cultural script of school shootings. The music of 46 videos left by the Finnish Jokela High School shooter is analyzed in the context of the cultural script of the shootings. School shooters are not only fascinated by previous shootings but are also fans of similar cultural products. Music is actively used as a reference. Shooters actively searched for lyrics that enforce the idea of revolutionary violence. Internet videos offered a channel for shooters to interact with other people.

AbstractTwo case examples of school shootings in Finland illustrate the interplay between the distal, international influence of the Columbine shooting and the more immediate impact of local peer interactions involving both peer bullying at school and peer encouragement of violence through the Internet. Both cases involved emotionally troubled young men who identified with the Columbine attackers and aspired to attain notoriety through similar acts of violence. There was a sequence of missed opportunities for prevention in these shootings that occurred when the student was chronically bullied, developed serious emotional problems, became fascinated with Columbine‐type events, and subsequently began to discuss interests and plans to commit a similar act.

The few existing studies on the association between debt problems and crime have suggested that the two are correlated, but the causal nature and direction of this association has been unclear. By using longitudinal register data (N = 20,696) from Finland on young adults' debt default and crime, we examine the potentially reciprocal association between debt problems and crime with both cross‐sectional and longitudinal models. Debt problems and crime have a strong association in the data, which persists after controlling for several measures of socioeconomic status. The longitudinal analyses using fixed‐effects regression models show that levels of crime are higher during periods of debt enforcement, ruling out stable between‐person heterogeneity as the sole cause. The final analysis examining the exact timing of new debt defaults and crime shows signs of a mutually reinforcing association; the rate of newly enforced debt increases in the months preceding the first crime leading to a conviction and continues to increase afterward mostly because of criminal monetary sanctions left unpaid. The conclusion of the analysis is that debt problems have a dynamic association with criminal offending. We discuss the difficult barrier that unpaid debts pose to offenders seeking to desist from criminal activity in the current Finnish context.

This article analyzes the unexpected nature and the consequences of the school shooting in Jokela, Finland in 2007. The study is based on interviews with professionals who participated in the relief efforts after the shooting incident. The analysis focuses on the role of the local youth workers during the days following the crisis. Reactions to the shootings and the consequences of the incident in the local community of Jokela are also considered. The philosophical concept of the event is used to highlight the suddenness of the school shooting incident, likewise its transformative character and its power to reshape public space. The results show that the efforts of the youth workers considerably helped the young in Jokela to cope with the immediate shock and changes in the community life after the shooting.