Mediaboss Marketing

Elizabeth Renstrom for TIME

Back in 1970, the technology writer Alvin Toffler published a book called Future Shock , which became an international bestseller. The book is about how humans struggle with too much technological change in too short a timeand it's all-too relevant today. Social media now dictates how people interact with friends, read the news and navigate their day-to-day existence.

What is all that doing to the human psyche?

Researchers have been trying to find out since the early 2000s, when the first studies on social networking media emerged. The field really ramped up with the advent of the iPhone in 2009. Like it is today, the early evidence was mixed.

One study found that positive interactions on sites like Friendster and MySpace could boost a users wellbeing, but another found that including strangers in your social network may have a negative impact on your self-esteem. Online social networks, researchers warned, are much different from a real-life social life.

Social media was so new and evolving so quickly, both in terms of its content and how users interacted with it, that researchers had a hard time keeping pace. But experts say the latest study conclusions are more consistentthough the news isn't good.

One recent study examined the links between Facebook use and wellbeing. We found that the more you use Facebook over time, the more likely you are to experience negative physical health, negative mental health and negative life satisfaction, says study author Holly Shakya, assistant professor and social media researcher at the University of California, San Diego.

More research is needed, she says, but I think people do have a sense that this is a problem, and theyre ready to reflect on their use and to consider making changes.

Social media also appears to be stressing people out. Another 2017 study looked at 18- to 22-year-olds and how social media impacted their anxiety levels. The more time they spent on it per day, "the greater the association with anxiety symptoms and the greater likelihood of an anxiety disorder, says Anna Vannucci, coauthor of the study and a research associate at Connecticut Childrens Medical Center. "We think social media use may exacerbate stress.

Exactly how social media does that may depend on which site youre using.

On lifestyle-focused sites like Instagram, a user may see a friends perfectly framed, glamorous photos and compare herself negatively to those images. On a news-heavy site like Facebook or Twitter, the steady stream of current events headlines and opinions of other people that you may find disturbing could cause despair or negative feelings, Vannucci says.

The idea of communication or technology overload is something else were exploring, she says. Just being exposed to all of it constantly on our phones could be overwhelming to the brain.

MORE : Why We Shouldnt Tell Workers When to Unplug

Social media overload may be even more detrimental for teens and adolescents, says Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University and author of the forthcoming book iGen . I think young people, especially, look at the so-called highlight reels people post on social and compare themselves, so they may feel depressed or negative emotions as a result, she says. Sites like Snapchat may be less about performing than some othersbut these sites go out of style so quickly now that its hard for the research to keep up, she says.

Some experts challenge the cause-and-effect relationship between social media and negative mood, arguing that people who are prone to anxiety or isolation may be more likely to spend a lot of time on social media.

While thats probably true, Vannucci and Twenge say the relationship seems to flow both waysmeaning people with anxiety or mood disorders are more likely to use social media compulsively, but that compulsive use may also promote these sorts of negative emotional states. At least two studies have followed people over time and showed that heavy social media use came before lower psychological wellbeing and feelings of loneliness, rather than vice versa, Twenge says.

Quitting social media seems to improve mood. Last year, a study team from Denmark split more than a thousand Facebook users into two groups and asked one of those groups to take a week-long break from the social site. Compared to those who kept using Facebook as usual, the people who took a break experienced big jumps in life satisfaction and positive emotions. The more a person had used Facebook before taking a break, the greater his happiness boost after giving it up, the study data show.

None of this is to say social media used in moderation is harmful, says Christine McCauley Ohannessian, associate professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at the University of Connecticut Medical School (and Vannuccis coauthor on the social media and anxiety study). But defining moderate use is difficult; it depends on the person and the platform.

Saying how much is too much is tough to answer, especially for adults, Twenge says. I think you have to assess how using it makes you feel emotionally, and ask yourself if youre using social instead of seeing friends in person, or exercising, or doing other things we know are linked to happiness and improved mental health.

Spending time on multiple social media networks also seems to be problematic. People have so many different accounts now, and they feel a lot of pressure to stay connected, Vannucci says. Trimming your social habit down to just one platform may lighten your brains load. And, though its easier said than done, Vannucci recommends unfollowing or blocking the people or news streams that tend to stress you out.

The same advice can help teens and adolescents. But kids may have a harder time monitoring their emotions and keeping their usage under control. A 2015 Pew Research Center study concluded that 24% of teens go online almost constantly. Kids are also receiving their first phone earlier than ever before: around age 10, according to one 2016 survey.

Whether its hanging out with friends, playing outside or just daydreaming, a 10-year-old or 12-year-old probably has healthier things to do with his time than stare at a screen. I think people look at kids usage and intuitively sense that this is screwed up, Shakya says.

Figuring out what makes people happy or unhappy is always messy, and much of the existing research is incomplete. But based on what experts know today, taking time away from social media seems more likely to brighten your day than bum you out.

Excerpt from:
You Asked: Is Social Media Making Me Miserable? - TIME

HIBBING Its a scene youve visited a million times over, and as Minnesotan, one you learn to cherish during the blissful heat of summer were talking about the iconic backyard barbecue.

You know the days when its too hot to even think about cooking indoors, so you fire up your grill. Your neighbors are doing the same, and soon enough, you find yourself hosting an awesome, casual party that you didnt even have to plan.

On Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2017, Hibbing Police Department (HPD) will be hosting a barbecue for the residents of Hibbing and the surrounding areas as part of National Night Out (NNO). The grill will be on and hamburgers and hotdogs will be served in the citys back yard Bennett Park beginning at 4 p.m. with events scheduled until 7 p.m. And in good ol fashioned barbecue etiquette, organizers ask you to bring a pre-packaged food item or beverage with you to share.

A party of this magnitude takes some planning to pull off, but Hibbing Police Officer and National Night Out Coordinator Rachel Shiek has it under control.

Last year we had about 3,000 to 4,000 people come out, and were hoping to see the same turnout if not more, she said.

The whole idea got started after Shiek was invited to various neighborhood gatherings around Hibbing. She thought it was great and wanted to get the whole community involved. Thats when she proposed the idea to HPD Chief Maryann Hooper who agreed and told Shiek to run with it.

Last years event was a smashing success and the HPD has an even bigger event in store this year more food and more fun.

No one is making money off this event. Its not political. Its just a way to get comfortable with one another, Shiek said. We (HPD) are planning to have information tables out with resources about Internet safety, drug use and abuse information, how to keep your house safe from burglary that kind of thing. We want it to be an event that everyone can enjoy.

In addition to a bigger and better bounce house, youll have a chance to soak a cop. Shiek has police officers from all different departments lined up and ready to sit a shift in the dunk tank.

Itll be fun to watch them get soaked in their uniform, she laughed.

And its that good-natured kind of fun Shiek hopes will spur casual conversations between residents and all the groups that will be represented that night, formally or not.

Youll have your chance to explore squad cars from HPD and the cadet training cars at Hibbing Community College. Hibbing Fire Department plans to be there with a rig or two, and there will be tons of fun events for everyone including games, face painting and live music from the city band.

Hibbing resident James Plese Jr. feels he knows his neighbors pretty well, but is looking forward to connecting with people he doesnt see that often. His wife and kids were at last years event, and they all plan to make it to the park this year.

I see so much negativity about our community lacking things to do that I feel that its really important to support the events that come about that are family-friendly, he said.

In 2015, Hibbing was listed as the safest city in Minnesota. After a rash of homicides this past year, Hibbing doesnt register on any top 10, 25 or 50 safest city lists in Minnesota.

Hibbing Mayor Rick Cannata plans to attend the NNO event, and was proud of the great turnout last year.

I appreciate the work of Officer Shiek and all the helpful volunteers that are working hard to make this happen, she said. I was born and raised here, and I still think its a great, safe community.

The majority of our town is full of very good citizens. By showing up on Tuesday night, we can show that were a stronger community than we think, she said. Networking is so important. Its important to be comfortable talking to the officers. Were here for support. Were not always looking to make an arrest. Were here for anyone who needs us, if you dont know where to turn, call us. We can find ways to help you before your situation gets worse.

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Experience the power of the social network - Hibbing Daily Tribune

When you own, run, or look after the marketing for an online store, there are plenty of strategies you can implement to generate interest, build a brand, increase conversions, boost referrals and encourage repeat business.

In this day and age, though, when billions of people have at least some kind of online social media presence and use networking sites to research products and make buying decisions, it is imperative that your marketing efforts have a significant focus in the social space, too. Read on for some ways you should be using the power of social media to better market your e-commerce store today.

When it comes to using social networking tools to build your e-commerce business, your best resources will be social data analytics programs. More sophisticated than ever, these tools will collect and analyze the data from the social media sites you use to help you ensure youre targeting the right customers, and also to allow you market to them more effectively. This makes it easier to design a marketing strategy that will get the results you want.

In particular, tools such as Buffer, BuzzSumo, Keyhole, Hootsuite, and Klout can look at the engagement you receive on social media posts to determine which types of posts receive the most likes, shares, replies, and comments, and which links are clicked on most often.

Once you have this data at your fingertips, you can work out which content to do more of and which to not bother spending time on. It also helps you to ensure that youre reaching the target customers youre after, plus can help you to identify potential new demographics to focus on.

Another top benefit of using social media to market your online store is that platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram provide you with a space to improve your customer service. On social networking sites, you can chat with people directly in real time, and have more meaningful interactions with current and potential clients.

By answering questions as soon as they come in, providing information when it is needed, running live chat sessions, or responding to complaints or problems ASAP, you can make customers happier. They will then, in turn, become more loyal to your store, and will be much more likely to recommend your products or services to their friends, family members, colleagues, and other contacts. This does some handy marketing for you, and at a very low cost.

Keep in mind that people are busy and quite demanding these days, and expect to hear back from businesses straight away, not in hours or days. Social media provides the perfect platform for this type of quick response, and means that people dont have to waste time on hold on the phone, or worry about checking to see if they have received an email reply. They will be more likely to finalize their transactions as a result, and to come back and buy from you again.

Apart from making people feel more confident to buy online because they have the information they need or have had their concerns allayed via social media, providing customer service on networking sites also helps you to impress a lot of other consumers at the same time. People can see, publicly, that you take customer service seriously, and that you will go the extra mile to help clients and address problems right away. This is the perfect low-cost marketing tool.

In addition to overcoming possible objections and demonstrating your commitment to customer service, you can use social media to build your brand by humanizing it. Through posting online, you allow people to get to know the company more intimately, as well as the people behind it.

Via social media channels you can showcase the personality of your brand, and demonstrate the ventures passions, vision, goals, beliefs, and point of difference. You can give people a taste of what the culture is like within the organization, and who it is that they will speak to or buy from when engaging with the business. You can also introduce them to the people responsible for selecting the products sold or determining the way theyre packaged up and shipped out. This allows you to stand out from the thousands of other e-commerce stores you will likely be competing with.

Brand storytelling is important for all businesses, but online stores, in particular, can benefit from using social networking sites to tell stories about the products sold and about the culture, lifestyle, and/or ethos that defines them and the venture as a whole. Through your posts you can help people to trust in your business and what it is you sell, and inspire them to share the lifestyle and culture youre defining.

Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

Link:
How to use the power of social media to better market your online store - Marketing Land

John Castellano is Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney and Chief Appellate Attorney in the office of Richard A. Brown, District Attorney of Queens County, New York.

The Supreme Courts grant of certiorari in United States v. Carpenter highlights the clash between established Fourth Amendment doctrines and what many argue are the heightened privacy concerns of a digital era. The court will consider the scope of the Fourth Amendments protection of information contained in a cellular carriers records that reflects the location of cell towers used to complete customers phone calls and convey their texts. At stake will be at least two traditional notions underlying the courts Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. The first is the general understanding that information voluntarily exposed to others is not protected by the Fourth Amendment, and the second is the more specific third-party doctrine, which holds that government access to information collected by a private business in order to provide a service to a customer does not constitute a search.

In this case, the government obtained court orders under Section 2703 of the Stored Communications Act for a total of 127 days of historical cell-site information regarding phones used by defendant Timothy Carpenter, who had been named by an accomplice as the mastermind of a string of nine commercial burglaries committed in and around Detroit. As the governments expert testified, the records provided the location of cell towers that handled the defendants calls and texts, and indicated that the defendants phone was within one-half to two miles of the specified tower and within a one-third or one-sixth radial wedge, or sector, of the tower. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit applied the third-party doctrine to hold that the Fourth Amendment did not protect this information, because the records obtained were those of the cellphone provider and reflected information collected by the provider in order to provide a service to the defendant. The court of appeals also noted that cellphone customers generally understand that when they use their cellphones for calls or texts, they are employing nearby cell towers and thus providing information to the carrier, including their general whereabouts.

The issue may not be so clear cut for some members of the Supreme Court, however. In a 2011 concurrence in United States v. Jones, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that, although the third-party doctrine was not at issue in that case, it might in the future be necessary to reconsider the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to third parties. This approach is ill suited to the digital age, in which people reveal a great deal of information about themselves to third parties in the course of carrying out mundane tasks. And Justice Samuel Alito, writing for himself and three other members of the court, noted in Jones that long-term monitoring of specific GPS-location data could impinge on expectations of privacy, but suggested that legislative solutions might be best suited to balance these concerns with public safety in an era of dramatic technological change.

The way in which the Supreme Court resolves these issues in Carpenter will undoubtedly revolve around how the justices view the scope of the issue presented. If the question is, as some suggest, whether the Fourth Amendment does anything to regulate government access to the nearly limitless information stored by telecommunications companies and internet service providers, many of the justices are likely to be reluctant to sign on to an expansive application of traditional doctrines. But if the issue is confined to the particular type of information involved in this case, the specific privacy interests at stake, the judicial mechanism Congress provided to restrict access to the information and the legitimacy of the governments interest in the information, the outcome may well be different.

The privacy concerns raised by the specific information at stake in this case may be far less significant than those attached to other types of information a digital consumer provides to carriers or internet providers. The information obtained in Carpenters case involved only the location of towers used to convey calls and messages, and not, notably, the content of any communication. As the 6th Circuit noted, in the telecommunications context, the Supreme Court has traditionally distinguished between content-related information and information about the mechanisms used to convey the message. And, whatever the precise contours of the line between content and non-content, in this case there seems little doubt that the information was not content-related.

Moreover, unlike the specific GPS coordinates in Jones, accurate to within 100 feet, the information in Carpenter was non-specific, placing the phone as far away as two miles from the towers, and only within a one-third or one-sixth sector of the tower. Nor is the tower identified in records like those at issue in this case necessarily the closest one to the caller, because two people making calls from the same car at the same time may be employing two different towers, depending on, among other things, whether one tower has reached its capacity.

This difference in specificity between GPS data and cell-site information would appear to be significant. Rather than allowing the government to observe what businesses or residences a phone subscriber visits, and thus, as Sotomayor feared, compile a comprehensive record of a persons public movements that reflects a wealth of detail about her familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations, the records in this case identified at best a general neighborhood or group of neighborhoods, which, in an urban context, potentially covers hundreds or thousands of businesses and residences.

Nor is the privacy interest in location information, something traditionally exposed to the public and observable by the government, greater than the privacy interest in other types of documents clearly covered by the third-party doctrine. Numbers dialed from a phone, for example, which are far more specific and in many ways more revealing than the location of cell towers, fall squarely within the third-party doctrine and may be accessed without resort to any court order, as the Supreme Court held in Smith v. Maryland. According to United States v. Miller, the same is true of bank records and other financial information, which many consider to be highly personal and private.

And although some litigants and commentators have challenged the voluntariness of a cellphone customers disclosure of location information, cellphone users, as the 6th Circuit noted, generally understand that the phone company completes calls by the use of cell towers and knows what towers are being used to complete a customers calls. Moreover, all carriers provide notice of their privacy policies, which routinely include warnings that information is collected in connection with the provision of a carriers services and that this information may be provided to law enforcement.

The notion that prosecutors routinely abuse their access to this type of information, effectively tracking the whereabouts of citizens for weeks or months and for little or no reason, lacks a legitimate foundation. For one thing, the government conducts no tracking when it gains access to this type of information: The phone company collects cell-site location information for its own purposes and the government, retrospectively, views it based on a court order. For another, prosecutors do not routinely access such information. In fact, in 2016, prosecutors in Queens, New York, the 10th most populous county in the nation with 2.3 million inhabitants, obtained historical cell-cite information only 92 times, each through a court order, out of the more than 54,000 prosecutions in the county that year. And most of those orders covered periods far less extensive than those in this case. Indeed, more than half of the Queens County orders covered 10 days or less, and an additional 22 percent covered 30 days or less. Only seven orders for the entire year exceeded 90 days, and most of those were issued in pattern robbery or burglary investigations like the one in Carpenter, in which a review of records over a longer time period was warranted.

Furthermore, prosecutors access to cell-site location information is limited by judicial intervention. The Stored Communications Act requires a court order based on specific and articulable facts establishing that the information requested is relevant and material to an investigation. Both the citizens affected and the time period covered by the records can be limited in this manner. This is precisely the type of statutory mechanism that Alito suggested in his concurrence in Jones would operate to protect any perceived privacy interest at stake. Indeed, subpoenas for potentially far more personal information, like bank information, credit card statements and call detail information, can be issued in most states without any such check.

Moreover, the legitimate interest of law enforcement in historical cell-site location information in certain cases is very compelling, because it provides an important investigative tool when it may be difficult or impossible to show probable cause. Orders may be used, for example, to obtain the location history of homicide victims to determine their whereabouts immediately prior to their deaths, thereby aiding in the investigation of relevant events and possible causes. Similarly, when multiple legitimate suspects could have motives for committing a crime, location information may exclude some or all of these suspects. Historical cell-site information can also be used to check the reliability of information provided by informants or contained in the statements of accomplices. And, when pattern crimes are alleged, review of cell-site location data can provide critical evidence of, for example, an individuals commission of serial killings or a persons participation in pattern robberies or burglaries like the one in this case, because presence at multiple crime scenes or other relevant locations over a period of many days or weeks is not likely to be mere coincidence. In this way, a Section 2703 order provides an essential investigative tool, often used in conjunction with subpoena requests and other investigative techniques, that imposes minimal intrusions on any legitimate expectations of privacy.

The Supreme Courts decision in Carpenter will thus likely turn on how broadly the justices view the question presented in the case. Whatever the outcome, the Supreme Courts decision is likely to be merely the opening salvo in the legal debate rather than a definitive resolution of the issues raised by law-enforcement access to cell-site location information.

Posted in Carpenter v. U.S., Summer symposium on Carpenter v. United States, Featured, Merits Cases

Recommended Citation: John Castellano, Symposium: Justices poised to consider, or reconsider, Fourth Amendment doctrines as they assess the scope of privacy in a digital age, SCOTUSblog (Aug. 1, 2017, 2:49 PM), http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/08/symposium-justices-poised-consider-reconsider-fourth-amendment-doctrines-assess-scope-privacy-digital-age/

The rest is here:
Symposium: Justices poised to consider, or reconsider, Fourth Amendment doctrines as they assess the scope of ... - SCOTUSblog (blog)

The bipartisan ECPA Modernization Act of 2017 introduced by Sens. Patrick LeahyPatrick LeahyDigital privacy bill still abandons probable cause for our papers Overnight Tech: Driverless car bill advances in House | Bezos now world's richest person | Tech groups hail new email privacy bill Senate panel advances measure to protect medical marijuana states MORE (D-Vt.) and Mike LeeMike LeeDigital privacy bill still abandons probable cause for our papers McConnell faces questions, but no test to his leadership Overnight Cybersecurity: Senate sends Russia sanctions bill to Trump | Senators unveil email privacy bill | Russia tried to spy on Macron with Facebook MORE (R-Utah) is a welcome correction to a legislative flaw in the Fourth Amendment protections of emails stored in the cloud. Because of a law created before the cloud came to be, emails stored longer than 18 months could be accessed by government agencies without a warrant signed by a neutral judicial officer after presentation of probable cause of unlawful activity.

Citing the most basic Fourth Amendment protocols against warrantless access to emails, the bill was introduced under the premise of fixing that flaw for these older emails in the cloud. The bill, though, still leaves open probable cause-free access to emails and other papers through use of judgeless administrative subpoenas.

A rule of construction in the ECPA Modernization Act that is entirely inconsistent with the sacrosanct warrant and probable cause provisions of the Fourth Amendment is that it shall [not] limit an otherwise lawful authority of a governmental entity to use an administrative subpoena authorized by Federal or State statute.

Administrative subpoenas, also called civil investigative demands, are search writs issued by government agencies and state attorneys general or prosecutors to disgorge private papers. They may be issued without probable cause, and require no before-the-fact review by neutral judicial officers. They may be enforced in court under threat of contempt and other penalties, and courts give Chevron deference to these writs, meaning the issuers of them may in large degree determine the scope of the laws they claim to be enforcing.

In these regards, administrative subpoenas are worse than the general warrants banned by the Fourth Amendment after Americas colonial experience with the Writs of Assistance, which in fact helped foster the American Revolution. The Writs of Assistance targeted colonial merchants, but were at least issued by judges who could determine that legitimate laws were being enforced. These colonial Writs required returns before judicial officers, and government searchers were subject to legislative penalties and even private lawsuits for exceeding the scope of the judicially authorized searches. Some colonial judges even refused to issue these Writs when government officials refused to provide facts under oath.

The administrative subpoena regime abandons the requirement of probable cause both before issuance by the searchers themselves and in after-the-fact judicial hearings to enforce them. Unlike the general warrants under which judges determined the scope of the searches in advance, although leaving the persons, businesses, and places to be searched up to the discretion of the government searchers, administrative subpoenas may be issued based on flawed interpretations of the law and without independently verified facts indicating law may have been violated by the targets.

Administrative subpoenas therefore lack the separation of powers found even in the Writs of Assistance regime. The discretion of searchers under the administrative subpoena regime is therefore broader and in many ways more dangerous to the Fourth Amendment right of security than the Writs of Assistance.

The Boston Globe recently reported that the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts is calling out the explosion in the use of these sanctioned fishing expedition tool[s], and how some state prosecutors have refused to disclose how many they issue. This mirrors my own experience with one state attorney general who ducked a Freedom of Information Act request about the quantity she issues, claiming attorney-client privilege among other excuses not to comply.

Administrative subpoenas are in fact impossible to reconcile with the Fourth Amendment. The very premise of the ECPA Modernization Act is that government may not violate the security of private records unless a judge has issued a warrant after hearing probable cause under oath that facts indicate a law is being broken. Government officials will exploit this expressly sanctioned loophole in the bill and subpoena emails directly from their targets in this probable cause-free administrative subpoena regime. Neither digital nor hard records will be safe from unreasonable government searches and compelled disgorgement.

Mark J. Fitzgibbons is President of Corporate Affairs at American Target Advertising, Inc.

The views expressed by this author are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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Digital privacy bill still abandons probable cause for our papers - The Hill (blog)