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Whether you have been along for the ride or you are slow to arrive, social media is growing exponentially, and Facebook and Twitter, among other social sites, are common household names. For better or worse, social networking sites spread information faster than any other media.

One of the most frequently discussed topics regarding social media is privacy not sharing too much personal information that can make your identity vulnerable among other concerns. But, on the flipside, social media is proving useful to law enforcement to assist in catching and prosecuting criminals.

A recent story demonstrates thebenefits in catching and prosecuting criminals by way of social media sites.

An 18-year-old man from California was charged with vehicular manslaughter after allegedly driving 83 mph in a 40 mph zone when he lost control of his vehicle and struck two bikers, killing one and injuring the other. But, his charges increased to murder, in part, due to some tweets he had made bragging about his reckless driving.

To prove second-degree murder, the government must show implied malice that a driver engaged in an intentional, unlawful act done with conscious disregard for the risk to human life, theChroniclewrote.

In this instance, in the months prior to the crash the man had bragged of driving 140 mph and posted tweets saying drive fast live young and Someone come on a death ride with me!!! His Twitter account has since been made private.

Take Melvin Colon, who is facingcharges of murder, along with weapons and narcotics-related crimes, as another example. The suspected New York gang member posted public photos on Facebook that showed him flashing gang signs but made private more incriminating posts, including references to past violent crimes and threats against others.

Lastly, in 2011, when the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup, the city erupted into riots. Social media was used to catch rioters and vandals as social networking site users tagged people they knew in more than 2,000 photos.

To that end, law enforcement agencies can use social media for crime prevention and investigation as well as public relations. Criminals have been known to use social media to share information about their whereabouts, their friends and even brag about their criminal activities as outlined above. This information can and has been used to help catch criminals, provide evidence and more.

For further information on this topic, also read:Use of social network websites in investigationsandPolice embrace social media as crime-fighting tool.

Read more here:
Twitter Leads to Murder Charge in California Bicycle Accident Case

Thanks to Daisley, hundreds of UK brands are now using Twitters 'Promoted' products to reach customers, according to The Drum.

Twitter is also reportedly making a number of new hires in the UK, including The Guardians social media and communities editor Joanna Geary who will be the company's first news partnerships manager, working to help media outlets use the platform effectively.

It has also appointed former BBC Sport editor Alex Trickett as sport partnerships manager. All 20 Premier League football clubs have now joined Twitter, with Manchester United the final club to join this summer.

Twitter, which launched in March 2006, has over 200 million active users worldwide, who generate over 500 million tweets daily. Sixty percent of its users worldwide are active on mobile, rising to 80 per cent amongst UK users

Since its launch, Twitter has become one of the ten most visited websites on the web, and has been described as "the SMS of the Internet"

Excerpt from:
Twitter claims 15m active users in the UK

THURSDAY, Sept. 5 (HealthDay News) -- When it comes to photos of risky behavior posted on friends' social networking sites, it seems that what teenagers see, teenagers do, new research shows.

A study conducted by researchers at the University of Southern California found that when teens see pictures of their friends drinking alcohol or smoking on sites like Facebook and Myspace, they are more likely to drink or smoke themselves.

"Our study shows that adolescents can be influenced by their friends' online pictures to smoke or drink alcohol," principal investigator Thomas Valente, a professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at USC, said in a university news release. "To our knowledge, this is the first study to apply social network analysis methods to examine how teenagers' activities on online social networking sites influence their smoking and alcohol use."

The study, published online Sept. 3 in the Journal of Adolescent Health, involved nearly 1,600 male and female 10th-grade students from a school district in Los Angeles County. About two-thirds of the participants were Hispanic and about 25 percent were Asian.

The students, average age 15 years, were surveyed in 2010 and 2011 about their online and offline friendship networks. They were also asked how often they used social media sites, smoked and drank alcohol.

The investigators found that at the end of the study period, nearly 30 percent of the students had smoked and more than 50 percent had had at least one alcoholic drink. In addition, about one-third of students had at least one friend who smoked, consumed alcohol, or both.

Although the number of "friends" the teens had in their online networks was not considerably associated with their risky behavior, the researchers did find that exposure to friends' online photos of partying or drinking was significantly linked to both smoking and drinking. They noted that teens whose close friends did not drink were more likely to be influenced by exposure to risky behavior in photos posted online.

"The evidence suggests that friends' online behaviors are a viable source of peer influence," study first author Grace Huang, a graduate of the Keck School of Medicine of USC's Health Behavior Research program, said in the news release. "This is important to know, given that 95 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds in the United States access the Internet every day, and 80 percent of those youth use online social networking sites to communicate."

Nearly 50 percent of all the students reported visiting Facebook and Myspace on a regular basis. Between October 2010 and April 2011, Facebook use increased 75 percent, while Myspace use decreased 13 percent. On average, about one-third of the students had at least one friend who posted online messages about partying, and 20 percent said they had friends that posted pictures of partying or drinking.

The researchers pointed out, however, there were some differences between Facebook and Myspace users. Those who only used Facebook tended to have higher grades, speak more English at home and were more likely to have a higher social and economic status. These Facebook-only users were also less likely to be Hispanic and less likely to have ever smoked or have had an alcoholic drink.

Read the original here:
Friends' online photos may sway teens' behavior

Sep. 6, 2013 Can social media be used to create sustainable changes in health behavior?

A UCLA study published Sept. 3 in the peer-reviewed journal Annals of Internal Medicine demonstrates that an approach that combines behavioral science with social media and online communities can lead to improved health behaviors among men at risk of HIV infection.

The evidence-based approach not only led to increased HIV testing and encouraged significant behavioral change among high-risk groups but also proved to be one of the best HIV-prevention and testing approaches on the Internet, according to the study's lead investigator, Sean D. Young, an assistant professor of family medicine and director of innovation at the Center for Behavior and Addiction Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

And it's not only applicable to HIV prevention efforts, he noted.

"We found similar effects for general health and well-being," said Young, who is also a member of the UCLA AIDS Institute. "Because our approach combines behavioral psychology with social technologies, these methods might be used to change health behaviors across a variety of diseases."

In an earlier study, published in February and also led by Young, researchers found that social media could be useful in HIV- and STD-prevention efforts by increasing conversations about HIV prevention.

For the current study, the researchers recruited 112 men who have sex with men through banner ads placed on social networking sites like Facebook, through a Facebook fan page with study information, through banner ads and posts on Craigslist, and from venues such as bars, schools, gyms and community organizations in Los Angeles. Of the participants, 60 percent were African-American, 28 percent were Latino, 11 percent were white and 2 percent were Asian-American.

The men were randomly assigned to one of two Facebook discussion groups -- an HIV intervention group or a general health group (with the latter serving as a control in the study). Each participant was then randomly assigned to two "peer leaders" within their group. The peer leaders communicated with participants by sending messages, chats and wall posts.

In addition to general conversation, peer leaders for the HIV group discussed HIV prevention and testing, while those in the control group communicated about the importance of exercising, eating right and maintaining a low-stress lifestyle.

While the men were under no obligation to engage with the peer leaders or other participants or to even remain members of their respective Facebook groups, the authors found that the participants were highly engaged and maintained active participation during the 12-week study.

Originally posted here:
Combination of social media, behavior psychology leads to HIV testing, better health behaviors

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