Statistical physics has proven to be a fruitful framework to describe phenomena outside the realm of traditional physics. Recent years have witnessed an attempt by physicists to study collective phenomena emerging from the interactions of individuals as elementary units in social structures. A wide list of topics are reviewed ranging from opinion and cultural and language dynamics to crowd behavior, hierarchy formation, human dynamics, and social spreading. The connections between these problems and other, more traditional, topics of statistical physics are highlighted. Comparison of model results with empirical data from social systems are also emphasized.

Statistical physics of social dynamics

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/5/110/206.full.pdf

The american psychological association.

Many ``real-world'' networks are clearly defined while most ``social'' networks are to some extent subjective. Indeed, the accuracy of empirically-determined social networks is a question of some concern because individuals may have distinct perceptions of what constitutes a social link. One unambiguous type of connection is sexual contact. Here we analyze data on the sexual behavior of a random sample of individuals, and find that the cumulative distributions of the number of sexual partners during the twelve months prior to the survey decays as a power law with similar exponents $\alpha \approx 2.4$ for females and males. The scale-free nature of the web of human sexual contacts suggests that strategic interventions aimed at preventing the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases may be the most efficient approach.

The Web of Human Sexual Contacts

State-Trait Anxiety Inventoryによるペインクリニック外来患者の不安の評価

The Internet of Things vision: Key features, applications and open issues

Egocentric online social networks: Analysis of key features and prediction of tie strength in Facebook

Phubbing could be defined as a new form of addiction; however, checking the phone and ignoring the speaker could also be linked to the increased availability of virtual social environments. We developed a multidimensional model for phubbing considering psychological dimensions and information and communication technology related habits. We collected data through online questionnaires and surveys. The best model obtained from our data was constituted by Information and Communication Technologies’ (ICTs) usage behaviours, Trait Anxiety, Virtual Sense of Community and Neuroticism. Finally, our study confirmed a strong connection between phubbing and online addiction behaviours.

https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/11/1/21/pdf

An Explorative Model to Assess Individuals’ Phubbing Risk

Background: Negative interactions among nurses are well recognized and reported in scientific literature, even because the issues may have major consequences on professional and private lives of the victims The aim of this paper is to detect specifically the prevalence of workplace incivility (WI), lateral violence (LV) and bullying among nurses Furthermore, it addresses the potential related factors and their impact on the psychological and professional spheres of the victimsMethods: A review of the literature was performed through the research of papers on three databases: Medline, CINAHL, and EmbaseResults: Seventy-nine original papers were included WI has a range between 675% and 904% (if WI among peers, above 75%) LV has a prevalence ranging from 1% to 874%, while bullying prevalence varies between 24% and 81% Physical and mental sequelae can affect up to 75% of the victims The 10% of bullied nurses develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms Bullying is a predictive factor for burnout (β=037 p<0001) and shows a negative correlation with job efficiency (r=-0 322, p<001) Victims of bullying recorded absenteeism 15 times higher in comparison to non-victimized peers (95% CI: 13-17) 785% of bullied nurses with length of service lower than 5 years has resigned to move to other jobsConclusions: There is lack of evidence about policies and programmes to eradicate workplace incivility, lateral violence and bullying among nurses Prevention of these matters should start from spreading information inside continue educational settings and university nursing courses

Workplace incivility, lateral violence and bullying among nurses. A review about their prevalence and related factors.

Does social media addiction impair the well-being of non-clinical individuals? Despite the Internet being able to be considered as a promoting factor for individual empowerment, previous literature suggests that the current massive availability of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) may be dangerous for users’ well-being. This article discusses the relationship between the most used social media addiction measures (i.e., the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale—BFAS, the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale—BSMAS) and well-being. A systematic review considering all the publications indexed by PsycInfo, PsycArticles, PubMed, Science Direct, Sociological Abstracts, Academic Search Complete, and Google Scholar databases was performed to collect the data. Ten of 635 studies were included in the qualitative synthesis. Overall, most of the included works captured a negative but small relationship between BFAS/BSMAS and well-being, across multiple definitions and measurement.

/pdf/well-being-and-social-media-a-systematic-review-of-bergen-1a3gstvgdk.pdf

Well-Being and Social Media: A Systematic Review of Bergen Addiction Scales

The prolonged lockdown imposed to contain the COrona VIrus Disease 19 COVID-19 pandemic prevented many people from direct contact with nature and greenspaces, raising alarms for a possible worsening of mental health. This study investigated the effectiveness of a simple and affordable remedy for improving psychological well-being, based on audio-visual stimuli brought by a short computer video showing forest environments, with an urban video as a control. Randomly selected participants were assigned the forest or urban video, to look at and listen to early in the morning, and questionnaires to fill out. In particular, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) Form Y collected in baseline condition and at the end of the study and the Part II of the Sheehan Patient Rated Anxiety Scale (SPRAS) collected every day immediately before and after watching the video. The virtual exposure to forest environments showed effective to reduce perceived anxiety levels in people forced by lockdown in limited spaces and environmental deprivation. Although significant, the effects were observed only in the short term, highlighting the limitation of the virtual experiences. The reported effects might also represent a benchmark to disentangle the determinants of health effects due to real forest experiences, for example, the inhalation of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOC).

https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/21/8011/pdf

Andrea Guazzini

Papers

Egocentric online social networks: Analysis of key features and prediction of tie strength in Facebook

An Explorative Model to Assess Individuals’ Phubbing Risk

Workplace incivility, lateral violence and bullying among nurses. A review about their prevalence and related factors.

Well-Being and Social Media: A Systematic Review of Bergen Addiction Scales

Comparative Study of the Restorative Effects of Forest and Urban Videos during COVID-19 Lockdown: Intrinsic and Benchmark Values.