Health & Science

The always-on generation

It’s hardly news that young people are fascinated with social media, video games, TV, and iPods. But a new study finds that the grip of digital diversions is now complete: The average young person from 8 to 18 now spends literally every waking moment outside of school on the Internet, watching TV, listening to music on MP3 players, texting, or using some other electronic device. The study of 2,000 kids by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that Americans between ages 8 and 18 now spend an average of seven and a half hours daily consuming media in some form, and that because of multitasking, actually consume close to 11 hours’ worth of content in that time. The number of hours spent connected to devices jumped more than an hour and a half since 2005, when the study was last conducted. “This is a stunner,” communications researcher and study co-author Donald Roberts tells The New York Times. Roughly half the kids surveyed say they use media “some” or “most of the time” that they’re doing homework. Those who spent the most time consuming media had markedly poorer grades and more behavioral problems. Yet only 30 percent of parents set limits on the use of electronic devices, the study found. “Parents never knew as much as they thought they did about what their kids are doing,” Roberts says. “But now we’ve created a world where they’re removed from us that much more.”

Off with their shoes

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New research on running shoes suggests you could be better off without them. Noting that running shoes have elevated heels, researcher Casey Kerrigan wondered whether they expose the wearer to the same physical stresses that high-heeled shoes do. Her team watched 68 average runners work out on a special treadmill that revealed the impact each step placed on various joints. Compared with barefoot runners, shod runners experienced 38 percent more torque, or twisting, around parts of the knee where osteoarthritis develops; that’s significantly more than what women in high heels experience. Barefoot, a runner naturally runs on the balls of the feet, which allows the foot and ankle to absorb more of the impact. But since most of us run on pavement and not the soft dirt available to our ancestors, Kerrigan tells LiveScience.com, barefoot running is not a realistic alternative. If you do use running shoes, she says, get something relatively inexpensive, without a lot of thick padding.

Living for the weekend

People really are happier on weekends. Psychologists at the University of Rochester handed out pagers to 74 subjects who worked at least 30 hours a week and paged them randomly three times a day. When beeped, the subjects rated their various feelings—including joy, pleasure, anxiety, depression, competence, and autonomy—on a seven-point scale. The data revealed that, on average, respondents felt emotionally happier, physically better, and more competent from Friday evening through Sunday afternoon. The results held for both men and women, regardless of age, salary, education, or length of workweek. The researchers attribute the effect mostly to the subjects’ sense that on weekends, they control their own time and activities and can be with friends and family. “Wherever you don’t have autonomy or don’t feel relatedness,” study leader Richard Ryan tells the Chicago Sun-Times, “your well-being will be lower.”

A shell that could repel bullets

Military designers could learn a thing or two from the scaly-foot gastropod, a deep-sea snail from the Indian Ocean. The shelled creature, discovered a decade ago, manages to survive the crushing water pressure at 8,000 feet and boiling water from hydrothermal vents thanks to “one of the strongest exoskeletons seen in nature,” Discover Magazine reports. Researchers at MIT used a diamond-tipped “indenter” to apply strong, precise forces to the shell; amazingly, the shell came through intact. Analysis found that the shell is made up of three layers: a tough outer coating of iron sulfide; a thicker, spongy layer; and a calcium-based veneer common to mollusk shells. The combination absorbs the energy from impacts extremely well. Researchers believe that, correctly imitated, the snail’s technology could be used to improve helmets, bulletproof vests, and even ship and airplane hulls.

Self-control is catching

If you’re having trouble sticking to your diet or your new exercise regimen, you’re not alone—and that may be part of the problem, a new study suggests. Self-control—and the lack of it—can spread through social networks, a University of Georgia psychologist study found. Volunteers who watched someone exercise self-control (by choosing a carrot instead of a cookie from a plate) scored higher on a later test of self-restraint. So did volunteers who merely thought about a friend with good self-control. “Picking social influences that are positive can improve your self-control,” researcher Michelle vanDellen tells LiveScience.com. “And by exhibiting self-control, you’re helping others around you do the same.”