Survey 25% of Americans spend 10+ hours a day on social media

Survey 25% of Americans spend 10+ hours a day on social mediaSurvey 25% of Americans spend 10+ hours a day on social mediaA recent survey conducted by Bioidentical hormone therapy doctors at BodyLogicMD plants a giant mirror in front of Americas glowing distracted face.An analyst of over 1,000 people suggests a sobering truth about our collective addiction to the digital realm.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreOne and four respondents confessed to spending four to 10 hourson social media a dayand just 25% said their time spent on social media was for business purposes.According to the study, participants admitted to unlocking their phones an average of 92 timesdaily about six unlocks per hour.About 50% of individuals questioned say they get their news and stay updated via facebook inc, with 75% saying they use Facebook to fill spare time. 25% of the Americans surveyed claim that they only consume Facebook content as opposed to posting themselves. Of the majority that do post, their motivations are listed as follows75% of men and 25% of women want to come across as funny/amusing75% of women and 50% of men want to be perceived as interesting or insightfulOnly 25% of men want to come across as honest and trustworthy online, compared to the 75% of women that want to100% of women surveyed say they want people to find them pleasant/good-natured on the internet with a meager 25% of men in agreementLastly, it seems men and women want to be perceived as creative/original a pretty equal amount.On the backs of this data, BodyLogicMDconducted a social media detox experiment on 10 random individuals.Participants were tasked with stepping away from social media for one whole week while recording their experience in a diary.Only 10% successfully could. In fact, one in four participants couldnt last 3 days. 75% of women and 50% of men said that giving up social media for s even days gave them serious anxiety. Three in four of the respondents expressed that it is particularly difficult to delete twitter from their lives and phones and 50% felt the same way about Snapchat and Instagram.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people

GOOD VIBRATIONS Stevens Students Test Bridge Safety

GOOD VIBRATIONS Stevens Students Test Bridge Safety GOOD VIBRATIONS Stevens Students Test Bridge Safety GOOD VIBRATIONS Stevens Students Test Bridge SafetyBy Carol MilanoTake Yur Child to Work Day in Niwot, Colorado always found Curtis Stecyk on a bridge. Growing up hearing his mother, an enthusiastic civil engineer, describing her road and bridge projects nurtured Stecyks infrastructure interest. A decade later, his childhood interests in civil engineering made him an ideal candidate for a special project at Stevens Institute of Technology.Associate mechanical engineering professor Frank Fisher researches energy harvesting. Marcus Rutner, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, investigates structural health monitoring. For a 2013-2014 Student Senior Design Project, they proposed tapping an unutilized energy source for continuous bridge monitoring structural vibrations. Selecting six outstanding mechanical and civil engineering seniors, the professors chall enged them to design an inexpensive prototype for detecting structural defects before lives were lost and roadways endangered.Every member of our kollektiv was eager to have even a small impact on energy, Stecyk remembers. While researching published papers on capturing energy vibrations, they discovered an untested academic concept to fine-tune and apply to their goal harnessing energy from consistent, frequent, identifiable vibrations on bridges.In our dynamic process, we worked on modeling and fabrication, choosing parts that might become an efficient device for measuring bridges structural health, he recounts. The mechanical engineers focused on how to harvest and transform energy from traffic-induced vibrations. Next, they developed a prototype integrated system that creates and stores energy, 24/7. A mechanical engineer wrote the code for what data to transmit, and when. Diagram and photograph of prototype for Vibration Energy Harvesting for Structural Health Instrumentation ( 2013-14)Their Vibration Energy Harvesting for Structural Health Instrumentation (VEHSHI) device detects any change in consistency of a bridges vibrations, beyond what the human eye sees during routine two-year inspections. Identifying defects not visible on the surface, including internal cracks, swelling or stiffness, VEHSHI sends an alert about any drastic change or hazardous deviation.Our challenge was searching, targeting, implementing and finalizing a modular system to work seamlessly, in a theoretical environment, to address a real-world application, says Stecyk. Energy is captured by movement of a magnet passing through a copper coil. At rest, the magnet floats just above the center of the coil, due to a fixed repulsive magnet, and plunges through the coil during vibration. Optimizing magnetic forces and displacement of the floating magnet maximizes energy capture. This isnt something you get in your typical classThe gruppe built an energy harvester producing about 16 mW of p ower much more than alternative energy harvesting technologies can do, explains Rutner. Structure health monitoring becomes fully autonomous once power generates automatically. The team embedded energy harvester and monitoring devices in smart circuit architecture. Their breakthrough was embedding a super capacitor bank, which stores energy coming from the harvester, releasing it on demand to power structure health monitoring. The set-and-forget electronic energy harvester with capacitor bank powers accelerometers at critical locations on the bridge superstructure, transmitting performance data to the bridge deck. A single unit sends it wirelessly to a distant computer.What was Stecyks favorite part of the multi-faceted project? Garnering first prize at the 2014 Stevens Innovation Expo. At the projects conclusion, we realized this device has applications and diversity way beyond bridges. That became a key point of our winning Elevator Pitch presentation if you tweak it, VEHSHI can apply to anything with a vibration.Fourth-year student members of the first VEHSHI team. Left to Right Curtis Stecyk, Lisa Tessitore, Mark Conticchio, Diana Jandreski, Joseph Gombar, and John Murphy.For bridges, VEHSHI can drastically reduce repair costs, potentially turning some $500 million bridge replacement into a $500,000 local correction Rutner and his team are working to make the device, attractive enough to the market so politicians will say, lets spend some money to monitor bridges.VEHSHI is an ongoing project. The eleven students on the 2014-2015 team investigated how to harvest vibrational energy in three dimensions, and how to make the harvester operable up to a frequency of about 50Hz, Rutner reports. Then it would be viable not only for bridges, but also for railroads or airplane fuselages.This demanding, exciting, strongly interdisciplinary research involves professors and students in mechanical, electrical and civil engineering, he notes. Rutner anticipates testing V EHSHI outside the lab soon. Its first patent application was submitted in 2014 a second is in preparation.Transportation infrastructure is a growth area for mechanical engineers, predicts Chris Sensor, Northeast Account Manager for m+p international, a manufacturer of data acquisition and vibration analysis systems in Verona NJ. Many dangerous situations, like bridge collapses or train derailments, could be avoided by simple infrastructure monitoring and vibration analysis. Preventive maintenance saves the cost of having to clean up after a disaster. Thats where mechanical engineers come in we can do vibration analysis, which could even improve safety for things like industrial turbines. Continuous data gathering should be done in every major metropolis transportation system, says Sensor, who holds a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from Stevens.

A third of tech workers have a coworker who makes them want to quit

A third of tech workers have a coworker who makes them want to quitA third of tech workers have a coworker who makes them want to quitWith looming deadlines, extra projects, and demanding bosses, life at the office can sometimes be a lot to manage. Add unstable work relationships between coworkers into the mix, and it can sometimes be too much.A recent study by Comparably, a company that provides data on compensation and workplace culture, delved into the nature of coworkers connections with each other.The study, which surveyed mora than 36,000 people working at tech companies of different sizes, found that one in three respondents reported working with someone who makes them want to leave their job.Of all the findings in the study, here are some that stand out.An annoying coworker can make you want to quitJust fewer than half of women surveyed (43%) said they wanted to jump ship because of a coworker, compared to 32% of men surveyed.People in business development and design position swere mora likely than those in other departments to want to quit their job because of a coworker, 46% and 45% respectively.Conversely, only 14% of those in communications positions said they work with someone who makes them want to quit.Where experience welches concerned, those more than 10 years of work showed the highest rates of wanting to leave because of a coworker, 37%, compared to 28% percent of those with one to three years of work experience.The benefits of work friendshipsNot all the findings were negative. Some people, such aswork spouses, actually enjoy each others company in the office,More than half of men (51%) and women (55%) surveyed reported having a close friend at work. According to the study, this is an important figure, as studies show that people who cultivate friendships at the office are happier and more productive at work.Experience-wise, 55% of people with one to six years of work experience said they had a close friend at the office, compared to 48% in e ntry-level positions and 50% of those with more than 10 years of experience.The office dating sceneSome people arent afraid to be more than friends while employed at the same workplace - the survey found 26% of men and 28% of women have dated a coworker.This was true for 33% of people working in Operations, 28% working in Marketing and IT, and 23% working in Engineering.How people feel about sharing their salaryIt doesnt seem like everyones jumping at the chance to divulge how much they make to those they work with.Among all age categories surveyed, 31% said they were not likely to reveal what they take home to coworkers, 25% said it depends, 21% would never do it, 13% were somewhat likely, and just 9% were very likely.Within the 18-30 bracket, more than 30% reported being somewhat or very likely to share their salary. In the 31-35 bracket, 29% said it depends on the circumstances, which the report says is the most in any age group. The 41-45 bracket was the least in favor of telli ng coworkers, with 28% saying they would never do so.How people feel about their bossesThe study also explored the loyalty people have to those they work with, proving that people tend to favor their coworkers over their supervisors.A plurality (36%)reported that they have the most allegiance to their coworkers. Next up in terms of popularity was Boss or Manager at 30%, then No One at 13% and Company Mission/Vision at 11%.The section that bottomed out on theother extreme was Direct Reports at a slim 10%.Its clear that people have strong opinions about who they work with and what they choose to share.