By Adel on
Finding love online is complicated and usually comes with a side of social stigma. Sure, true love might exist on the inter-webs, but you also might struggle with skeptical family and friends who believe otherwise. Now just imagine replicating the scenario in the conservative culture of Saudi Arabia. Our new DIS paper shows just how complicated things become. (more…)
By Raghav on
Did you know that your personality type can be used to predict your behavior on an online recommender site (how long you stay, what you do, whether and how much you are likely to rate) and even what to recommend to you? That’s what we found in our latest research using the MovieLens recommender system and the Big Five Personality scale for modeling user personality. To learn more, read on!
By Haiwei Ma on
Decades of research have shown that writing about our deepest, darkest emotions makes us feel better. But what happens when we write about those feelings online?
Patients with life-threatening illnesses must regularly process heavy emotions. Many patients and their caregivers turn to online health communities to get support and share their journeys. We partnered with CaringBridge.org – a large journaling platform that lets patients write about their health journey – to explore how expressive writing affects people’s engagement with their online community.
By Max Harper on
Guest written by Maryam Hedayati, Steph Herbers, Sophia Maymudes, and Anna Meyer.
Christmas is almost here. Do you know what most people won’t be doing on December 25th? Writing online restaurant reviews. Let’s dive deeper into the world of online restaurant reviews to learn more about this and other interesting trends. (more…)
By Lana Yarosh on
When I Skype with my family, I really wish that I could reach through the screen to give them a hug! Instead, we sometimes have to pretend—we lean forward “hugging” the monitor or bring our hands towards the camera to do a virtual “high five.” What if you could actually feel some of that touch instead of just having to imagine it?