Category Archives: Marketing

What the hell is ANXIETY disorder? Understanding Anxiety Disorders: Definition & Psychobiological Factors

Posted on by

Anxiety disorders are prevalent mental health conditions that can significantly impact the lives of those affected. While both men and women experience anxiety disorders, women, particularly those of reproductive age, are more vulnerable to developing these disorders compared to men. This gender disparity, with a prevalence 2-3 times higher among females, suggests the presence of underlying psychobiological factors. This article aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of anxiety disorders by first defining anxiety and then exploring the psychobiological factors that contribute to its development.

How BIG is the problem, just in the USA:
According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), approximately 19.1% of adults in the United States experienced an anxiety disorder in the past year. This accounts for around 48 million adults. It’s worth mentioning that this statistic includes various types of anxiety disorders, such as generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder, social anxiety disorder (SAD), and specific phobias.

So WHAT is ANXIETY?
Anxiety is a normal emotional response characterized by feelings of fear, worry, and unease. It is a universal human experience that can arise in various situations, such as before a significant event, during a life transition, or when facing potential threats. In these instances, anxiety serves as a natural response to prepare individuals for potential challenges or dangers. However, when anxiety becomes excessive, persistent, and interferes with daily functioning, it may be indicative of an anxiety disorder.

Types of Anxiety Disorders:
Anxiety disorders encompass a range of conditions characterized by excessive and uncontrollable anxiety. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) identifies several specific anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder, social anxiety disorder (SAD), specific phobias, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), among others. Each disorder has its unique set of symptoms and diagnostic criteria, but they all share a common feature of overwhelming and impairing anxiety.

Psychobiological Factors Contributing to Anxiety Disorders:

1. Genetic Predisposition: Research suggests a genetic component in the development of anxiety disorders. Certain genetic variations and hereditary factors can increase an individual’s susceptibility to anxiety disorders. However, genetics alone cannot fully explain the gender differences observed, indicating the involvement of other factors.

2. Neurobiology: The brain plays a critical role in anxiety disorders. Neurotransmitters such as serotonin, norepinephrine, and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) are involved in regulating anxiety. Imbalances in these neurotransmitter systems have been implicated in the development of anxiety disorders. Additionally, brain regions like the amygdala, involved in fear processing, and the prefrontal cortex, responsible for emotion regulation, may exhibit altered activity in individuals with anxiety disorders.

3. Hormonal Factors: Hormones, particularly sex hormones such as estrogen and progesterone, may influence anxiety disorders, especially in women. Hormonal fluctuations during the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and menopause have been associated with changes in anxiety symptomatology. These hormonal variations may interact with neurotransmitter systems and contribute to the gender differences observed in anxiety disorders.

4. Environmental Factors: Environmental factors, including early-life stress, trauma, adverse childhood experiences, and chronic stressors, can contribute to the development of anxiety disorders. These factors may shape an individual’s response to stress, influencing their susceptibility to anxiety disorders later in life. Social and cultural influences, such as gender roles and expectations, can also impact the expression and perception of anxiety.

Just to be sure we are all in the same page, Anxiety disorders are complex conditions influenced by a combination of psychobiological factors. While anxiety itself is a natural and adaptive response, excessive and persistent anxiety can lead to impairment and distress. Understanding the psychobiological underpinnings of anxiety disorders, including genetic predisposition, neurobiological factors, hormonal influences, and environmental stressors, is crucial for developing effective prevention strategies, accurate diagnosis, and tailored treatment interventions. By comprehensively addressing these factors, healthcare professionals can provide better support and enhance the overall well-being of individuals affected by anxiety disorders.

“False Consensus” & the “Majority Illusion”

Posted on by

Since I was a kid, I would read anything that end up near my hands.  Old newspapers, magazines, medical books, mechanical engineer manuals, old enciclopedias, everything.

So I keep doing this as a matter of fact, i click and go to places in the metaverse that most people have never been or would not even venture there. For me it became obvious that I can read anything I want, most sites, even those closed have always a way to get in, a promotion, a special key, a partnership that exposes their content and a lot of them have RSS feeds that is easy to bring into your own site.

While I was doing this during my moments of rest from work, I have the 24/7 video feed from the Political Conventions to watch. First the Republican and now the Democrat. Think of this, two full weeks of so many speeches, so many concepts to dig on.  It is like having a kid in a candy store.

Then it hit me that almost all of them, both sides seem to be totally disconnected from the real world, their assumptions and what they believed to be truth were totally far away from what the rest of Americans and the rest of the world are living day to day.

There are very smart people dedicated to analyze social behavior, people like me that have a specialization in Sociology, just they have more time in their hands and have been able to

  •  “Majority illusion”
    • When people are convinced that what is common among their friends and relatives, co-workers, sports club, etc. is more common than it actually is in the rest of the world, they enter this amazing zone.  
    • Constant visitors and some permanent residents here are Presidents, Prime Ministers, CEO’s and a lot of those that fall into the famous Marie-Antoinette (bride of France’s King Louis XVI)  “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” … 
    • What happen in the augmented networking capacity that the WEB has brought is that this illusion is causing even more people, to reach wrong conclusions about how common a behavior is, leading them to accept as a norm a behavior that is globally rare.
    • This is why a very small amount people can create a big BOOM and send it as a a global issue, bu also it also helps to understand why observations and inferences individuals make of their peers are often incorrect.
  • “False Consensus”
    • The “False Consensus” effect arises when individuals overestimate the prevalence of their own features in the population, believing their type to be more common. Thus, Democrats believe that most people are also Democrats, while Republicans think that the majority are Republican.
  • “Pluralistic Ignorance” is another social perception bias. This effect arises in situations when individuals incorrectly believe that a majority believes something or accept as absolute rules that themselves do not share.

This America seems to apply to everything.. that is why we can have fake news, fake friends, fake personas, fake everything and they will be believed and followed..

 

Facebook vs Google : Who controls the DATA generated by the Internet of Things (IoT)

Posted on by

Beacons are capable of transmitting and activate functions on your smart phone…. creating DATA

Beacons are capable of transmitting and activate functions on your smart phone…. creating DATA

A race between @Facebook & @Google is happening without too many noticing.  The Internet of Things ( IoT ) needs tone able to communicate among them and with devices that actually control their functions or use their services for some linear activity ( from opening a door, control temperature, assigning you a table at a restaurant, pointing you to where to find products displayed in your shopping list, instant coupons, etc.) that interacts with smarter devices, some mobile and some other at a distance. These devices also “take info from humans” as they walk and their smart phones are connected to the WEB using so many applications that we all leave open all the time.   Think if you enter a restaurant or a store, and your phone has the Facebook app open or the Google+ or even just Gmail or Gtalk open, the beacon can activate it, letting know your app that you just enter this area.  That information is delivered through your PHONE, not through the beacon (remember i is for now a single way communication) to whoever control the application ( Facebook or Google in this specific case I am talking about).  Then the app creates a notification into your phone and ask you ” do you want to become a FAN of this XYZ Restaurant, click here” or “add Restaurant XYZ to your Google+ Circles?”

Well while you walk, your apps start collecting data from all those beacons and that info related to your Journey is conveyed to the app owners. The Wireless Registry ( TWR) is in the process of launching a large initiative so all those beacons are forced to have an ID and we can control the use of that DATA.  In the meantime Facebook and Google already started controlling the access.

So FB started a program to flood retailers, service providers, any place where humans tend to congregate with these BEACONS “Facebook Bluetooth® beacons are devices that businesses receive from Facebook. These beacons use Bluetooth® technology to send a signal to the Facebook app on your phone…”

So Google launched “set out to build a new class of beacons that addresses real-life use-cases, cross-platform support, and security.” So just like they did with Droid OS, they created an open format for BLE beacons that anyone can use: Eddystone. This programming platform has some very amazing capabilities: supports versioning so you can start small in functionality and suddenly grow as much as you want and it’s cross-platform, capable of supporting Android, iOS or any platform that supports BLE beacons. And it’s available on GitHub under the open-source Apache v2.0 license,

Of course the Facebook and Google solutions that are FREE come with caveats : each one of them control who has access to the DATA collection format and function. This is the main reason why we need a 3rd. party body that controls the famous ID’s of each IoT device, the beacons and the wireless devices.

Remember that a beacon is meant to be discoverable by any nearby Bluetooth Smart device. What makes it possible for you to stop or give access to the signal is via its identifier. Google has built a feature called Ephemeral Identifiers (EIDs), which change frequently, and allow only authorized clients to decode them. EIDs will enable you to securely do things like find your luggage once you get off the plane or find your lost keys. Google has promised to publish the technical specs of this design soon.

For some people these events are finally building a map of what is the next generation of deployments over the WEB, the so called “micro-web”, that of the IoT talking among themselves, and exchanging data that is supposed to enhance our quality of life. Until somebody starts using it for the wrong purposes….

In the meantime, watching how Facebook is trying to dominate the space by giving away the Hardware and making sure they control the features in those devices (and maybe lease in the future for 3rd. party applications?); and then waiting to see what my friend Jeff Jarvis describe very well in his book “What would google do?”, where they try to set the sandbox for everybody to play, they want to be perceived as the good guys here, and in the future they will just crush anything that is NOT inside their sandbox.

(some of this material came from Google and Facebook sites).

I found this in a french site, maybe have been already a translation but I like it

Posted on by

Myth # 1: The social marketing? easy to commit an intern to take care

Because social networks are primarily a history of conversations, the person responsible for your participation in Web 2.0 is seen as the face of your business. It is required to discuss with your community to share information with them, answer their questions, promote your company image, but also to extinguish any bad buzz … So this is a heavy responsibility for managing your image? Give your community management responsibility to a person who has the shoulders is crucial to ensure a good social media marketing strategy.

Myth # 2: Social media marketing requires enormous skill

There are actually networks of techniques that work better than others, a social media etiquette to follow and mistakes to avoid. However the skills required for success in your social media marketing strategy are essentially human and not so rare that in the sense that it is really a communication or BtoC BtoB, but rather interactions HtoH (Human to Human). A few words of command: listening, creativity, kindness, sharing …

Myth # 3: Social media marketing is not for the old

Not true! Demographic data on users of social networks most popular move at high speed. Today more than ever, older surfers flock to networking sites and join the conversation. More importantly, the growing use of social media has experienced its largest increase in the portion of users aged 50 and over, that growth is increasing the average age of socionautes. The use of social media is not only not a question of age, but more experience is an advantage for “sociomarketeurs” on channels where the sharing of KM is essential.

Myth # 4: Social media marketing is free

And no sorry! Although recent studies show that nearly half of firms in the social sphere said that social media has allowed them to reduce their marketing costs, the social media takes time and although most of the tools are free, remember sure the time is money.

Myth # 5: Social media marketing has rules too strict

You can not really talk about rules, but rather principles that are not complicated to understand. From the moment you understand that social networks, in essence, can serve as a one-way communication, you understand the basics. Yes there are rules, but most are still being written in a universe where there is plenty of room for your creativity.

Myth # 6: The social media marketing advertising will only serve my interests

Another misconception. Certainly we have seen that many rules are still being written, however there are certain principles that you can not ignore. It is quite normal that you want to reap the benefits of your social sphere, otherwise we will not talk about marketing. However to achieve this we must respect this sphere. How? By showing your community that you’re not here just to advertise your box, but to give him your value and your humanity. If you do not want to put a bullet in the foot, being overly self-promotional attitude is not recommended for your social media marketing strategy.

Myth # 7: The Social Media Marketing provide immediate results

Of course stories abound on the Web buzz, you may be quickly disappointed if you expect results too fast. A characteristic of social media is that you can establish interesting relationships while developing your power of influence. This takes time and method, and allows you to get lasting results. In trying to go too fast, you may not only be ineffective, but most likely you got the wrong strategy because of overly optimistic goals.

Myth # 8: Social media marketing is too risky

It is true that some industries are more at risk than others. Participation in social networks and sharing information in public requires great caution. It is therefore important to consider the specifics of your industry and keep control over the information you share. Does this mean as far as avoiding social marketing channels you turn away? No. In fact you should remember that customers, journalists and others talk about your business on social networks, the real risk to you is to ignore these conversations.

Myth # 9: The Social Media Marketing is a new phenomenon

The explosion of social networks such as Twitter and Facebook are a recent phenomenon, but it is only tools. Social media marketing is remember above all a history of discussions is to influence and this phenomenon has always existed in human interaction. Today this has changed fundamentally is the speed at which information circulates and magnitude can be taken through the many tools of social media marketing.

Myth # 10: The Social Media Marketing can not bring my business

Unless your company is active in a research program top secret, your customers, your employees, your employees engaged in social networks and have much to gain by joining discussions. The fundamental question is not “what is social marketing can bring something to my business? But “What can social media for my business? “The social media can also bring a lot to your business, all about targets and if you want more ideas on what you can actually bring the social media marketing we recommend reading social media marketing and indicators performance.

I promise if I found again the source, will send it later.. but it sounded very good advice..