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Are Social Networking Sites Really All About You? - HER Week In Health

 
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More Videos from Bailey Mosier 30 videos in this series

Are Social Networking Sites Really All About You? - HER Week In Health
Are Social Networking Sites Really All About You? - HER Week In Health
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Do you let loose every once in a while and have a few adult beverages? In this week’s edition we’ll learn how that may actually work wonders for your quality of life. We’ll also learn how social networking sites are really all about oneself and if you’re dropping some serious cash on a vacation or concert, here’s hoping it’s for the right reasons. Have a look.

Hi, I’m Bailey Mosier. This is your EmpowHER HER Week in Health.

Do you let loose every once in a while and have a few adult beverages? In this week’s edition we’ll learn how that may actually work wonders for your quality of life. We’ll also learn how social networking sites are really all about oneself and if you’re dropping some serious cash on a vacation or concert, here’s hoping it’s for the right reasons. Have a look.

In a new study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, researchers analyzed 5,404 adults age 50 or older in the mid-90s and followed them over 14 years, asking them about their alcohol intake and health status every four years. They found that people who regularly had one drink a week -- and never more than three in a single day for women, or four in a single day for men -- for a sustained six-year period had a higher quality of life than people abstaining from alcohol.

The Mayo Clinic defines moderate alcohol consumption as two glasses of alcohol per day for men, and one glass of alcohol per day for women. Moderate alcohol consumption has been linked with heart benefits, but drinking too much can

increase the risk of liver damage, heart problems and even cancer.
So while this study found that those who consume alcohol enjoy a higher quality of life than those who don’t, researchers aren’t giving us the green light to consume all alcohol all the time.

Facebook has 900 million active users and is the second most visited website, second only to Google. Saying that people love social networks may be a bit an understatement, but recent research says what people truly like about social networking is, well, themselves.

Researchers from the University of Georgia asked college students to either edit their social networking page on MySpace or Facebook and found those who edited their MySpace page later scored higher on a measure of narcissism, while those who spent time on their Facebook page scored higher on self-esteem.

Editing yourself and constructing yourself on these social networking sites, even for a short period of time, seems to have an effect on how you see yourself. Several previous studies found increases over the generations in both self-esteem and narcissism. These new experiments suggest the increasing popularity of social networking sites may play a role in those trends.

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that purchasing trips to exotic destinations or box seats to a sold-out concert can boost a person’s happiness. But not so fast, researchers say. That affect is only felt if those purchases are made for the right reasons.

San Francisco State University surveyed 241 people and found that those who buy life experiences because it meshes with their desires, interests and values reported an increased sense of fulfillment and well-being. These people were more likely to feel less lonely, more competent and self-sufficient. On the other hand, people who buy life experiences in order to impress others reported feeling less self-sufficient, competent and connected to others.

Researchers say the biggest question you have to ask yourself is why you are buying something because motivation appears to amplify or eliminate the happiness effect of a purchase.

That wraps up your EmpowHER HER Week in Health. Join me here at EmpowHER.com every Friday as we recap the latest in women’s health.

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