Social Engineering by Railways

Where do you travel every day? Are there any subtle ploys to manipulate your behavior? Would you recognize them or are they just part of the location? Social engineering sometimes gets a bad rap (or is it rep?) in the mainstream, but the public-facing edge of that sword can keep order as it does in Japanese train stations. They employ a whirlwind of psychological methods to make the stations run like clockwork.

The scope of strategies ranges from the diabolical placement of speakers emitting high-frequency tones to discourage youthful loitering to the considerate installation of blue lights to deter suicides. …read more

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What is Twitter Without the Numbers?

How many people liked your last tweet? Oh yeah? Didja get any retweets? Was it enough to satisfy your need for acceptance, or were you disappointed by the Twitterverse’s reaction?

If you couldn’t see the number of likes, retweets, or followers you had, would you still even use Twitter?

[Ben Grosser] wants to know. He’s trying to see if people will look their relationship with social media squarely in the eye and think honestly about how it affects them. After all, social media itself isn’t the bad guy here—we are all responsible for our own actions and reactions. He’s created …read more

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