Category Ask the Psychologist

Bigfoot believers print to the eyewitness accounts – more than 3,000 in all – of towering apelike creatures said to wander the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere. Roughly 10,000 supposed Bigfoot tracks have been reported since the early 1800s – although these prints vary wildly. (Older tracks show four toes; newer ones to have five.) Today the beast is a central figure in cryptozoology the study of legendary creatures, and cryptozoologists (people who study said legendary creatures) think Bigfoot represents a “missing link” between humans and our hairy ancestors. Yet despite decades of Bigfoot hunting, no one has recovered a body of the beast – a fact often cited by nonbelievers as proof that Bigfoot is bogus.

Picture Credit : Google

Shigeru Miyamoto is famous for designing your favorite games in 1980s through today in Japan. You may not know his name, but you certainly know his games. Donkey of Zelda, Mario Kart – all of these landmark titles (along with their characters and many sequels) are the creations of Shigeru Miyamoto, a game designer at Nintendo since the late 1970s. Miyamoto has been called the Steven Spielberg of video games for a reason: His creations combine crowd-pleasing thrills and charming characters with deep, secret-filled game play.

Picture Credit : Google

Armies of jerks lurk on the Internet. And even the most mundane topics set off these cyber-bullying “trolls,” who pick fights over everything from politics to sci-fi plots to sports stats to the merits of a particular pop star. Psychologists think they know why the Internet brings out the worst in people. Human are social animals and evolved with brains wired for face-to-face interaction. The Internet, for all it has done to spread knowledge and shrink the world, has in some ways pushed people farther apart. Web browsers remove people’s faces from conversations while adding anonymity, letting complete strangers behave badly without consequences. Research has shown that people are more likely to criticize others if they’re not in the same room. So while you can’t do anything to curb cattiness online, you can choose to treat others with respect. And escaping the lair of the Internet troll is as easy as hitting the Back button.

Picture Credit : Google

Spend enough time exploring the Internet and you’re bound to see:

Grumpy Cat: People write suitably unhappy captions on photos of this perpetually depressed-looking house cat.

Planking: Planking pranksters pose facedown in public spots for photos they upload to the Internet.  

Diet Coke and Candy: Backyard chemists harness the chemical reaction between Diet Coke and a certain candy to create frothy soda geysers.

Lolcats: Photos of cute cats are captioned with silly, grammatically incorrect messages from the kitty’s point of view, the most famous phrase being “I can has cheezburger?”

Picture Credit : Google

A meme is an idea or a behavior that spreads from person to person while subtly changing over time. Internet memes spread through emails, social media, and on message boards. Unlike viral videos, memes invite people to participate in the behavior or customize the message. Web surfers hope their cheesy tweaks will gain them Internet fame.

Memes that are shared on social media can be widely spread from Facebook, WhatsApp. Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Viber and many more.  The majority of internet memes are passed on by teenagers and adults. There are several ways in which a meme can be shared, one is by uploading it on your social media page e.g. Facebook or Instagram, then it is shared or retweeted to your followers. You can say, internet memes are just the adjusted form of sharing a short message or idea.

Picture Credit : Google

He’s trying to trick you into buying a pair of shoes. This is an example of viral marketing. Millions of Web surfers fell for an online video demonstrating the art of “liquid mountaineering,” aka running on water, in summer 2010. The footage featured a group of athletes sprinting farther and farther across the surface of a chilly lake (the secret, apparently, is to pump your feet while wearing the right shoes). It was also totally fake – an advertisement for the brand of shoes worn in the video.

Picture Credit : Google