While social media has the potential to transform everything from art to activism to advertising, some people seem to think it was invented chiefly as a platform to inform everyone they know, and lots of people they don't, of everything that is wrong in their lives and the world at large. I don't know why they do it -- maybe they derive pleasure from superficial expressions of sympathy, maybe they don't realize how tedious and pointless it is, maybe they just can't stop themselves -- but there's no question that chronic complainers are a veritable plague on social media.

Okay, this is just bizarre: if getting a "like" on Facebook doesn't make you feel warm and fuzzy enough, how about an inflatable vest that gives you a "hug" every time you get the stamp of social media approval? Yes, it's a real thing, or rather will be soon, thanks to MIT researchers Andy Payne and Phil Seaton and artist Melissa Kit Chow. While it's unclear if the "Like-A-Hug" vest will ever go to commercial production, Chow describes the concept thusly: "Like-A-Hug is a wearable social media vest that allows for hugs to be given via Facebook, bringing us closer …

Of all the new businesses that have emerged in conjunction with social media, casual gaming is potentially one of the most profitable -- but clearly also one of the most volatile, as demonstrated by Zynga's ill-fated acquisition of OMGPOP, publisher of "Draw Something," in March of this year. Zynga paid $183 million for OMGPOP, in a deal that appeared to make sense at the time, given the popularity of Draw Something -- but in the casual game universe such popularity can prove all-too-fleeting.

In case you missed it, during the first debate last night some social media genius at KitchenAid -- yes, the kitchen appliance maker -- tweeted an offensive comment about Barack Obama's dead grandmother. The tweet read: "Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! She died 3 days b4 he became president." Hilarious! There's no need to bore you with the profuse apologies that followed from KitchenAid, since we've been through this exercise countless times already; needless to say, they apologized. I'm more interested in a couple questions which I genuinely cannot answer.

Social media provides an amazing set of tools to help people organize themselves whatever their purpose may be, with applications ranging from revolutions to elections to social advocacy to group discounts to crowd-funding to shooting each other.

It's no secret that many people act like jerks online, and now there's some research which suggests why that might be the case. The forthcoming study from professors at Columbia University and the University of Pittsburgh, first publicized in the Wall Street Journal, found that using Facebook increases our feelings of self-confidence and decreases our capacity for self-control.

For the second time in as many months, Facebook's policy protecting free speech is putting the social media behemoth on a collision course with the Australian government. This time the dispute is over online comments which could jeopardize a murder prosecution.

Considering that Facebook started out as a social network exclusively for college students, it's only appropriate that it's now being used by prospective students to research colleges. According to a survey of over 7,000 high school students by Zinch, which runs a service matching students with schools and scholarships, fully 68% of respondents said they are using social media to research their higher education options.

Oh my. Social media gets blamed -- justly or unjustly -- for a lot of things, but this has to be a low point: health officials in Houston are pointing to social media as a factor contributing to a sharp spike in syphilis rates in Texas' largest city. According to the Houston Department of Health and Human Services, social media is facilitating unprotected sex between men, which is the main cause of new syphilis cases in Harris County, with men outnumbering women by a margin of five to one.

You don't have to be a football fan to know that the NFL is the subject of withering criticism from players, fans, commentators, columnists, and late-night talk show hosts over the performance of replacement referees who it seems were not, as the saying goes, ready for prime time. Complaints were already mounting before Monday's game between the Green Bay Packers and the Seattle Seahawks, when several blown calls by replacement refs at the end of the game gave the Seahawks a potentially undeserved victory, triggering an outpouring of vitriol at the replacement refs and the NFL, which hired them to …