We've all seen the whimsical, often ridiculous titles people dream up to describe someone who specializes in social media marketing: there are social media gurus, social media rock stars, social media evangelists, social media mavens -- even social media ninjas and social media warriors, fer crying out loud.

There was good news and bad news for social media marketing to be found in the results of the latest CMO Survey from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, which polled 410 marketing executives (most of them vice-presidents or above) from July 16-August 6, 2013. On the positive side, spending on social media marketing is expected to increase substantially in coming years; on the negative side, nobody seems quite sure what they're achieving with it.

Wow, some marketers are really, really, really dumb, aren't they? I'm not referring to you, of course, or anyone you know; I'm sure you're all super smart. No, I'm referring to whoever handles AT&T's Twitter account and decided to use the anniversary of 9/11 to try to sell smartphones.

It's no secret that authoritarian governments are afraid of social media, as it enables dissidents to voice complaints and organize protests. Now the Chinese government is attacking social media by going after its most essential component: the ability to share with large groups of people.

By enabling harmful or helpful behaviors, social media can do bad or good, which is just another way of saying that social media is a tool, morally neutral, whose impacts depend on what we choose to do with it.

By now I imagine we've all seen the statistics showing that many people check their social media accounts before going to sleep, as soon as they wake up, and even while having sex. But what about when you're actually asleep? Yes, that is now a thing, according to researchers at the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, who identified a new form of "parasomnia" (the general term for sleep disorders, which also covers golden oldies like sleepwalking and talking in your sleep) after patients complained that they are updating social media and sending text messages in their sleep.

Recruiters and corporate headhunters love social media, and not just because of the funny cat pictures. The reason is simple enough: They can use social media to make more money.

As social animals, we human beings take our cues from our peers. Unsurprisingly, psychologists and social scientists have found that this dynamic is easily translated to social media -- including subtle peer pressure linked with a whole bunch of negative, self-destructive behaviors. In the latest such study, researchers from the University of Southern California have found that teens who see photographs of friends smoking and drinking on social media are more likely to do so themselves.