Facebook is not a measure of your self-worth

It's Wednesday, March 9th. I'm Natali Morris and it's time to get Loaded. Opera has opened a mobile app store of its own. The Opera Mobile Store offers free and paid apps designed for various phones including Symbian, BlackBerry, Android, and Windows. Opera is looking to turn its mobile web browser into a multifunction portal that lets you control apps within it. It makes the browser what they're calling a speed dial link that helps you find apps and then download them directly to your device. A new iPad magazine launched today. It's called Zite. It takes the news articles that your Facebook and Twitter friends share and turns them into a customized magazine just for you. It also lets you follow subject feeds as you wish. It's a lot like Flipboard which is also free in the iTunes store. Rumor has it that Sprint is in talks to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom. Talks have been on and off for some time but sources tell Bloomberg that the talks have turned serious. T-Mobile is the American branch of Deutsche Telekom. Apparently, the holdup is the valuation of T-Mobile which had a profit dip in the 4th quarter of 2010. The deal could be worth between $15 and $20 billion. Foursquare is launching version 3.0 of its app with more focus on rewards and recommendations. There's a new Explore tab that gives you personal recommendations on where to go based on a number of factors like your history of locations and your friends' habits. There are also more rewards at locations for locals and loyalists. And a new elevator in Japan operates with voice recognition. This is mainly for people with impaired vision to navigate to their floor. It also automatically kicks in when it recognizes a wheelchair so that someone with physical challenges would not have to reach up for buttons. The elevator is made by Mitsubishi but it only speaks Japanese for now and we don't know if and when it will learn English and come to the US. And, finally, a new study shows that women who base their self-worth on their appearance tend to share more photos on their social networks. A study by Dr. Michael Stefanone from the University of Buffalo found that women used Facebook to assert their self-worth in terms of beauty and compete for attention mainly from men. You probably think this is a big "No, duh," but really, it's not a laughing matter because it has the possible consequence of teaching women that their best asset involves being seen, and what does that teach the next generation of women that they're only really as good as the comments on their profile photo? This study does not prescribe a way to change this behavior but I have one. Tell yourself that your social networks are not a measurement of your personal value no matter how many friends or likes you have. That's your news for the day. Remember, CNET.com/loaded for links of all the stories we talked about. I'm Natali Morris for CNET and you've just been loaded.