LONESOME? DOES SOCIAL MEDIA HELP OR HURT?

If you are lonely, you are not alone.

One source says 60 million Americans suffer chronic loneliness.

Studies show that loneliness can cause a lot of health problems.

Now, we're being told the problem is getting worse because of social media.

That seems strange because social media connects people. 

Social networking on the internet helps if used to promote face-to-face 

conversation, but if used as a replacement for that.

So, I suppose the lesson is that it's okay to do Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Don't use it as a substitute for face-to-face interaction with others.  

Don’t Let Them Snow You

Recognizing Propaganda

Every minute of every day you are subjected to propaganda. People are using words, pictures, and even music to influence the way you think.  Before I get into how propaganda works, the techniques that are used, I should define the term as used in this post.

Propaganda is the use of one-sided messages to influence the emotions, opinions, attitudes, and actions of targeted audiences for political, ideological, or commercial purposes. The messages may or may not be factual.  That’s a paraphrase of a definition provided by Richard Alan Nelson in a Wikipedia article.

A very effective explanation of how propagandists manipulate us is a documentary, Propaganda and Manipulation: How mass media engineers and distorts our perceptions, by Jerry Kroft, Ph.D., a Psychologist, who wrote Duped! Delusion, denial, and the end of the American Dream.  You can see it on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfo5gPG72KM

He explains the basic tools that are used.

1.Reframing

2. Repeated Affirmations

3. Vicarious/ Imitative learning

4. Distraction and denial

5. Classical & operant conditioning.

It would be great, in my view, if this were shown to every11th grader in the United States.

 

 

 

Are Mind and Brain the Same Thing?

According to what I have recently read, most scientists believe they are the same thing. Like the Frank Sinatra hit “Love and Marriage” says, “You can’t have one without the other.”

However, it seems the debate lingers.  Some say the brain is our mental hardware and the mind our mental software.  Some get into the  metaphysical, saying the brain is physical, but the mind metaphysical, connecting the brain to the soul.

This thought came to me. The brain is physically how we think; the mind is what we think.

The trick is to get control of the process, to control what we think instead of letting the rapid random thoughts that bombard our mind control  us.  Anyone for meditation?

 

The Price of Unending War – Part 2

THE “POSITIVE THINKING” APPROACH TO MILITARY PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAINING

Continuing the discussion on The Price of Unending War,  I thought I would pass along to you a link to an article by Bruce E. Levine,  How Psychologists Profit on Unending U.S. Wars, which is featured on the website Counterpunch,  that explains the Army’s approach to the psychological training of soldiers.

It reveals, for one thing, that one in six soldiers is on a psychiatric drug, and questions the advisability of teaching the “positive thinking” approach.  You can read it by going to this link.