social media

Social media dramatically impacts our offline lives and mental well-being; examine its benefits, risks and controversies through scientific studies, real-life anecdotes and more.

Triggers are Flags for Healing
I made a Reel on Instagram about my ADHD diagnosis that has now been viewed over 555,000 times. That's 690X bigger than the population of the town I grew up in! It is blowing my freakin' mind that something that I made has reached that many people.
By Taucha Post4 years ago in Psyche
Why Instagram Makes Me Feel Lonelier than Before
Have you ever noticed that the more connected we try to become, the more distance we create? I feel like that probably says something about us as a society but I'm not here to debate that.
By Shiloh Watson4 years ago in Psyche
Exploration, doubt, positivism and rationality
The popularization of science should not only popularize scientific knowledge, but also popularize scientific spirit, which has become a consensus of the Scientific circle in China. Even the advocates of pseudoscience also rang rang to carry forward the scientific spirit, the pseudoscience personage dressed as a fighter full of scientific spirit, Copernicus, Galileo, and the criticism of pseudoscience turned into a tyrant against the scientific spirit of the church. Obviously, pseudoscience warriors and anti-pseudoscience warriors do not understand exactly the same spirit of science. So what is the scientific spirit? The scientific spirit is multifaceted. The easiest thing to agree on is the spirit of exploration. Always be open to the new, to new knowledge, to new ideas, to new mysteries, to new results. This is the basis on which science develops. Science stems from the innate human curiosity about the unknown. In fact, many animals have curiosity, which is an adaptation to their environment, arguably an evolutionary product. It is in this sense, and in this sense alone, that we can say that every healthy child is a scientist. Children love to explore new things and ask all kinds of questions, but they are also susceptible to absurd explanations and accept unreasonable answers. What they lack is another aspect of the scientific spirit: skepticism. Skepticism means that science neither trusts authority nor tolerates it unconditionally. Obviously, it is unwise to doubt everything cynically, to lose the ability to explore because the mind is closed. But without skepticism, there is no basis for distinguishing right from wrong, and all ideas, reasonable or absurd, can be accepted, and science becomes a dumping ground. But pseudoscientists can also argue that they are sceptical. Indeed, they have the courage to doubt the scientific mainstream: "scientific creationists" doubt evolution, "psychics" doubt the laws of physics, and so on. And we doubt their doubt. What's the difference between these two suspicions? How do we avoid closing our minds and doubting everything? To solve this problem, we must add new connotations to the scientific spirit: positivism and rationality. Positivism requires more than just supporting evidence. Pseudoscientists often claim to have proof and cite evidence in their writings. But anecdotes, rumors, analogies, claims by one authority (often from another or taken out of context), fabricated facts, coincidences, etc., are not acceptable evidence in the scientific community. Empirical evidence requires hard evidence: repeated, independent observations and experiments under tightly controlled conditions, using rigorous methods. Control conditions, repeatability, independence and probability statistics are the hallmarks of positivism and the deadly enemies of pseudoscience. Positivism is inseparable from rationality, that is, it analyzes and deduces the evidence with rigorous logic and selects the most reasonable and possible one among all possible explanations. In the absence of evidence, it can also rule out unreasonable and impossible explanations. Hume once offered a principle of judgment that he called an axiom: "No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, except in cases where the falsehood is more miraculous than the fact it seeks to establish." This is a rational principle. In addition, as a very unusual claimed to have very solid evidence, out of the case is not universal conclusions, related events does not equal causation, cannot prove that must not exist is not equal to exist, the use of scientific terms is not equal to the responsibility of the scientific theory, evidence in the counterclaim that one party, seems inexplicable phenomenon is not equal to cannot explain, and so on, They are also rational principles and powerful weapons against pseudoscience. Every healthy person can master rigorous logical thinking, but every healthy person must undergo proper education and strict training to master rigorous logical thinking. Even trained scientists do not always adhere to the principles of reason. Positivism and rational spirit are the most important but also the most difficult aspects of scientific spirit, which should be the focus of developing scientific spirit. Exploration, doubt, demonstration and rationality are the four inseparable aspects of scientific spirit. To emphasize one aspect in isolation opens the door to pseudoscience or risks impeding the development of science. It is under these four banners that scientific research continuously observes, examines, abandons wrong ideas and adds new knowledge, thus making continuous progress. In the variety of human activities, it is hard to find another one in which continuous progress can be made. Literature and art are not advances, but changes in style. Humanities and religion do not progress, only the evolution of schools. But contrary to what the pseudoscientists claim, scientific progress is not a revolution that overturns everything, but an evolution on the basis of the original. The progress of science is continuous progress. The same is true of the two biggest revolutions in modern science: Darwin's theory of evolution did not overturn everything in natural history and geology, but retained most of the data and theories and reinterpreted them. Einstein's theory of relativity did not overturn Newtonian mechanics, but its expansion and deepening. In summing up his results, Einstein once said, "Creating a new theory is not like destroying an old barn and building a skyscraper in its place. It is rather like climbing a mountain, gaining new and wider horizons, discovering unexpected connections between our starting point and its rich surroundings. But our starting point is still there and can be seen, though it seems small, and a tiny part of the wider vision we gain by overcoming the obstacles in our expeditionary climb." The idea of creating an entirely new science at a single blow is a pipe dream of pseudoscientists, who never actually make any progress because they are afraid to admit, let alone correct, their mistakes. Continuous and coherent progress is the characteristic of science, and also the pride and consolation of scientific workers.
By 高11334 years ago in Psyche
Is The Illusion Of Luxury Brands Making You Stupid?
This morning, I was on my table sipping coffee and browsing on AliExpress, one of the most popular Chinese retail applications. Among many aesthetic clothes, accessories and jewellery, one can also find the dupes of almost all of the products from major luxury brands. What’s more, you can also add to your cart, a brand new electric car, or even a medium-sized DIY house!
By Shalin Thomas4 years ago in Psyche
I grow up with the Internet
The network is beneficial. It can make our life, work and study convenient. For example, we can find the information we need on the Internet, such as the diet in life, the information we need at work, and the problems we won't face in learning.
By 张聪聪4 years ago in Psyche
How Tik Tok Helped My Mental Health — And Yet Somehow Didn’t. Top Story - May 2022.
When COVID first swooped through the world and everything came to a screeching halt, I was laid off. But with the understanding that I would get a job back when the wheels were starting to turn again. Now that took six months. During those first six months, I found myself in an in-between. Not able to do anything or go anywhere. I was just sitting at home. Because no one knew exactly what we were looking at or understood the ramifications of this virus.
By Anne Pedersen4 years ago in Psyche
How Can Video Games Affect Your Children?
The mobile phone has become the primary means of entertaining or rewarding children in all homes, and the use of the mobile phone is no longer a specific age, as mothers use the phone to entertain a child who has not reached the age of one year to distract him from crying!
By Macy Brooklyn4 years ago in Psyche
Quit Your Internet Addiction
“Internet Addiction” refers to excessive Internet use that causes significant psychological and social disturbance along with functional impairment (Sevim 2016).
By Honey4 years ago in Psyche
The Attention Crisis
In the last ten to fifteen years, a whole new generation has been born - the generation that has never lived without social media. In some cases, when the child is born, the parents have created a Facebook photo album of them from baby to teenager, or in other cases there have been entire accounts dedicated to this child from the age of only a few months in order for family to communicate with them and then we have the dreaded family who post endless photos on social media of being ‘with the new baby’. As these children grew up, they have been taught to seek attention and approval from social media. They have seen ‘social media influencers’ as people to look up to and aspire to be since communication has been commodified as ‘likes’ and ‘comments’. The more you can get of these things, the more popular and successful you seem to others. Social media plays on the insecurity that you are never really going to be popular and who is more concerned about popularity than teenagers? Nobody. Concerned about everything from the way they look to how their lives have been curated online, teenagers are the most vulnerable to falling into every trap on social media from buying things from most of the adverts they get to following pages that tell them suggestively that they aren’t good enough to achieve high like-comment status. But why do they seek attention and what are the real harms of it? I want to explore in-depth what it means to be a teenager wanting attention online.
By Annie Kapur4 years ago in Psyche
You Phone is Not your Friend
Some might panic after reading the title to this but its safe to read on. Just the thought of having to put your phone down might cause you some panic and that it the reason why it is not your friend.
By Nicholas McKenna4 years ago in Psyche
Does Instagram Push Drug Content to Teens?
Drug-Related Content on Instagram Drug-related content is being shared on Instagram accounts by young people, according to an investigation by watchdog group Tech Transparency Project (TTP). Despite promising to limit the sale of drugs, the company continues to offer hashtags for the purchase of illegal substances to children as young as 13, the investigation found. The best addiction treatment center in Karachi has seen patients who were buying from online platforms.
By sclinic lahore4 years ago in Psyche
AUTISM AND MENTAL RETARDATION: ARE THEY THE SAME?
It is often assumed, erroneously, that Autism is just another form of Mental Retardation. Nothing could be further from the truth. While Mental Retardation has to do with cognitive functioning, Autism has to do with behavioral and communication abilities and is unrelated to the patient’s intellectual level. Here, we break down the difference between the two conditions so that parents worried about their child’s behavior know what to look out for.
By Albertalice4 years ago in Psyche