The roots of mental illness
According to Kirsten Weir, an independent writer specializing in science, health and psychology, demonstrates that “mental illnesses are likely to have multiple causes, including genetic, biological and environmental factors.” Weir’s point is that there is no exact area to determine a mental illness, needs to consider several areas and reasons to diagnose. Because mental illnesses do not have a certain way to diagnose, people should put more attention on it instead of ignoring it. If we want to prevent or reduce mental illnesses, it is a great way to detect from everyday behavior and the surrounding environment.
Although there is still countless room for progress in diagnosing mental illnesses, some scientists already found out that mental illnesses are all about biology. This is huge progress because there is a way to find out more. Why this issue is important? If someone has a mental illness, it will affect his or her life. All life functions may change because of it. For instance, a mental illness is a condition that affects the mind, feeling, or mood of a person. Such circumstances can influence the capacity of someone to relate to and work with others every day.
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Happiness
Do you agree with Pinker?
Yes, he analyzes different aspects and explains his thoughts. He mentions that happiness depends on much more than income. For instance, health, money, free choice, culture, and geography. If these factors are positive developments, people will feel more happiness. He also demonstrated that happiness is intrinsic which can make people supportive. All these ideas mention above, isn’t that we are looking for?
What do you make of Pinker’s argument in light of our class discussion today?
His argument is very persuasive. One of the most impressive sentences is “Happiness isn’t everything. We can make choices that leave us unhappy in the short term but fulfilled over the course of a life, such as raising a child, writing a book, or fighting for a worthy cause.” It makes me think that the majority of people pursue happiness only focus on short term result. If we can think of a different aspect, the long term is making a small effort every day to allow future can have more happiness.
Lost Connections Ch1-7
How to define depression? There are countless aspects to define what causes depression and why people become depressed. According to Johann Hari, “ biological, psychological, and social. They are all real. This is known as the ‘bio-psycho-social model.’ It’s simple. All three sets of factors are relevant, and to understand a person’s depression and anxiety, you need to look at them all (54).” Every factor has different ways to interpret it. For instance, the social part causes depression may lose a loved one or effect by social media. No matter what kind of factor, they are all relevant which have coherences. We need to consider all of them instead of focusing on only one factor. The advantage is that we might find out something we don’t expect because the three factors which the author mentions have relevance.
It is not easy to understand a person’s depression because depression does not have a certain way to be diagnosed. That is why we should focus on biological, psychological, and social. Getting enough information from examples in life.
Lost Connections Ch11-20
In chapter 16, re-connection one: to other people, the author mentions” They wanted to know: Does trying consciously to make yourself happier actually work?” The research compares the United States and some Asia countries. Basically, they tracked people who deliberately pursued happiness and some of who weren’t. The result shows that if you pretend you are happy, you will not feel happier in the United States. In the opposite, you will become happy if you pretend you are happy—if you live in Asia countries. When I saw this result, it allows me to think about what kind of factors can cause a huge difference.
The main reason is the culture difference. American’s personality is kind of selfish which they usually only care about themselves. But people who live in Asia, they usually think as “a group”. In my personal experience, the issue I mentioned above is true. I am from an Asia country. Even you pretend you are happy, you will finally feel happier in Taiwan. Because people are really care about their friends and family, you will feel be taken seriously. And they also like group action which they will invite you to join with them. As time goes by, you will become happier. After I came to the United States, I noticed something which most people only care about themselves. I do not mean Americans don’t care about people, it’s just that in most cases they get along with people in their own way. In this case, you are not happy will not be very attentive. Naturally, you won’t be happier.
iGen: Chapter 2
In the chapter 2, the author states that” Teens spend much more time online now than they did just a few years ago.” I think the main reason is with the advance of technology, social media that kind of stuff is close to people. In addition, when your peers are using apps to share their lives, you might feel you are not part of them if you don’t use it. To be honest, this scenario makes me think that people will lose connection to the outside world. Living in a virtual world, there is no help for people at all.
In order to change and improve this scenario, people should go to outside world instead of staying at home. However, the problem is how to make people willing to go outside to have real experiences. I think schools can be a very helpful place. For instance, schools can organize some activities, inviting students to participate. In this case, with peer influence, it may be more useful.
Chapter 4
In this chapter, I’m impressed by one figure which is about screen time. This figure shows that if people spend more time on screen, they would become less in-person social interaction and more loneliness. These people who spend lots of time on screen may think it is so convenient to communicate with people on phone. As time goes by, they will addict to it and feel more loneliness. Because there still have differences between in-person and virtual world.
This figure also reminds me of the Ted Talk I have seen. The topic is “Why Our Screen Makes Us Less Happy?” One of the point that the author talk about is “stopping cues.” Basically, stopping cue is a signal that notices people it’s time to move on, take a break, and try to do different things, but the problem is that there is no stopping cues on social media. The information on social media just keep coming up to which is endless. Thus, I think our screens and media bring us convenient, but we need to know how to control our time on social media. Otherwise, it would become counter-effects.
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