2017
Smartphone use has radical impact on mental health of teens, claims San Diego SU psych professor
07/08/17 09:48
San Diego State University professor of psychology and author Jean Twenge has claimed that smartphone usage is having a radical impact on both the behavior and mental health of U.S. teenagers.
The arrival of the smartphone has radically changed every aspect of teenagers’ lives, from the nature of their social interactions to their mental health […] Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011. It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones.
Far from being the usual generalized complaint about teens spending too much time staring at their screens, Dr Twenge has plenty of hard data to support her contentions – made in The Atlantic, the magazine in which Laurene Powell Jobs recently bought a majority stake …
The long-form article, entitled Have smartphones destroyed a generation?, is packed full of graphs – each showing the launch of the iPhone as a reference point.
A 2017 survey of more than 5,000 American teens found that three out of four owned an iPhone.
They show that teens today spend far less time hanging out with their friends, fewer of them have a driving license, they date less, have less sex, get less sleep and are more likely to feel lonely.
There are also some stark statistics.
Teens who spend three hours a day or more on electronic devices are 35 percent more likely to have a risk factor for suicide, such as making a suicide plan […]
Boys’ depressive symptoms increased by 21 percent from 2012 to 2015, while girls’ increased by 50 percent—more than twice as much. The rise in suicide, too, is more pronounced among girls. Although the rate increased for both sexes, three times as many 12-to-14-year-old girls killed themselves in 2015 as in 2007, compared with twice as many boys. The suicide rate is still higher for boys, in part because they use more-lethal methods, but girls are beginning to close the gap.
Twenge is quick to note that smartphones are not the only factor, but she argues that it is a key one.
Parenting styles continue to change, as do school curricula and culture, and these things matter. But the twin rise of the smartphone and social media has caused an earthquake of a magnitude we’ve not seen in a very long time, if ever. There is compelling evidence that the devices we’ve placed in young people’s hands are having profound effects on their lives—and making them seriously unhappy.
And far from the common belief that kids grow up too quickly these days, she argues that the opposite is true when you examine common markers like going out without their parents, earning their own money and starting to date.
Across a range of behaviors—drinking, dating, spending time unsupervised— 18-year-olds now act more like 15-year-olds used to, and 15-year-olds more like 13-year-olds. Childhood now stretches well into high school.
The piece is illustrated with depressing examples of behavioral changes.
One of the ironies of iGen life is that despite spending far more time under the same roof as their parents, today’s teens can hardly be said to be closer to their mothers and fathers than their predecessors were. “I’ve seen my friends with their families—they don’t talk to them,” Athena told me. “They just say ‘Okay, okay, whatever’ while they’re on their phones. They don’t pay attention to their family.” Like her peers, Athena is an expert at tuning out her parents so she can focus on her phone. She spent much of her summer keeping up with friends, but nearly all of it was over text or Snapchat. “I’ve been on my phone more than I’ve been with actual people,” she said. “My bed has, like, an imprint of my body.”
There’s the now common portrait of social media usage making people feel unhappier as they compare their own lives with the self-curated online version of the lives of their peers.
Today’s teens may go to fewer parties and spend less time together in person, but when they do congregate, they document their hangouts relentlessly—on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook. Those not invited to come along are keenly aware of it. Accordingly, the number of teens who feel left out has reached all-time highs across age groups. Like the increase in loneliness, the upswing in feeling left out has been swift and significant.
Twenge doesn’t have any easy solutions. She acknowledges that it’s not realistic to expect teens to dramatically curtail their usage of electronic devices or social media. But she suggests that modest changes could help.
Significant effects on both mental health and sleep time appear after two or more hours a day on electronic devices. The average teen spends about two and a half hours a day on electronic devices. Some mild boundary-setting could keep kids from falling into harmful habits.
The whole piece is well worth a read, especially for parents.
From "The Atlantic" - link to full article: Here
Living With Anxiety
31/05/17 11:02
Living with anxiety is like walking through sand
By Robyn, May 26, 2017
People always have a lot to say about mental illness. Now I’d like to have my say, so I have decided to write my own story of what living with a mental illness means. This may not resonate with the feelings that many of you go through, but I do hope that it gives an idea of my everyday life and will therefore give you a better understanding.
When I was 18 I was diagnosed with depression. There were things happening in my life that I both caused and could not control. As I grew older, this illness manifested in many different ways; I could not understand my overly emotional responses to everyday life and the reasons that I struggled, in a way that was different to every forum post on depression that I read on the internet. It wasn't until a few years ago that I learned, after years of different general and medical practitioners, that I actually had generalized anxiety disorder. It explained the reason that I would shut down and sleep as a response to anything difficult in my life. It explained the random pains I experienced for over a year, which was actually a response to stress and loud noises.
This diagnosis, whilst unpleasant, unlocked a new stage in my life; one in which I could finally try and tackle the thing that was crippling and prohibiting me from being a “normal”, contributing member of society.
“I could now see that I was 'walking through sand'.”
This analogy is something that came into my mind last week but is something that I feel applies to anyone suffering from any mental or 'invisible' illness. Imagine you are in a marathon held on the beach. You and every other contestant are judged in the same manner and the same expectations are held of you. You start to run but you realise that everyone else is running on concrete and you are running on the sand. For every three steps they take, you take five. Beads of sweat are running down your face but everyone else is just chatting happily amongst themselves: this is what growing up with a mental illness is like - well for me at least.
Yet instead of using this as an excuse for every mistake I've ever made in my life, I've decided that I am going to instead use it as a personal appraisal. Not only did I do laundry today, but it was twice as hard and I accomplished it. I might be overly emotional but that means that I appreciate music (for example) on a level that other people may not be able to.
If you are friends with anyone who has a mental illness, remember to take note of their small accomplishments. Washing your hair might seem like a trivial everyday task for some people but I can tell you, on a personal level, that paragliding off a mountain was less distressing than the feeling I get when I wake up and get ready to leave the house. Similarly, eating a regular healthy diet or even cooking three meals a day is a constant struggle. Today I've managed one and it was from McDonalds (it was fantastic).
“Mental illness hides itself in all sorts of places. It could be within your family, friendship group or that friend from work who always has a smile on their face.”
All I ask is to consider the next time someone is late, looks 70 per cent, or has an overly emotional response to an ‘everyday’ situation, they're probably not a bad person; they're just walking through sand.
Thanks to time-to-change.org.uk
By Robyn, May 26, 2017
People always have a lot to say about mental illness. Now I’d like to have my say, so I have decided to write my own story of what living with a mental illness means. This may not resonate with the feelings that many of you go through, but I do hope that it gives an idea of my everyday life and will therefore give you a better understanding.
When I was 18 I was diagnosed with depression. There were things happening in my life that I both caused and could not control. As I grew older, this illness manifested in many different ways; I could not understand my overly emotional responses to everyday life and the reasons that I struggled, in a way that was different to every forum post on depression that I read on the internet. It wasn't until a few years ago that I learned, after years of different general and medical practitioners, that I actually had generalized anxiety disorder. It explained the reason that I would shut down and sleep as a response to anything difficult in my life. It explained the random pains I experienced for over a year, which was actually a response to stress and loud noises.
This diagnosis, whilst unpleasant, unlocked a new stage in my life; one in which I could finally try and tackle the thing that was crippling and prohibiting me from being a “normal”, contributing member of society.
“I could now see that I was 'walking through sand'.”
This analogy is something that came into my mind last week but is something that I feel applies to anyone suffering from any mental or 'invisible' illness. Imagine you are in a marathon held on the beach. You and every other contestant are judged in the same manner and the same expectations are held of you. You start to run but you realise that everyone else is running on concrete and you are running on the sand. For every three steps they take, you take five. Beads of sweat are running down your face but everyone else is just chatting happily amongst themselves: this is what growing up with a mental illness is like - well for me at least.
Yet instead of using this as an excuse for every mistake I've ever made in my life, I've decided that I am going to instead use it as a personal appraisal. Not only did I do laundry today, but it was twice as hard and I accomplished it. I might be overly emotional but that means that I appreciate music (for example) on a level that other people may not be able to.
If you are friends with anyone who has a mental illness, remember to take note of their small accomplishments. Washing your hair might seem like a trivial everyday task for some people but I can tell you, on a personal level, that paragliding off a mountain was less distressing than the feeling I get when I wake up and get ready to leave the house. Similarly, eating a regular healthy diet or even cooking three meals a day is a constant struggle. Today I've managed one and it was from McDonalds (it was fantastic).
“Mental illness hides itself in all sorts of places. It could be within your family, friendship group or that friend from work who always has a smile on their face.”
All I ask is to consider the next time someone is late, looks 70 per cent, or has an overly emotional response to an ‘everyday’ situation, they're probably not a bad person; they're just walking through sand.
Thanks to time-to-change.org.uk
Thank You!
06/03/17 10:01
I don't know about you, but a lot of these folks have had a dramatic impact on my life, my family, and my job. Why not take a few moments out of your day and make a point of saying "thank you". I am sure it will be appreciated.
The Best Valentine
16/02/17 14:02
Did You Know???
Compassionate Acts for Spouse Can Boost Well-Being
By Rick Nauert PhD ~ 2 min read
The maxim that it is better to give than to receive gets some specific support from a new study that finds evidence that being compassionate to a spouse is rewarding in and of itself.
In the study, published in the journal Emotion, psychologists discovered the emotional benefits of compassionate acts are significant for the giver, whether or not the recipient is even aware of the act.
For example, if a husband notices that the tires on his wife’s car need air, he may air them up before driving to work. That gesture would boost his emotional well-being, regardless of whether his wife notices.
In the study, Dr. Harry Reis, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester in New York, led a research team that studied 175 North American newlywed husbands and wives who were married an average of 7.17 months.
“Our study was designed to test a hypothesis put forth by Tenzin Gyatso, the current Dalai Lama,” said Reis, “that compassionate concern for others’ welfare enhances one’s own affective state.”
The team of psychologists, which included Drs. Ronald Rogge of Rochester and Michael Maniaci of Florida Atlantic University, asked participants to keep a two-week daily diary to record those instances in which either spouse put aside personal wishes in order to meet the partner’s needs.
But the researchers also needed to assess the emotional well-being of the individuals. To that end, the participants kept track of their daily emotional states for each day based on 14 positive and negative terms, such as enthusiastic, happy, calm, sad, angry, and hurt.
Over the course of the 14 days, husbands and wives reported giving and receiving an average of .65 and .59 compassionate acts each day with husbands perceiving more such acts than did their partners.
The acts included such things as changing personal plans for the partner’s sake, doing something that showed the partner was valued, and expressing tenderness for the spouse.
Before the study, the researchers predicted that the greatest impact on the donor would come when the act was recognized by the recipient, because recognition would make the donor feel valued.
They also thought the recipient would feel the most benefit when the act was mutually recognized, as opposed to those times when one partner perceived a compassionate act that wasn’t actually intended. While those predictions were confirmed, the researchers discovered something else.
“Clearly, a recipient needs to notice a compassionate act in order to emotionally benefit from it,” said Reis. “But recognition is much less a factor for the donor.”
Researchers discovered that donors benefit from compassionate acts, regardless of whether the recipient explicitly notices the acts.
And in those cases, the benefits for the donors was about 45 percent greater than for the recipients, as determined by the self-assessment scales in the daily diaries, with the effect being equally strong for men and women.
For Reis, the results suggest that “acting compassionately may be its own reward.”
Reis is now studying the emotional benefits of spending money on others. The work, although preliminary, suggests that spending on others can make a person feel better, but only when the goal is to benefit that person.
Spending to impress them with generosity or vision doesn’t do the trick.
Source: University of Rochester
Compassionate Acts for Spouse Can Boost Well-Being
By Rick Nauert PhD ~ 2 min read
The maxim that it is better to give than to receive gets some specific support from a new study that finds evidence that being compassionate to a spouse is rewarding in and of itself.
In the study, published in the journal Emotion, psychologists discovered the emotional benefits of compassionate acts are significant for the giver, whether or not the recipient is even aware of the act.
For example, if a husband notices that the tires on his wife’s car need air, he may air them up before driving to work. That gesture would boost his emotional well-being, regardless of whether his wife notices.
In the study, Dr. Harry Reis, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester in New York, led a research team that studied 175 North American newlywed husbands and wives who were married an average of 7.17 months.
“Our study was designed to test a hypothesis put forth by Tenzin Gyatso, the current Dalai Lama,” said Reis, “that compassionate concern for others’ welfare enhances one’s own affective state.”
The team of psychologists, which included Drs. Ronald Rogge of Rochester and Michael Maniaci of Florida Atlantic University, asked participants to keep a two-week daily diary to record those instances in which either spouse put aside personal wishes in order to meet the partner’s needs.
But the researchers also needed to assess the emotional well-being of the individuals. To that end, the participants kept track of their daily emotional states for each day based on 14 positive and negative terms, such as enthusiastic, happy, calm, sad, angry, and hurt.
Over the course of the 14 days, husbands and wives reported giving and receiving an average of .65 and .59 compassionate acts each day with husbands perceiving more such acts than did their partners.
The acts included such things as changing personal plans for the partner’s sake, doing something that showed the partner was valued, and expressing tenderness for the spouse.
Before the study, the researchers predicted that the greatest impact on the donor would come when the act was recognized by the recipient, because recognition would make the donor feel valued.
They also thought the recipient would feel the most benefit when the act was mutually recognized, as opposed to those times when one partner perceived a compassionate act that wasn’t actually intended. While those predictions were confirmed, the researchers discovered something else.
“Clearly, a recipient needs to notice a compassionate act in order to emotionally benefit from it,” said Reis. “But recognition is much less a factor for the donor.”
Researchers discovered that donors benefit from compassionate acts, regardless of whether the recipient explicitly notices the acts.
And in those cases, the benefits for the donors was about 45 percent greater than for the recipients, as determined by the self-assessment scales in the daily diaries, with the effect being equally strong for men and women.
For Reis, the results suggest that “acting compassionately may be its own reward.”
Reis is now studying the emotional benefits of spending money on others. The work, although preliminary, suggests that spending on others can make a person feel better, but only when the goal is to benefit that person.
Spending to impress them with generosity or vision doesn’t do the trick.
Source: University of Rochester