They’re extremely useful when teaching kids how to take a time-out. Just… buy cheap ones. Some kids get pissed while waiting.
Sand timers…
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What the kids know about Social Media that the adults have yet to figure out
Doing Behavioral work with kids and adolescents has given me a distinct vantage that most people in my generation (the young working generation) and especially the older generation do not have. I observe tomorrows trends forming before they hit a mainstream explosion. This is true for music, fashion, and most importantly, web technology.
Lately, I have been reading a lot of business literature, and the buzzword in the industry these days is “social media”. All of the big wigs in suites are praising social media and Facebook as if it crawled out of primordial sludge yesterday, and 
they are hedging all of their bets on it being the future of business. While I don’t disagree that their vision of an interconnected web of weak interpersonal boundaries feeding the voyeuristic appetite of a preying advertising machine is as certain possibility, I don’t ever read articles where people speculate that there could be a decline in people’s dependence on Facebook. In this interview with Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, Hoffman mocks Zuckerberg’s insistence that everything will be social in the future, and I agree with him.
There are some steps forward that cannot be taken back- once out of the bag, certain cats will not go return. People are going to share funny photos and video, personal photos, and will share messages with their social community. However, having a universal hangout where everything is shared in one location? Those days happened, and I don’t expect them to stick around.
Back when social communities (i.e. Friendster and MySpace) first began, kids loved them because they could post all of the trash talking and flirting that took place in school online (I was part of that generation). This lasted for a few years before the adults began to take notice, and they were appalled by the private lives of their children. Sex and drugs hit harder and sooner than they ever anticipated, and they couldn’t believe the filth leaving their children’s mouths. In retaliation, kids started making their profiles private or making separate ones that their parents didn’t know about to once again regain some privacy over their lives. MySpace became despised by the public as it was an online predators’ wet dream: personal information about youth and their habits (often containing places of residence, phone numbers, and even intimate photos) as well as unregulated (by parents and authorities) access to communicate with them. Law enforcement caught on to the party eventually, but not before significant damage was done.
Image-conscious young adults of the collegiate population flocked to the more exclusive community forming on Facebook. Because membership was limited to only the best Universities in the country, people used their real names to register, establishing a trend of authenticity in the content they shared that I don’t feel most users today understand. In the days of MySpace, AIM, Yahoo, and MSN, people used handles that often hid their true identities. Digital camera and webcams were so expensive and of low quality that very few people had digital media to represent their “real” lives anyway. The pre-Facebook Internet had a lot of people hiding behind digital masks in dark, HTML covered rooms. When Facebook arrived, college students put their real names, real interests, real stories and real photos online because they thought that only their close friends, who were doing the same, would see this information. It wasn’t long before more exclusive colleges and universities were added to the list. As the pool of un-included exclusive universities shallowed, less-exclusive, larger schools were added. Next, High School students were included, and belong, the general public followed. Facebook lost it’s exclusivity, but strangely, the culture of transparency remained. People were still signing up using their real names, sharing real interests, stories and photos.
Something else happened with the expansion of Facebook that never happened with MySpace nor Friendster: adults from older generations decided to trust Facebook and it’s clean reputation. Advertisers and marketers were loving it: finally, everyone was at the party! And everyone was naked! There was plenty of money to be made selling clothes when you could clearly see what size everyone wore.
The marketers, advertisers and big wigs because so excited to be included in this party that they missed on small detail: the MySpace problem had reared it’s head again, bringing the generational chase full circle. Whenever adults join the kids’ party, the party suddenly becomes not cool. And this is a good thing. Grandma doesn’t want to read about little Kathy’s night out at the club any more than Katy wants her grandmother to know about that night. Yet, because of Facebook’s many social features, that information is pushed into our feeds. The new privacy features are confusing people. So how are kids going to keep adults out of their personal lives again? There are two options: stop using Facebook or stop the transparent use of social media.
A possible trend of declining Facebook use be in progress. Google+, Google’s attempt to mimic Facebook, was not the hit everyone expected it to be. Is it possible that kids these days are tired of social media? Or it is that they’re becoming smarter about it? The kids that I work with don’t trust putting their personal information online the way they did five years ago- they’re afraid that their parents are going to find out what they have been up to. They aren’t as trusting with their real name and photos anymore because they’ve seen how easily celebrities get their accounts hacked. They are becoming more clever and guarded with their personal information. However, thanks to the desensitization and boundary breaking of nearly a decade’s worth of exposure to Facebook, their concept of what is considered private information may have been permanently altered. Only time will tell.
A Parable by Paul Jacob
I found this parable in some old papers today while cleaning house.
A wise old farmer was considered rich by the villagers because he owned a horse. One day the horse ran away and the villagers said to the farmer, “How unfortunate that your horse ran away.” He responded, “maybe.”
The next day the horse returned, brining with it a wild horse, and thereby increasing the farmer’s wealth. The villagers exclaimed, “How fortunate!” to which the the farmer again responded, “maybe.”
The following day the farmer’s son, while trying to train the wold horse, was thrown, breaking his leg. the villagers again commented, “How unfortunate.” Once again the farmer responded, “maybe.”
The following day, the King’s men rode through the village conscripting all the young men for the army. They didn’t take the farmer’s son because of his broken leg.
Things are not always as they appear to be. Life presents us with situations and conditions which, in themselves, are neither good nor bad. We assign meaning to these conditions, thereby creating our fortunes and misfortunes.
Veteran Suicide Increases
Veterans are at far greater risk for dying from suicide than than civilians who have never been exposed to combat. This is true even for those veterans not suffering from depression, PTSD, or any other psychological troubles. Why is this? It is because of their exposure to killing. There is a certain degree of desensitization that is required required for one human to kill another human. In the case of civilians, this desensitization can come from exposure to repeated abuse, violence, or other such stressers. For a soldier to effectively complete his or her job, this desensitization must take place in his or her military training. Once the psychological barrier that normally prevents typical people from easily killing another person is overcome, the gateway for successful suicide is unlocked.
The only thing more difficult than killing another person is to kill oneself, and this difficulty is the thing that typically thwarts suicide attempts. Interviews with people who have survived suicide attempts (In working in the field that I do, I have had several of my own conversations with people who have survived suicide) reveal that the person’s body has a tendency to “protect” itself, independent of what the person’s intellectual intentions are. The body seems to “take over” and act on it’s own in a physiological self-defense. Exposure to death, abuse, and killing dull the body’s protective response to suicide, leaving combat veterans in a position of vulnerability.
Once other war-caused psychological problems are thrown into the mix, ( such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Major Depression, and otherwise benign Adjustment Disorders) we have a population that is alarmingly prone for suicide.
This article from the Huffington Post speaks about the increasing number of veteran suicides, and speculates on how the numbers will only increase as more soldiers return from combat. We need more mental health services to keep these soldiers functioning in civilian society. We owe it to them to keep us alive. Right now, state governments are engaged in whole-sale slashing of Mental Health Care budgets. Because of the economy and the way that state and county funding is handled, school districts, mental health, and all of the other money earmarked for public services is shrinking. Everyone is fighting for a progressively smaller piece of the pie, and people like our veterans are the ones who are suffering. I don’t know if I agree with the aimless organization of the Occupy Wallstreet Movement, but I empathize with their sentiments. Something is wrong with a system that puts the services designed to nurture and care for the Citizens at an absolute low priority. What can be more important than teaching our children, healing our sick, and keeping our soldiers alive? After our U.S. service men and women risked their lives to protect us, the least we can do is protect them.
Irrational Beliefs (by Albert Ellis)
1. It is essential that one be loved or approved by virtually everyone in one’s community.
2. One must be perfectly competent and achieving to consider oneself worthwhile.
3. Some people are wicked or villainous, and therefore should be blamed and punished.
4. It is a terrible catastrophe when things are not as one wants them to be.
5. Unhappiness is caused by outside circumstances; the individual has no control over it.
6. Dangerous or fearsome things are causes for great concern, and their possibility must be continually dwelt upon.
7. One should be dependent on others and must have someone stronger on whom they rely.
8. One should be quite upset over people’s problems and disturbances.
9. There is always a right or perfect solution to every problem; and it must be found or the results will be catastrophic.
From Game Play by Loren Ford
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