Psychology in the Media

--Original published at Olivia's College Blog

1 in 4 children enrolled in school showed deficits and delays in motor skills and communication. Time spent on digital media could be the source of this delay in children, according to a new study by JAMA pediatrics. The study found that children between the ages of 2 and 3 who were exposed to more screen time scored lower on development tests at milestone ages of 3 and 5 years old.

The first 5 years of life are critical for a child to stay on track with normal growth and development. JAMA pediatrics explains that the deficits that are associated with too much screen time may be caused children replacing important opportunities for learning and growth with the screens. Screen time may also be replacing interaction time with the caregiver.

2,441 mothers and children were recruited for the study between 2008 and 2010. Between 2011 and 2016, children’s development was self-reported by mothers on the Ages and Stages Questionnaire at 2, 3, and 5 years old. Mothers also reported amount of screen usage for different mediums of technology, like phone, tablet, computer, or TV screen.

The child’s development score on the ASQ was representative of their current ability in communication, motor skills, problem solving, and personal-social skills. A low sum of the three scores on the ASQ was indicative of poor development. The research found that more screen time at 24 months produced lower development scores at 36 months, and more screen time at 36 months produced lower development scores at 60 months.It is estimated that children should not exceed one hour per day of screen time, according to the AMA. Today, 98% of US children aged 0-8 spend an average of over 2 hours a day. Dr. Sheri Madigan, lead researcher of the study, explains the harm in too much screen time at a young age: “excessive screen time has been associated with a number of deleterious physical, behavioral, and cognitive outcomes.”

Children of ages 2, 3, and 5 were found to have an average of 2.4, 3.6, and 1.6 hours of screen time daily. While results show a directional association between screen time and poor development, it does not produce causation. The data showed that more screen time was linked to lower ASQ development test scores. The data did not support the obverse relationship of poorer development being related to more screen time.

Like any study, there were numerous possible limitations. It is likely there are other factors that contribute to the effects we see in development from more time spent on screens.  Not all children are equally affected by the same amounts of screen time and these differences were not all accounted for, Dr. Madigan explains. Examples she gave of this included gender of the child, maternal depression, and how regularly the child was read to. Any of these factors could have been the cause of poorer development but is shown as a trend that is tied to screen time. There were also few outliers of children who had higher screen time but also showed high scores of developments. One last limitation listed was the focus directed to the screen time. The amount of attention directed to screens during ‘screen time’ could cause these findings to be misinterpreted. There is no guarantee that mothers used the same criteria when reporting amounts of screen time. While the data showed an overall negative correlation between increased screen time and poorer development, it is possible that other factors could have applied a hidden pressure to the results.

This study is one of the first to provide evidence of a directional association between screen time and poor development in children. The good news is that this information can be used proactively to make we are doing our part to make sure our children are not spending too much time on screens.

Psych in the Media Reflection

I found this assignment to be the trickiest portion of our Psych in the Media Project yet. For me, the difficulty of the task came from condensing the loads of data in the findings into one short article. I approached the assignment by considering what the audience would gain the most from reading. I sorted through the research and located the numbers and information that were necessary to include for understanding the basic findings of the research. Then, once I had a rough idea of what I would include, I summarized it. It was good practice to take the information and present it with less jargon for a broader audience. I am majoring in psychology and spend a lot of time in my methods class dissecting research papers. It was nice to step outside of that practice and learn how to present the information to anyone who may not understand specific terms of psychology.  

The information that I chose to leave out included most of the statistical data and figures. These results are crucial in presenting findings that lead to published work. However, when presenting the findings as news, it is important to present it in a compelling and attractive way. I liked the flow of the original article, so I aimed to include most of the same information in my version. This assignment would have been even harder if we had to rewrite the article without having to read through the original publication. It was much easier to avoid plagiarizing in our assignment because I had an entire research publication to dissect for new information.

I have always had an appreciation for writers, journalists, and publicists. They are almost like the middle man between the information and the public. This series of assignments has made me view journalists in a new light. They have a lot of power in their hands, and from this assignment, I really do see how most of the information we receive is coming from a secondary source. I never thought about it in that way before, so I appreciate this assignment for making me more skeptical of what I come across in daily news. Many journalists and sources of news may have great content and spread accurate awareness, but it is also alarmingly easy to present the public with false or skewed information. I tried my best to avoid making those mistakes in my article submission, to make the most of the findings of the research on development by JAMA pediatrics.

Work Cited

Howard, J. (2019, January 28). More Screen Time for Toddlers is Tied to Poorer Development a Few Years Later, Study Says. Retrieved January 30, 2019, from https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/28/health/screen-time-child-development-study/index.html

Madigan, S. (2019, March 01). Association Between Screen Time and Child Development. Retrieved from https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/2722666?guestAccessKey=879c6c87-141e-48f8-8c95-4d684600a644

News Article:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/28/health/screen-time-child-development-study/index.html

Research Publication:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/2722666?guestAccessKey=879c6c87-141e-48f8-8c95-4d684600a644

Media Production Project

--Original published at MaddieHinson

Researchers noticed that using acupressure to relieve symptoms for breast cancer survivors has not been considered as a substantial treatment. The focus of this article was to study women who have breast cancer who deal with symptoms of anxiety, pain, and depression. These women are randomly assigned to participate in three different forms of treatment: Standard care, relaxing acupressure, and stimulating acupressure. Acupressure incorporates elements of shiatsu massage as well as acupuncture, however, with these experiments the patients were able to apply this treatment to themselves. Researchers were hypothesizing that these symptoms would be decreased because of this treatment and could improve the lives of people with this disease. The study was done over a ten week trial with 288 women.

The participants in this study were randomly selected women who had stage zero to stage three breast cancer and had done standard treatments in the last year along with experiencing the symptoms listed earlier. These women were also not allowed to be on another treatment plan, or currently have an actual disorder that was untreated so as to not be outliers in the study. Since most people do not know how to give acupressure to themselves, these women were instructed by a certified acupuncturist. To ensure that these women were doing the treatment correctly over the ten week study, they were assessed at the beginning and again at the end of the trial.

The researchers used different scales for each symptom to measure the progress. For example, when measuring fatigue, they used a scale from 1-10 in which the patients would be asked nine questions and depending on what score they received in the end is what determines whether or not their fatigue improved. The other symptoms being monitored in the study were examined through similar scales, based off the patients responses.

The results showed that overall, stimulating acupressure, which is the more intense therapy, improved these symptoms more than standard care did. There were some instances where standard care and relaxing acupressure resulted similarly. Interestingly enough, when it came to depressive symptoms, relaxing acupressure had more impact than stimulating acupressure. These different types of treatments can become confusing, but from this ten week study, there is a general consensus that this therapy shows overall improvements from these symptoms compared to standard care. However, because every patient is different, this treatment can not be clinically prescribed.

Reflection

One of the reasons that I chose this article was because my best friend had past away about a year ago from breast cancer. She was someone who was always looking for alternate forms of treatment. To read about a therapy that is not harmful to the body and could possibly improve someone who is living with cancers’ symptoms or quality of life is important.

Trying to decide what is crucial to the article I found to be difficult. I thought of the five critical questions while writing this piece, which helped guide me through the organization of my paper. In my summary, I included only one variable measurement which was a decision I pondered about. I came to the conclusion that the scales used in the actual article varied and it made the article too complex. In both my summary and the original article we discussed the participants restrictions as well as them being randomly assigned to their treatment groups. The original article did not specifically discuss this experiment as being “True” and neither did I, although based on the explanations that were given through both papers, it meets the criteria for one. In both my summary as well as the original article there are explanations that describe generalization as well. I thought it was important to add that to the end of my paper so as not to give false information that this type of treatment would be guaranteed.

From doing the pop article critique, I learned that what is written on the surface, is not the whole story and that I need to ask questions before coming to any conclusions about a topic. Reading the actual scholarly article, although somewhat challenging, was eye-opening to the actual research and methods used. For this assignment, there were times where I had to look up words or concepts, as well as reread sentences. Being a journal writer can be difficult because you are trying to convey a message on something you have done many months of research on, whereas the reader might know nothing on the subject. I found the data that was in the middle of this article to be difficult to interpret and could have been replaced with other valuable results.

Works Cited

Zick, Maria, S., Ananda, Hassett, Luevano, A., Andrew, . . . Edmund, R. (2019, January 16). Impact of Self-Acupressure on Co-Occurring Symptoms in Cancer Survivors. Retrieved from https://academic.oup.com/jncics/article/2/4/pky064/5288407

Medicine, M. (2019, January 16). Acupressure relieves long-term symptoms of breast cancer treatment, study finds. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190116140631.htm

The Impact of Marketing our Health

--Original published at Maddy Vingom's PSY105 Blog

When shopping at their local grocery store shoppers are immersed into a world of marketing with advertisements around every corner. One marketing tactic customers see in within grocery stores is the placement of snacks in the checkout line. Often times people impulse buy these unhealthy snacks while waiting in line to pay for their items, this has become a major health concern when it comes to the impact of product placement on the decisions shoppers make. Five psychologists from the United Kingdom completed two longitudinal studies, in which they observed the habits of shoppers, and found by removing unhealthy snacks from the checkout line shoppers purchase less unhealthy food items. 

  Stores around the United Kingdom began to voluntarily remove candy, potato chips, and chocolate from their checkout lines in 2013 to promote healthier lifestyles. Researchers used this as an opportunity to observe how peoples shopping habits were impacted by the change. Participants in the study were regular customers of the chosen grocery stores. Psychologists believe this sample fairly represents the overall population of the United Kingdom, due to their diversity in many different areas including occupation, location, social status, age and gender. Participants were not assigned to groups due to the observational nature of both studies. Researchers of the first study accessed the data bases of six different stores and tracked purchases from 30,000 households in the United Kingdom one year before and one year after the policy regarding the removal of unhealthy snacks in the checkout line was implemented. The researchers found that these shoppers purchased 17% less unhealthy food immediately after the change was made, this number slightly decreased to 15% by the end of the study. From the years 2016 to 2017 the researchers completed an additional study in which they asked 7,500 regular shoppers if to complete a survey about snacks they purchased and ate before returning home. The surveys showed 76% less unhealthy snacks were purchased by these participants over the course of the year. Both studies show a correlation between the removal of unhealthy snacks in the checkout line and shoppers purchasing less unhealthy food within United Kingdom grocery stores. Additional research must be completed to determine whether the removal of candy, potato chips, and chocolate from checkout lines was the true cause of the change in shopping habits. 

The psychologists hope through this research they are able to promote healthier lifestyles for citizens of the United Kingdom. Providing the results to shoppers can help them to gain an understanding how marketing influences their decisions and may help them to be more aware of their tendency to purchase these unhealthy snacks. Their ultimate goal is to send their results to government agencies, in an attempt to persuade them to become more actively involved in helping to ensure the good health of their citizens.

Reflection:

The psychology in the media project has helped me to realize that often times information that we see portrayed in news articles is times not completely accurate to the actual research. It is important to read through the original source to ensure the news article is providing accurate information to readers. As I learned through this assignment journalists are typically restricted by word limits and are forced to leave out important information as a result. In order to ensure that my readers are able to understand the original study I incorporated how the researchers conducted the experiment to give readers the background of where the data came from within my summary. I also kept the five critical questions for reading research in mind to ensure that each one could be answered. I was forced to leave out certain details that were not necessarily important for the reader to comprehend the results of the study. 

 The pop culture article greatly differed from mine as a result of Ben Renner having the opportunity to speak with two out of the five researchers involved in the study. His article mainly focused on their thoughts and perspectives on the experiment, whereas mine focused on data and research methods. The summary I wrote lacks the attention-grabbing words the pop culture article contained as a result of being more data focused, resulting in a less interesting article to read. Ben Renner failed to address all five critical questions for reading research, such as how the researchers operationalized their variables and that researchers are unable to make causal claims due to the observational nature of the study. However, as previously stated, I ensured that readers could easily locate all five them within my summary.            

Through this assignment I was able to gain a better understanding of journalism, writing, and what it takes to complete a psychological study. Writing a news article about scientific research is an extensive process that requires the complete comprehension of the study and the ability to determine what information is vital for readers to understand the research and results. It is essential for an author to include answers to all five critical questions to show the credibility of the information. The balance between making a news article factual and enjoyable for the reader is difficult to achieve within the restrictions that journalists are given. I also came to the realization that it is equally important for readers to compile their own research to ensure they are getting accurate information and are able to formulate their own judgements regarding the study. 

Works Cited

Ejlerskov, K. T., Sharp, S. J., Stead, M., Adamson, A. J., White, M., & Adams, J. (2018). Supermarket policies on less-healthy food at checkouts: Natural experimental evaluation using interrupted time series analyses of purchases. PLOS Medicine. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1002712

Renner, Ben. “Removing Sweets from Grocery Store Checkout Lines Leads To ‘Dramatic’ Drop in Unhealthy Purchases.” Study Finds, 2 Jan. 2019, www.studyfinds.org/removing-sweets-grocery-store-checkout-aisles-fewer-unhealthy-snacks/.

Links:

https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/articleid=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002712https:/

/www.studyfinds.org/removing-sweets-grocery-store-checkout-aisles-fewer-unhealthy-snacks/

Do people assume your personality traits based on your body type?

--Original published at NataliesCollegeBlog

As growing up in the world we live in today, the words “make a good first impression” is put in the back of everyone’s head. We present ourselves by dressing up nice for interviews and practice how to be talkative or friendly; yet, there are a lot of stereotypes and judgements made at first glance. It is common people make judgements off race and facial expressions, but what about body shape? Is it really true that people associate body figure to someone’s personality traits?

Ying Hu, a psychological scientist, and other researchers from the University of Texas questioned if stereotypes pertaining to body shape affect how someone judges and interacts with strangers. In the study, there were 76 undergraduate students participants from the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at The University of Texas at Dallas. 140 simulated bodies created by CAESAR data set laser scans created 70 women and 70 men for the study.  There was also a personality trait list that consisted of 30 trait words from each of the 5 domain types (extraversion conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness and neuroticism) with 3 positive and 3 negative words within each category. The participants would see an image from two views: frontal and at a 45° angle. Each participant was randomly assigned to rate one of the two sets of bodies by seeing 30 traits. The study would randomly assign each student to two different groups that had 35 female bodies and 35 male bodies, which were also randomly assigned.

After the research team collected all of the data, the study was able to conclude there are wide ranges of personality traits for every body shape. Also, personality interferences are formed from physical features in someone’s body shape. Overall, there is evidence that people tend to associate personality traits based on a person’s body shape. No matter where you go, how you look automatically gives you a reputation whether it is true or not. As a society, we are already body shaming people enough and it is shown through this research too. The fear that having a certain body type affects if a person gets a job over someone else is something that we should all be aware of and fix all together.

Reflection

Once I wrote a pop culture newsletter article myself, there were a lot of things that I learned about. I now understand how hard it is for journalists to encapture data from research, and make the newsletter entertaining at the same time. Although my newsletter obtained the most important information from the study, it lacked the attention grabbing words and phrases that the original pop culture article had. In the article, I left out the smaller details of the study that talked about the Shape-To-Trait Regression Results. Although this is quality information, it is not necessary in the newsletter for the reader to understand the purpose of the experiment.

Comparing my summary to the news article, there were many things that were different. The article that I wrote about consisted more about the facts and data in the study, while the pop culture article used more direct quotes from the experimenter, Ying Hu, himself. The article was more conversational and kept the reader guessing compared to how the article I wrote was straight to the point. The news article also would add a sentence of entertainment in between the facts to make the reader keep reading. It makes the reader want to find out if they are being judged without even knowing. My article had attention grabbing sentences in the beginning but included the facts and covered all of the 5 critical questions, while the pop culture article did not.

After writing this article, I now have a better appreciation for journalists and writers. It can be very difficult at times to convey every single piece of data in an article when trying to make an attention grabbing storyline. I learned that it takes a lot of time to make something stand out and become published in the first place. This is possibly why certain details from research may not be included because of certain guidelines that need to be met by the organization that is publishing the article. It is hard to make an article entertaining without slang and informal terms. Although I now understand how tough it is to be entertaining and have data/hard facts, I still think that any good journalist would be able to provide both. Overall, this made me understand that writing articles based off research accurately is tough, which is why when reading articles everyone should look at the research too. It is just as important to read the research study that is provided along with the original article. This way the reader is able to make their own judgements by looking at multiple sources, rather than believing the first article is completely accurate.

Work Cited

Hu, Y., Parde, C. J., Hill, M. Q., Mahmood, N., & O’Toole, A. J. (2018). First Impressions of

Personality Traits From Body Shapes. Psychological Science, 29(12), 1969–1983.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797618799300

Marquette, T. (2019, January 25). Study: Your Body Shape Leads People To Make

Assumptions About Your Personality Traits. Retrieved February 11, 2019, from

https://www.studyfinds.org/body-shape-leads-people-assumptions-about-personality-traits/

A Comparison of Methods of Pediatric Mental Health Therapy

--Original published at Jess Principe's Blog

By: Jessica Principe

Researcher have looked at the possible benefits of Brief Behavioral Therapy (BBT) over assisted referral mental health care (ARC) for youth with mental health disorders. In an original study conducted by V. Robin Weersing, David A. Brent, Michelle S. Rozenman, Araceli Gonzalez, Megan Jeffreys, John F. Dickerson, Frances L. Lynch, Giovanna Porta, and Satish Iyengar, for JAMA Psychiatry, were researching to see if the BBT therapy group showed significant mental health improvements compared to the youth recipients of ARC therapy group.

Depression and Anxiety affect about 30% of youth, but remain as two of the most under treated mental health disorders today (JAMA network, 2017). The researchers were attempting to gather evidence that the BBT therapy, which is more targeted therapy in a pediatric setting, showed superior results compared to the traditional outpatient community mental health care referral (JAMA network, 2017). Although JAMA Psychiatry states that more repeated studies will need to be done in order to increase their sample size and obtain more evidence that the BBT can be more successful in improving mental health disorders than ARC, their first study did show significant results.

The JAMA Psychiatry study recruited 95 participants from San Diego, California to the BBT group and 90 to the ARC group. The participants were not randomly selected, they were referred to by pediatricians if the patients met the requirements of a baseline test to then be placed into either the BBT or ARC group. Both groups underwent the therapy of their group for 8-12 weeks of 45 minute sessions. The results indicated that in the BBT group, 56.8% improved on a scale used to assess improvement across both anxiety and depression, and In the ARC group, only 28.2% improved (JAMA network, 2017). The Hispanic youths of the study were also observed as an additional element. The article’s results claimed that Hispanic youths had a stronger rate of improvement to their disorders in the BBT group, in which 76.5% improved, compared to the ARC group, where only 7.1% improved (JAMA network, 2017). Although it is obvious through their research that this was a smaller study, with a small sample size, and early data, the results lead the researchers to believe that their study provided significant data to expand their research.

Reflection:

The pop culture article does well in describing the results of the study, the reasons for why the study was conducted, and makes it clear that additional studies need to be done to strengthen that results of the data found. I aimed to include all of that in my summary as well. A weakness is the five critical questions are not answered well in the pop culture article, they do not discuss how the participants were selected and divided into groups like the scholarly article does. I discussed this in my summary, but also in a way that would be easy for a general audience to understand. I did not direct that results to a specific audience because the study was conducted with non randomly selected participants only from San Diego, California, therefore the results can not be generalized to any population at this time. I did not include to generalize my results to any population in my article summary nor discuss why, because a general audience reading my article may not know the correlation between random sample and generalizing results to a specific audience.

During this process, I recognize that in order to make an article, especially a science based one, easy to understand for a general audience, the study must be concise, reveal the purpose, results, and discussion accurately. One element I see is essential is to include the five critical questions, even in a pop culture article, because it makes the source more credible to advance readers such as psychologists, doctors, or professors, for example, in the case of this essay. The scholarly article does very well in including all of these elements, however, the scholarly article also includes a very detailed analysis of all the research found, making it harder for a general audience to understand compared to what is summarized in the pop culture article. For the media production assignment, I aimed for a healthy medium between the two, attempting to efficiently summarize the goals, data, and results of the research in a way that a general audience could easily understand and interpret.

References:

Weersing, V. R. (2017, June 01). Brief Behavioral Therapy for Pediatric Anxiety and Depression

in Primary Care. Retrieved March 18, 2019, from

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2618261?resultClick=1

“Pediatrics-Based Brief Therapy Outdoes Referral for Youths with Anxiety and Depression.”

National Institute of Mental Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 31

May 2017,

www.nimh.nih.gov/news/science-news/2017/pediatrics-based-brief-therapy-outdoes-refer

ral-for-youths-with-anxiety-and-depression.shtml.

Chapter 15 First Impression Prompts – Mental Health Treatment

Hand writing on a notebook

Here are the prompts for this week. Regardless of which prompt you choose, use the tag “Mental Health Treatment.”

Option 1:

Your textbook lists 4 major types of psychotherapy (psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, and humanistic). Rank these types of therapy according to how helpful you think they would be if you needed therapy and explain what it is about each one that you like/dislike.

Option 2:

Former First Lady Michelle Obama contributed a considerable amount of energy and support into a campaign targeting increased awareness of mental health issues called Change Direction. Using the information provided on their website (http://www.changedirection.org) evaluate how effective you think the campaign will be in general. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the campaign? Will college students pay attention to this or not and why? If Etown was going to do an awareness campaign to help students identify mental health issues in their friends and classmates, how should they go about doing it to give it the best chance of actually working?

I look forward to seeing what you write!

Header image: CC by Flickr user Caitlinator
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First Impression: Mental Illnesses

--Original published at Jessica K's College Blog

One of the many mental illnesses people are aware of are typically mood disorders like anxiety, insanity, schizophrenia, and many more. Although mental illnesses have been studied more extensively, many individuals don’t understand the impact it has on a person’s life on a daily basis.

For example, schizophrenia is one of the more well-known mental illnesses, but also one of the more dramaticized in modern movies and novels. Many depictions of the illness describe schizophrenia as inflicting the individual with violent delusions and sounds, inhibiting the person’s life as well as acting violently around others.

However, based on scientific research and real-life accounts, people who suffer from schizophrenia is far less than violent, only experiences hallucinations and auditory delusions to protect themselves from potential threats.

In a video produced by the Janssen Pharmacutical Company, a person suffering from schizophrenia typically keep themselves inside their house, avoiding food and water for the potential threat of poison, as well as experiencing auditory disturbances to amplify their anxiety and fears of being critiziced. In a real-life situation, schizophrenia is rarely violent to others, and movies only assume that the mental illness is related to grand and violent episodes.

For people with mental illnesses, their minds mainly amplify or deter their understanding of the world, sometimes leaving them to not properly cope to daily life. For the rest of the world, people need to understand the impact it may have on an individual and not assume that such an illness is larger than life than what the movies show them.

For more information on the daily life of shizophrenia, watch the available video on your own discretion.

Chapter 14 First Impression Post – Mental Illness

--Original published at Kaity Takes on Psychology

Mental illness is a very serious issue, particularly in America, where nearly half of the population endures some form of it. I decided to watch the video highlighting various hallucinations and delusions often seen in schizophrenic patients. Initially, the video was relatively peaceful and calm, with just about everything going right. Then, the delusions started to occur and the schizophrenic patient began to hear voices urging them not to do things like drink their coffee, take their medication, and opening doors.

I have never met anyone diagnosed with schizophrenia, but my sister’s mother in law has it, and I have heard stories of her psychotic episodes. I think it is interesting how little we see about schizophrenia in the media, especially because it is a very real illness. American culture tends to omit discussion about the more serious mental illnesses, and instead chooses to present certain illnesses in a romanticized way, as if depression or anxiety is some glamorous gift. I recall watching part of A Beautiful Mind in high school psychology, and it showed a few scary aspects of schizophrenia, but otherwise focused on the positive aspects such as the protagonists’ brilliance, which is associated with delusions of grandeur.

Schizophrenia seems to be something often pushed under the rug until it has some pertinence in mainstream media. Psychological thriller movies love to scare the audience by creating characters diagnosed with schizophrenia, but they often misrepresent the mental illness. Symptoms of schizophrenia range greatly from person-to-person, and most people with this illness do not have the same symptoms. The best way for our culture to gain a better understanding of schizophrenia is to push it to the forefront of society, and not only raise awareness, but increase acceptance. A simple Google search can inform anyone interested in learning about schizophrenia that the best way to help those in need is to be supportive and patient.

Schizophrenia: option 1

--Original published at Bogo's Blog

Watching this video, my first impression was, “this isn’t so bad.” As the video kept going I found my opinion changing drastically. The voices in his head were very terrible and negative, giving him negative feedback for everything that took place in the video. On certain things that we’d consider mundane, the voices would make them very difficult and tough to accomplish. One thing I did notice when I was watching the video was that everything changed when the wife, presumably, walks in. Her calm demeaner made the man calm down and it caused the voices to dissipate. Of the movies listed, I’ve only seen Donnie Darko as of now and comparing that to the simulation I’d say that media does not really cover the symptoms of schizophrenia very accurately. I don’t think it’s right for movies to exaggerate or understate the severity of mental illnesses because that puts the wrong impression in the minds of young children, who will then grow up believing this and forming incorrect stereotypes. The media has a lot of power lately and I think they should take responsibility for this power especially when they are addressing something as serious as schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia- Option 1

--Original published at WilliamsCollegeBlog

Before watching this video, I was not sure what to expect. I am not very aware of what Schizophrenia is and how it may affect people who have it. From what I do know however, is that people with this mental illness are not always in the right mindset and they are not able to see the world in the same light as someone else might. After watching this video of the simulation, I was somewhat scared but also surprised to see what a person with this illness goes through. There were different voices inside the person’s head, and they had different tones. This can make for a person to be very confused in how they should act to a stimulus or just how to function for an everyday occurrence. One scary thought I had was when the person was hallucinating, and the TV was saying something completely different. It just goes to show how little parts of life can be dramatically changed when someone has a mental illness such as Schizophrenia.

The way the media portrays Schizophrenia, in my opinion, is very inaccurate to how they really are. For one thing, the only way someone might discover what an illness really is, is through movies and all movies are meant to over-emphasize the little things, which is does not depict each event correctly. This just goes to show the power of the media and what they are able to do to capture the audience. Now while the media might go too far into a subject, other mental illnesses might not be covered enough or just glanced over to please the audience. This is not a good idea because then people’s judgments are once again skewed into thinking one way. This goes back to the idea that stereotypes can be formed by how the media talks about mental illnesses such as Schizophrenia.