Media Production Project

--Original published at HarrysCollegeBlog

With the Video Games becoming more and more popular, many teens across the globe rave about video games, and during play become so emotionally invested in it. Despite it being a virtual game, something about it makes my friends and I invest our time and energy better put towards other things, into this video game. This isn’t only because we play video games competitively either, many others who casually play video games also have this urge. Video games must have some sort of Emotional effect to have us be so fascinated by it. 

Upon thinking of video games and their effects on the human one thing comes to mind: Social Opportunities. Social opportunities are evolved reactions with emotions to engage in adaptive behaviors. These are things such as happiness when presented with success, and sadness when faced with failure etc.

This can be shown in a recent study performed by Guitar, A, E., Glass, D. J., Geher, G., &  Suvak, M. K. (2018) testing Nesse and Ellsworth’s (2009) model of emotions for situations that arise in video games. The study was performed in a video game called “Second life” and participants were to be competing with other players to complete a given task. The interactive video game was chosen because of how it can put players in situations without risking their lives, while still mimicking the life-like danger it could potentially hold. to further enhance the experience, the players were given rewards for completing it. 

The study itself measured 4 things from the participants in terms of social opportunity: Physical opportunities, physical threats, Social opportunities, and social threats. the variables in the study were controlled, but no participant in the study knew about this. They were asked to give feedback on their emotions, and the results of the study found that Video Games are very very good at evoking emotions from social opportunity. when presented with opportunities they had pride for themselves, when faced with threats they became hostile, and when faced with failure, they found not only sadness, but also pride and content. This was most likely due to the lack of death, thus lowering the shame and fear it would have caused.

Video games in general, are a way to simulate the real world without any real danger to the player. The way we interact with it would suggest its able to evoke emotions almost as well as in the real world. Its competitive nature is very appealing, and overall lack of real death allows for a much safer, friendlier environment.

Sources:

Geher, Glenn. “Video Games and Emotional States.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 3 Sept, 2018,https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/darwins-subterranean-world/20189/video-games-and-emotional-states

Guitar, A, E., Glass, D. J., Geher, G., &  Suvak, M. K. (2018). Situation-specific emotional states: Testing Nesse and Ellsworth’s (2009) model of emotions for situations that arise in goal pursuit using virtual-world software. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-018-9830-x

 

Reflection:

The writing process of summarizing the paper I found to be challenging. The original text has a lot of detail going into it, and I had to summarize much of what was in the Scholarly article, such as much of the explanation done before the actual study to give context on what was going on. some of this context was information about the brain, social patterns, common practices, etc. Much of the beginning was committed to explaining Darwin’s thoughts and theories about the subject, such as his notion that emotions hold the potential of accurately describing out minds.

Evolutionary Emotions was another theory of his that was important to the article, which explained how the human mindset evolved over time due to our environment and how we adapted to it. This was cut out mostly due to the length and how much material there was to cover.

Another section was dedicated to an in depth analysis of the results, going over the layout of the graphs and information, to explaining what each variable and factor meant, and how they got the information as well. They also had some reflections, going back saying how the information was not recorded live, but was done afterwards, with participants reflecting back on them. They acknowledged the limitations their study had, and much of this was cut out due to lack of time on my own part. The experience was overall a good one, and it has given myself more pride in Video Gaming.

Spotlight Blog post 2: Stress

--Original published at HarrysCollegeBlog

Throughout my college life, i have so many responsibilities suddenly thrust upon me, on top of school work and my own health, and it has taken a toll on me with how much stress it produces. Dealing with it did not go as well as I had hoped, and it is when things get dire, that we seek  a helping hand, in this case, in the form of online tips. I will be evaluating 3 different websites and their tips on how to reduce stress.

The first website is fairly detailed about dealing with stress. Not only does it give you the advice, but explains the reasoning behind it, in case you didn’t know about it, and even has links to where you can find more about this information. It gives advice such as avoiding Caffeine/alcohol, to suggesting Laugh therapy and getting more sleep, all while giving out the information and reasoning explaining why you should do it. The explanations behind them have sources linked to other parts of the website explaining how it benefits you, which serves as free advertising for itself, which is also a clever idea. This source overall did a great job, and I highly recommend you check it out!                        Source: https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ps/stress-tips.html

The second website is a bit more questionable in its approach. It gives out the advice in a straight forward list, but not any reasoning or explanations behind it. Only broken links that send you to the page you were already on. although despite its straight forward nature, it has some decent tips, such as keeping a positive attitude, excising, and not accepting too much work. although many of these tips can be figured out on your own, like getting sleep, and making time for hobbies, positive attitudes, etc. This source was not as informative as I’d like it to be when trying to solve my stress, but it was short and simple.                                                                                                                                                        Source: https://www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/guide/tips-for-reducing-stress

The third source is similar to the first one, in which every choice has a detailed list and explanation, however this one has an introduction, which introduces me to why this list is beneficial. it then lists the advice, and gives information on why you should follow it. Although this one doesn’t have any sources to back it up, so its reliability comes into question. It says facts such as stating exercise is proven to be uplifting, but without any source material I can click on and check out, it seems a bit suspicious. Its better than the second one, but not as reliably as the first one.                                                                               Source: https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/manage-stress.aspx

Chapter 13 First Impression

--Original published at HarrysCollegeBlog

Characterizing human behaviors into personalities can seem simple on the surface, but aren’t as accurate as we’d like them to be. Nothing can come close to real human behavior, but it can get into a range that lets us generalize them into categories. These 4 personality quizzes we took all did this to some degree, some better than others. For the sake of simplicity, all of the quizzes put me in INTP, which is a fairly accurate description of my personality type, being introverted, intuitive, thinking and perceiving. I also will be talking about them in order as they appeared on the assignment page at Dr. Macfarlane’s website.

The first Personality quiz was set in a format where it would ask you a question, and you had to pick how often you did said question on a scale from very likely, to not very likely. This one I Liked a lot, considering it took into question how often you performed such actions, and how likely you were to do them. It really shone in that area, and even gave a percentage of how much of that personality type you were.

The second personality test had a multiple choice style for the questions, although compared to the others, it was quite inaccurate. It only had 2 answers per question, and didn’t seem to capture the depth to a human’s character, given the lack of freedom of choice, and having to decide between two options. The results screen also had a lack of reasoning as to why i was that personality type, no percentages like the last one, just the result.

The third one was very similar, with the same basic idea of the questions being asked, and 5 selections on a range from not very likely, to very likely. Although this one had a lot less answers to fill in, which made it a lot more convenient, since it took less time out of my day to get my result. what was interesting was that it put up after submitting, before you got your results, it would ask if you wanted your results to be used in a study, and if you were willing to answer a few questions for the study’s sake. It had no effect on it, but it seemed that the creators took our privacy into thought when making it. The result screen was also very detailed, giving exact stats, Factors, a graph, and the score percentile. A lot of work was put into this short quiz, and you can tell when taking it as well.

The final Quiz was perplexing, it gave only a single question at the beginning, asking what your sex was, before going into a test with 8 color boxes on the screen, telling you to click on them all, and the question after asking you to replicate that same process. It then gave a detailed explanation based off which colors I chose, the order I chose them in. surprisingly enough, despite me choosing 2 and clicking randomly, it was able to pinpoint my personality, and even my strengths and weaknesses, preferences, and objectives. it perplexed me to see how something as simple as color could offer so much insight into my personality. Or this might just be a coincidence that I happened to land on the combination that lead to this result, im honestly not sure with this test, not as straight forward in how you took it.

The quizzes gave me an overall good luck into my own personality, me being relatively quiet, shy, detail-focused and trusting to a fault. Demanding reciprocal loyalty and honesty, while being overall bad in crowds, needing to take time to myself in peaceful environments. all 4 tests were able to get these basic ideas of my personality, some better than others, and in simpler, more perplexing ways.

Chapter 9 First Impression: Option 1

--Original published at HarrysCollegeBlog

Education is such a great tool for helping one through life, and yet it always seems so boring, especially with the math, history, and science one has to learn on top of reading boring stories we don’t care about. School has grown from a place of boredom, and many young kids jokingly refer to it as jail, and look forward only to recess, or the end of school, and not their own grades. This behavior seems to negatively effect learning, downgrading its value in the mind of younger kids, myself among them.

During my early school days, school was a prison to me, not only figuratively, but literally, as I was often bullied being the only Asian in the entire school. not only this, but teachers, despite being really nice and interactive, struggled to make learning fun, with the exception of one: Mr Pete Godber, by third and fourth grade teacher. He was able to  present education in a fun, engaging way, which appealed to my younger self. He often used games, videos, and fun activities to encourage us to learn, and it worked well, since he combined learning, with having fun. He taught us tricks to easy ways to learn times tables, and even had us take responsibilities, by having everyone assigned a cleaning role in class after lunch was eaten.

This is the most in my entire life I was ever so motivated to learn, as he made is so much fun, I couldn’t resist wanting to learn. This is what education should be like, especially towards the young. Getting them into liking education by incorporating fun activities, and promote learning, not boring children to death.

Chapter 10 First Impression: option 2

--Original published at HarrysCollegeBlog

Emotions are one of the biggest influences on our actions, but reading others’ emotions can be quite a challenge. Often times, we say something that gets an unintended emotion across, and throws us into conflict. This can be especially challenging for those who aren’t used to communication or have mental inhibitions. Despite not having these inhibitions, I expected this emotion quiz to be quite difficult, due to my introverted nature.

The quiz itself was quite straight forward, you were shown a picture of someone’s face doing an emotion, and you were to analyze it, and pick a choice. The answer style was multiple choice, which seems to be much easier, and less effective at actually pinpointing your skill at telling emotions, due to the guessing factor in choosing an answer rather than writing it out. What I did enjoy about it, was how it gave you feedback on your answer, and explained the different parts of the face, and how it relates to emotion.

The quiz was overall quite well done, although Emotion can be expressed through not only appearance, but through tone of voice as well. It would be great if they added a voice testing part to this emotion quiz, where you would have to guess the emotion based off of the tone of the speaker.

Chapter 11 First impression: Option 1

--Original published at HarrysCollegeBlog

Stress is a big part in College life, especially with so many classes and responsibilities thrown upon us so suddenly.  How I go about dealing with Stress is to take breaks. In my time working and growing up in my parent’s restaurant, Constantly working and serving customers was the norm, and you can Imagine getting tired out would be easy in this environment. Taking breaks increases your own efficiency, rather than forcing yourself to do something you don’t want to. This applies very much so to my current college lifestyle: overworking myself is only going to decrease my quality and motivation to get assignments done, its far better to do them willingly, if possible.

Taking breaks occasionally not only gives me time to socialize and have fun, but time to calm down and not let the stress drive me to anger, anxiety etc. This method works surprisingly well, except when my breaks lead me into occasional procrastination. The best way to get rid of this problem is through better Time Management, but most importantly, making sure I’m still satisfied with my life. Satisfaction is a chain that binds you to doing menial tasks willingly, after all.

Chapter 3 First Impression: Option 1

--Original published at HarrysCollegeBlog

During the Ted Talk about Sleep: the presenter offers a question that is often neglected: “Why do we Sleep?” This question is often overlooked, due to us simply accepting sleep as reality. He offers 3 Theories, with different reasons and logic as to why we sleep. To restore and repair all the things we damaged during the day, to conserve the energy we still have, or simply to increase our brain’s capability to store knowledge. Although all of these theories are sound: the most likely is the last theory mentioned.

During the Ted talk, the presenter begins explaining the restoration theory, with backup being mostly the fact that certain genes in our system are only turned on at night time. Although not in depth, this argument can be fairly sound for the case, yet not enough to validate it as the most likely candidate for why we sleep.

Next is the energy conservation theory.  The theory suggests that when we sleep we save energy we would’ve spent if awake. This theory simply isn’t true, as the brain is still active during sleep, as said in the Ted talk. Brain waves still use up calories we consume, with no evidence as to if less calories are being spent during sleep in the talk.

The last theory is the Increase our ability to store knowledge. the ted talk starts off telling us about how Sleep deprivation decreases our ability to think, as well as with the tendency to fall asleep during the period of drowsiness. The opposite is also true, with getting a good night’s sleep giving better creativity and cognitive ability. The neural networks that are often more used and thus deemed “important” have their connections strengthen, while the ones not used as often, and thus deemed “not important” are severed. This organizes the brain’s more important things to be more easily remembered, and occurs during the sleeping process. This action is also further strengthened by the first theory’s notion that certain genes are only active at night time, thus making the third theory the most likely. Although the ted talk gave the strongest suggestions for the third theory, this is just a theory.

Spotlight blog Post 1: Divorce

--Original published at HarrysCollegeBlog

Divorce, as tragic as it is, is getting more and more common in the US as of late, with half of all marriages being Divorced. This is not only tragic for the 2 parties involved, but for the children as well. Children watching their parents fight over divorce can be a traumatic event in their life, especially at younger ages. Suffering a great deal of pain at such a young age can greatly affect how the child grows, and most often in a negative way. They often spend a great deal of time trying to find out how to deal with their parents’ divorce, or feel powerless to stop it as it happens.

Children of different age groups act differently to divorce, as some don’t have the brain capacity to know whats going on, but still recognize there is loss. Infants and toddlers, for example “may not understand what is happening but recognize that they are experiencing a loss (Keenan).” they tend to feel anger at their parents and will throw temper tantrums and cry to get them to stay. Others such as Teenagers become more distant from family, or even try to reunite their broken family.

Regardless of age, however, all children are affected by divorce, and go through a lot of anxiety pain and loneliness. The only positive that can be brought out of divorce is when the divorced couple are using violence, and the children see divorce as a way to get out of such violence. but more often than not, divorce is terrible for children, and there is no “good” way out, only suffering and pain. a study recently done based of a refusal of contact scale done on children of divorce showed that divorce has negative results, but can vary depending on the child’s refusal rate.  Overall, Children are better off not experiencing divorce, but if relations between parents result in violence, the divorce’s negative effect can be lessened.

Sources:

Keenan, M. “Children of Divorced Parents.” Salem Press Encyclopedia of Health, 2014. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.etown.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=98402248&site=eds-live.

Huff, Scott C, et al. “Development and Validation of a Scale to Measure Children’s Contact Refusal of Parents Following Divorce.” American Journal of Family Therapy, vol. 45, no. 1, Jan. 2017, pp. 66–77. Consumer Health Complete on EBSCOhost, EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/01926187.2016.1275066. Accessed 8 Oct. 2018.

Chapter 3 first Impression

--Original published at HarrysCollegeBlog

With many states arguing over the legality of Marijuana, I’ve decided to cover the topic and give my own thoughts on the subject. Marijuana being used in Medical procedures is a fairly good argument for its legality, although misuse of it can lead to addiction, which is never a good thing. The dosage given by the doctors needs to be nothing over the prescribes amount, although it only takes one time for someone to get addicted. Medical use of marijuana can lead to addiction with recreational usage of it. therefore, without a doctor’s prescription it should be impossible to obtain. The fundamental problem with Marijuana being either legal or illegal is to ignore the possibilities of medical treatment.I propose that Marijuana be obtainable only in medical situations.

Although there’s nothing wrong with recreational use of marijuana, the addiction to drugs has always been a problem. to limit addiction, the usage of such drugs should be limited to medical use, but then there’s the possibility of intentionally getting injured/diseased as to obtain more of it. We cannot have people spending their lives searching for Marijuana, or have them intentionally harming themselves to obtain it either. Its a tough subject, but the use of it only in medical fields seems to be the better choice.

Chapter 8 first Impression

--Original published at HarrysCollegeBlog

With our psychology class reaching mid-September, the professor introduced us to our first exam of the course.  Immediately when he announced it he dubbed it “Knowledge celebration day” as to try and lower the level of stress we would have about it. This worked a fair amount, making it seem more light-hearted, but when studying for it, I couldn’t help but worry.  This worry carried through to my studying, as he also said simply looking over notes was “the worst way to study.”

My panic only increased as I studied for this exam, and I found myself relying on the internet, rather than my own notes. My own lack of composure is partially to do with my first exam not going so well. I’m not a person who works well under pressure, and I tend to shut down quickly when panic ensues. but also due to my shy nature, I also refrain from getting help, relying on myself to get things done. My studying should be done with people I get along with, who are also knowledgeable enough to be able to assist me. Memory is a strange topic for me in general, as mysterious as it is, but simplifying it will help be get a grasp for the idea, given my bad vocabulary.