Spotlight Blog #3

--Original published at MaddiesCollegeBlog

For my final spotlight post, I decided to choose option 2, which discusses the recent controversy of reality television shows like Hoarders, My Strange Addiction, True Life, etc. and if they are exploiting those who suffer from these types of illnesses, or it is actually beneficial.

Over the years, there has been a significant increase in entertainment shows focusing on television shows that showcase mental illnesses for some-sort of amusement for those who watch. Most television shows that do this, do not accurately portray what having a mental illness is truly like and put them down for their actions. Those who are diagnosed with a mental illness are very mistreated by the media, and deserve better treatment in general. In my opinion, I feel that it is very unethical to project these people’s lives as if it is an entertainment act for the world to see. Those who suffer from a mental illness have lost a lot, dealt with an immense amount of pain, and are just trying to live their life normally. Television shows like Hoarders or My Strange Addiction are not benefiting people with mental illnesses, I believe that it is only a temporary solution to their mental illness, and once the camera’s stop rolling and the psychologists stop visiting – it all comes back again. I have watched numerous episodes of these types of shows and have watched the amount of distress and misery they encounter, yet the shows apparently aim to “help” improve the hoarder’s living atmosphere, relationships, and overall health.

For my first approach at this issue, I decided to look at the side that viewed it in a helpful way, the first article that I found was an article that was written in 2014 by a website that discusses ways to improve your everyday health and then specific disorders like anxiety, depression, mood disorders, etc. The website had started off with an introduction similar to mine, just stating that their has been recent attention given to the particular show, and does it accurately portray what actually having the mental illness is like. They asked this question to 3 people, all who are licensed psychologists, RN’s, and hold a management position. Both the second and third interviewers claim that the show does accurately represent what the illness is like. They both claimed that a major pro to these shows is that the more popular it becomes, the more awareness about the mental illness is dispersed into the world for everyone to see. People who watch the show that are affected by it, can know that there is help out there and that they are not alone.

I felt that this website was pretty credible because it was a website specifically for the treatment of mental health disorders & everyday health. All three of the interviewers had background with hoarding and are familiar with the field. Especially the two who felt that the show could be positive in some ways, one was an RN and the other was a professional organizer. Since they are familiar with this type of mental illness along with other common knowledge about general good health, I am willing to trust this source.

For my second article, I discovered an article written on a website called “Psychology Today”, which was written by Seth Myers. The article was titled “Mental Illness On Reality TV: Helpful or Harmful?” Mainly, the article discusses how it is a good thing when a show can accurately display what a mental illness is doing to a person and their relationships. It is also good for mental illness to be televised because people who also suffer will see it and can relate to it, they can reach out to them or get help for themselves, seeing this can inspire them to get help for themselves or make new connections. Another way that it Is beneficial is that people usually use TV or other social media in general to show/share their dark thoughts and by what they watch or write about can be a cry for help and if the right person see’s it, they can take action to get that person the help they need. Myers claims that overall it is a beneficial thing to have television shows and social media portray mental illness for one main reason of kick-starting them to realize what is happening, get into professional care or treatment and get it done now.

I thought that this website seemed very credible and trustworthy. Not only did it have a lot of information to read about, but it also had a lot of examples of different TV shows and good examples of why it Is beneficial. This article was also written by a licensed psychologist who specializes in the Department of Mental Health so, he is very familiar and has a high amount of knowledge within all mental illnesses.

For my third article, I switched views and now am looking at the side that believes it is not beneficial to display mental illness for entertainment. An article I found, written by a reporter for the Huffington Post, stated that after her research with the topic; shows like Hoarders should be shut down. She begins with a description of a specific episode where a married couple for 31 years, the wife has a serious hoarding disorder and admits that, but claims that she “just doesn’t feel like clearing it all out.” The author of the article claims that by portraying people like this couple, it shows the bad side and creates the stigma about mental illness, and is not really raising awareness for the disorder, but more so putting it to shame. She then goes on to discuss a recent report that was conducted by The British Psychological Society, their overall claim was that television shows and social media should stop using mental health disorders to shock and entertain the public, it is something serious and should not be taken in a joking or light manner in any way. The first researcher of the study, Randy Frost, mainly said that people who show up to someones house and start to force and push this person to let them throw out their possessions is a way to clean the house and satisfy the viewers, but in reality, only works for so long. It doesn’t stop that person from feeling the compulsions to hoard. In order to help a person not feel attached to every possession they encounter, they need to receive long-term cognitive behavioral therapy first. Without this, the house is just going to pile up again in a matter of months. According to American Psychological Association, it is hard to pin point a specific number of many individuals are affected by hoarding everyday, but research in the past has suggested that 2-5% of the population has dealt with it to some degree. Since the disorder can sometimes be so detrimental to an individual or families lifestyle, it should not be broadcasted for everyone to see. It Is also very likely that a person who suffers from hoarding also is affected by multiple other mental health disorders like, PTSD, anxiety, depression, ADHD, or possibly on the autism spectrum disorder.

I felt that this article was very credible because the author used a lot of outside resources to bring an immense amount of information into her own article. All the research she did to write this, was all provided by experts in the hoarding field. Psychologists, authors of people who wrote books on this illness. In my opinion, these sources were all very credible, which made it easier to believe that her viewpoint was correct.

For my fourth and final article, I found an article titled “Hoarding: Why Forced Clean outs are Unsuccessful”, written by Erin Doland. He started discussing how on Memorial Day, A&E (known for the broadcasting channel for the show Hoarders) had run a day-long marathon on their first season of the show, Hoarders. Once the re-run season was finished, they released a new episode called “Where are they now?” that showed 5 people for the original season one year later, 4 out of the 5 people had returned to their old habit of hoarding. He discussed that he could not even fully watch the episode because it was just a reminder of how the show is aimed to entertain the public, rather than actually attempt to help those who are in desperate need. He believes that the show dehumanized the participants and does not display how they truly do attempt to help them. Donland said that after reading the book titled,” Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things” by Randy Frost and Gail Steketee, hoarding specialist, they have known that the forced clean out of that person’s home is considered a trauma for them. When a random clean-up crew come and touch, move, throughout these possessions for this individual it becomes a traumatic experience and results in panic attacks and depression. Frost and Steketee stated that they knew several cases of which many hoarders who have committed suicide after a forced clean out. Doland ended his article with a brief statement saying that he does think it brings attention to the disorder, but not in a positive way, they do not approach these people in a compassionate or truly helpful way, which then leads to larger problems and most likely another cluttered house in the future.

At first, I thought this was going to be a skeptical source, but after reading through it I found very credible information, especially because most of the information was coming from a very well-known book that was written by two hoarding experts, so they have great amount of knowledge on this subject.

After doing the research on the pro’s and con’s of these shows, I feel that it has strengthened my hate for these types of series. I found that it was much easier to find articles that discussed why it is not beneficial to keep these shows on air rather than why we should. This made me believe even more that these shows are not ethical in any way, and should not be aired on television or posted on social media. I believe that there is a universal agreement that it is beneficial for a small amount of time but, in the end it does not give a permanent solution nor does it cure the addiction for that person. These types of shows do also bring awareness to the disorders, and can potentially serve as an outlet to receive help, but I feel as if it is not in the correct manner. Individuals who suffer from mental illness’ like hoarding and other addictions need more than just a push to make a change. They need family support, long-term therapy, and a will to do it for themselves and on their own. When random people barge into their home and start touching and throwing out their belongings is not an adequate way to help anyone, if anything it is going to pro-long the situation.

Positive Articles:

https://www.everydayhealth.com/anxiety-disorders/experts-does-tv-accurately-portray-hoarding.aspx

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-is-2020/201504/mental-illness-reality-tv-helpful-or-harmful

Negative articles:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/17/hoarding-reality-shows_n_7605804.html

https://unclutterer.com/2010/06/03/hoarding-why-forced-cleanouts-are-unsuccessful/

Media Production Project

--Original published at MaddiesCollegeBlog

Original Article: (621 words)

https://brainhealth.utdallas.edu/cognitive-training-helps-regain-younger-working-brain/

Scholarly Article (5 pages)

https://www.neurobiologyofaging.org/article/S0197-4580(17)30342-1/fulltext?code=nba-site

Summary:

A common concern that every individual faces eventually, is the thought that eventually we will all age and our cognitive abilities will noticeably decline. As commonly known, this is just apart of life and is inevitable for us humans. Recently, researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas (Center for BrainHealth) say that their discovery for ways that could help us continue to keep our cognitive function to a decent level as we age is ground breaking news for our time.

a research team conducted a completely randomized clinical study involving adults from ages 56-71. Each of the adults were given cognitive training tasks. In order to study this specific question, if the cognitive training was actually affecting their brain’s ability function more like a younger brain, the research team studied the neural activity going on while the participants were performing each tasks. The team split 57 adult participants up into three groups, a cognitive training group, a physical exercise group, and a wait-listed group; The study was conducted for 12 weeks. After the training, they found that the participants brains did not have to work as hard to perform simple or complex tasks, and they were able to complete them faster. Using fMRI’s the researching team took all the participants and examined each individual for a baseline, an in the middle, and at the end of the study. This occurred while they all performed tasks as well. The fMRI results showed evidence that all three groups showed a faster reaction time between the beginning and end sessions, and the cognitive training group had improved speed that affected neural activity. In the future, we now have the potential to replicate this study to find even more information about this ongoing question if there is a way to stop what was thought to be the inevitable.

(306 words)

Reflection:

Overall, I personally really enjoyed doing this project. I was able to learn a lot more information about this fascinating study, and ways that we could possibly prevent something that I always thought would be the inevitable (which makes me feel better about growing older). I always thought journalists had it somewhat easy, they were able to write freely about whatever topic they wanted. Now, I understand that it is not like that at all, intact, it’s very challenging trying to make deadlines and not exceed the word limits, while also trying not to plagiarise anybody else’s work as well. I felt that the most challenging thing was trying to take a 5-6 page academic journal and attempt to fit it into something so short, around 400-500 words. It was so difficult to leave out information because I felt like it was all very important to the study, but could not exceed the word limit. So, I felt that I had left out so much information like the specifics of what tasks were being done with the participants and why, specifics of what the results showed us, and a lot of detail about how the fMRI’s were taken. I mainly felt that I was leaving out more information about the “why’s” of the study, which to me was very unfortunate because I feel that it is important to know the reasoning behind why things are being done, especially in a clinical study like this one. Although I felt that I had left a lot of important information out, I feel that I summarized the overall main points of the study well enough that someone who know’s nothing about the subject or the study could follow what was going on and why they were doing it. I also decided to not use the 5 critical questions for reading research. I felt that by doing this it would be very time-consuming and take away from my personal opinion of the study. However, as I was reading the study I found myself finding the answers to each of the 5 questions. For example, the article clearly stated that finding the participants for the study were completely random, as it was for them to be randomly assigned into the three groups. I never really understood how hard journalists truly have it, I now understand how challenging it is to take an academic journal, take all the important information out, and completely rewrite it into a new article. By completing the three components of this project, I don’t think I would ever want to be a journalist now knowing how difficult their job actually is.

Spotlight Blog post #2

--Original published at MaddiesCollegeBlog

Various individuals undergo the feeling of stress, It can affect all ages, cultures, and genders in many different environments. Stress is caused by a term called “a Stressor”, stressors are defined as an event or feeling that can activate a stress response. A stressor can vary from individual to individual, it all depends on how that person feels about events. It can be anything from an exam, to a big game, mental health concerns, or major medical issues. Stress usually does not have a time expiration, again it all depends on the person. Some people feel immediate relief once the cause of stress is over, or the stress can linger for the person for a long time. No matter how long the stress lasts, it is very detrimental to ones physical, emotional and mental health. Since stress can affect many different groups of people, for example, student-athletes, parents, celebrities, etc. there can be many coping mechanisms for those people to help them learn how to handle their stress better and not let it succumb them.

The first audience that I decided to focus on first, was one that I felt that I could relate to the most which is college student-athletes. Being a college student athlete is not easy at all, and the transition from high school to college was not easy for me personally. Here at college, I found that my high school did not prepare me at all for what college was going to be like academically wise. College is a lot of work, and especially being a biology major it is not easy, and very stressful at times. On top of having a lot of schoolwork and expectations from professors, having 2 hour practice 6 out of the 7 days a week added even more stress to my plate. After reading an article that provided ways that student athletes could de-stress, I found that I could relate to a lot of what he said to do. According to Jason Perry, A track and field athlete from University of North Carolina Asheville, He discusses how student athletes are more susceptible to anxiety and depression because of all the pressure they are put under by coaches, academics, and socially. He then provided 5 positive ways to manage stress, and reasonings as to why you should follow through with them. For example, one of them was talking it out. In class we discussed that this option is always good no matter what. Perry expressed that by talking it out, it allows the person it let out steam and for some cases, a good rant is all you need to make you feel a lot better. Another reason he said was to accept that bad things are going to happen, which I also found myself relating too. In the second week of preseason, I had hurt my knee extremely resulting to me being on crutches for a long time. It was very discouraging and at times I felt that there was no going back from here and that I should just give up, but I found that my teammates, coaches, trainers, and even professors told me that its one of those things that’s inevitable, I couldn’t control it, and I had to accept it and move on, in order to get better and back on the field. Perry exclaimed that nobody is perfect, everyone makes mistakes, but that is how you learn. As an athlete, sometimes you need to take a second to soak it in, and then let it go. After I read that, I immediately felt a connection because I often found myself doing that quite frequently. Another strategy he provided was getting a hobby. He stated after that sometimes it is very good to get away from your athletic life, and that it is good for you to find something where it can just be for fun and to allow you to get your mind off things that cause stress for you. Getting a hobby can also be good because there is no pressure that comes with it, and when you are a student athlete, sometimes it feels like pressure is all you know. So, it is good to get away from that feeling and focus on something more relaxing and enjoyable. I think that the five strategies that he stated are very beneficial and can be adaptive because they strictly target student athletes themselves, not just college students in general. Also, the article was written by a student athlete himself. So odds are what he is saying is factual, and at times I am sure that he sued these strategies to cope with his stress.

The second audience that I decided to focus on was the stress of parenting, I felt that parenting was just a common one that is a universal stressor. Many parents, especially with their first child stress about everything and anything, and feel that everything must be perfect. I remember my mom told me that she was the same way with me, she wanted to always be watching me and holding me to make sure I was safe and nothing could go wrong. I also learned this concept in my high school AP psych class, we talked about how this type of stressor is more biological and natural to stress over having a child because it is so new and life changing. After reading this website that provided 4 tips to help parents who are trying to balance a lot of new feelings and hectic schedules, I felt that the tips were very logical and seemed like it would be beneficial to parents. For example, the first tip was to seek professional help, psychologists have the best understanding of these things and can provide you with resources on how to help with specific concerns. In my opinion, that seems pretty reasonable to seek professional help. Another tip that they suggested was to increase quality time with family, but to also you need to make time for yourself. By doing fun activities with your child, it improves the parent-child relationship, but sometimes, you may just need some time to yourself as for most parents you are around your child 24/7 and some alone time is just what you need. I thought that this article did an exceptional job at providing tips for parents to take some stress away, though some of the tips were pretty obvious, I feel that it is still good to hear that some of the tips are just what you need to do to feel better. The author of this article is a professor of psychology at the University of Houston-Downtown, he is also a clinical psychologist. So I feel that the information that he is providing is professional and very evidence-based.

For my third audience that I decided to focus on was the stress that comes from being a teacher. I can relate to this type of stress because I encountered it everyday, not only did I observe it from some of my high school teachers that I was really close with, but also my mother. My mom is a 1st grade elementary school teacher, and some things that I have heard her have to do and endure over the past 27 years seems honestly brutal. I feel that many people do not realize the kind of passion and drive you need to be a teacher, and from what I can tell it is one of the most challenging occupations. From my personal opinion, saying that being a teacher is stressful is an understatement, and we do not give them the credit that they deserve. After coming across and article titled “5 proven stress management tips for teachers (backed by science)”, I found that the tips provided were actually legitimate and seemed like it would actually be beneficial to a teacher undergoing a lot of stress. One tip that I felt had the biggest impact on me was “Focus on What You Can do Something About”. I felt that this tip especially really affects teachers because their job is to solely make sure the classroom runs smoothly, and a lot of the time they spend time focusing on what went wrong more than what went well, and usually whatever didn’t go their way was out of their control. Especially with elementary school teachers. The other tips that were suggested are exercise regularly, set realistic goals, share experiences with your colleagues and practice mindfulness. I felt that all these suggestions and their reasonings behind them, all seemed like they would be beneficial to a teacher who is very stressed. I also feel this way because the article referred to academic studies that were conducted to provide evidence for their tips, which I found to be very impressive. I also felt that the tips were more focused on an individual’s health too, which I think is even more favorable for teachers who are stressing.

https://www.athletenetwork.com/blog/dealing-with-stress-as-a-college-athlete

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-race-good-health/201306/4-tips-managing-parenting-stress

https://truestressmanagement.com/stress-management-for-teachers/

First Impression Post #12

--Original published at MaddiesCollegeBlog

For this weeks first impression post, I decided to discuss why I decided to choose Etown College & what motivates me to do well in my classes.

I chose to attend Elizabethtown college for a number of reasons. What I liked most about etown is the how small the college was, coming from a big high school, I really hated how big it was and I hated having almost 40 kids in one class. So, when I was looking at etown and the average size class was 13-14, I was thrilled. Another reason I chose Etown was because of how close it was to my hometown. Being an only child, I have always been extremely close with my parents and knew that I couldn’t go more than 2 hours away, so conveniently etown is only about an hour from me. A final reason I chose Etown was because I was able to play sports here, and it not consume my entire life, like at a Division 1 school.

What motivates me to do well in my classes is mainly because it is going to benefit myself and my family in the future. I want to become successful and have a stable job so that I can provide for myself and my future family. Also, My parents both work extremely hard to be able to fund my college and without them it would not be possible for me to attend college, so I really owe it to them to work hard in school so it proves to them that their hard work and money is going to something worth while.

I plan to continue my motivation till graduation for the sole purpose in life, which is being successful so that I can one day give back to my parents for making it all possible. I feel as if I didn’t stay motivated to do well that I would be disappointing & failing them. I feel that knowing that will always be my motivation to do well. but, if somehow that were to fail, I would look at it from my perspective that not only would I be letting them down, but also my future self and family, and I need to remember why I worked so hard up until this point and so on. that there will always be a reason to continue to do well while making the best of my college experience.

First Impression Post 8 (week 9)

--Original published at MaddiesCollegeBlog

ollege students are often heavily sleep deprived as they sacrifice sleep in order to study, work, and/or have a social life in addition to their academic commitments. Assess your current sleep habits and how healthy you think they are. What is a realistic goal for amount of sleep per night for a college student and how can you improve your sleep habits?

I know for a fact that my current sleep habits are very unhealthy. Almost every night I do not get the “recommended” adequate sleep of 6-8 hours. I always stay up super late, and sleep in a lot too. I usually get about 3-5 hours of sleep a night (which is horrible). I feel that a realistic goal for a college student should at least be 5-6 hours, I know many college students spend a lot of their night’s up late doing school work (like me) so I feel like a very realistic goal is 5 hours a night depending on the work load. I think one way I could improve my sleep Is getting my work done during the day or get my work done the small amounts of time I have in between classes.

First Impression Post #7

--Original published at MaddiesCollegeBlog

This week I chose to write about the second prompt which talks about the 2 methods of treating addiction.

Addiction is something I am very familiar with (which is unfortunate at my age) but I am going to incorporate my personal experiences to my post to show the severity of addiction and how I feel that one method is definitely better than the other, but neither are good enough for this epidemic.

I am from Hanover, PA, it is relatively a small town with a suburbs side and a “city” side. My high school was very interesting because we lie right between the city and suburbs part of town, so we get a mix of the upper-end people and the city people. Being in a school so diverse, it was really eye-opening to see how things spread so easily. My high school was always known for being a bunch of druggies, it got to the point where it was so bad people knew it as “heroin high” and called it that for years. There would always be police and drug sniffing dogs searching the lockers, people doing drugs in the bathroom, and so on. I knew it was bad, but it never truly effected me until my junior year when one of my closest friend started to become an addict.

His father had stage 4 lung cancer, and was basically put into hospice, but they were giving him Oxycontin so he would be in less pain. My friend discovered these pills, and started popping them but, only every so often. Before a party, before going to football games, and sometimes just for the hell of it. then, as his father progressively got worse, I started to notice that he was popping them more frequently and becoming less like himself, I started to get concerned. By the end of my junior year he was now taking them everyday before school, when he would get home from school, and so on and then I had realized that he was truly getting addicted to this opioid. So, I expressed my concerns, and we anonymously told the head counselor at the high school that something needed to be done because the issue was now bigger than us just telling him to stop. Thankfully, they had sat him down in a meeting with the school board, the 3 principals & all the counselors and basically scared him enough to never touch it again. His father ended up dying that November. Since then, from my knowledge, he hasn’t touched it since.

I feel that choosing a method definitely depends on the severity of the case. Each person has their own battles, some harder than others, and therefore I feel like we can not generalize what approach would be better for everybody. although, I do feel that each approach is beneficial so anyone who faces addiction could go through abstinence or reduction model and most likely get similar results.

Now about a month or two ago, I had very close friend who happens to also be my co-worker, overdose on heroin at the age of 18. She never showed any signs that she was using, she had some other problems going on (Home life, boyfriend, etc) but never seemed to let it get to her. She always came into work smiling and cracking jokes. I wish I could have noticed a change, but she never reached out for help, she held everything in I assume. She was loved by many, and I wish I could have done something.

In her case, I would have recommended going to AA, but also partaking in the reduction model because of how bad her case was. Also, heroin is a very addictive drug so I feel that just attending AA meetings would not have completely gotten her to stop.

I think overall, Most people should partake in AA to completely try to stop using the drug, but I understand that it is tough. So maybe by taking on both treatments would be beneficial to all.

Spotlight Post #1

--Original published at MaddiesCollegeBlog

As stated in the prompt, divorce is a catastrophic event that can happen in someone’s life, and especially in younger children. It is a major decision that definitely should be discussed and planned between the two adults before coming to this decision, as its aftermath could lead to multiple possibilities and it all depends on the two involved. Many researchers have been debating about whether or not this has a heavy psychological effect on children who suffer from this decision will either struggle growing up (with behavior, emotional, developmental issues) or will they end up being relatively exceptional moving forward.

I would first like to start off with the negative aspect of this argument

In the first article I found that it really discusses the negative emotional toll it takes on a child when going through divorce. The author, Jayna Solinger, made a very strong statement that describes divorce perfectly. She said,” Divorce, in any circumstance, rips a child apart, tossing him/her from one house to another, limiting time spent with his/her parents, and confusing him/her.” This description really gives the reader the perspective of what challenges a child is faced with while going through divorce. Then Solinger brings up what she thinks is the biggest problem that occurs during the divorce time period, which is whom the child is going to reside with. She further discusses in detail the effects of the custody battle and why both options (joint & split) are harmful to a child. Nearing the end of the article, she then introduces a statement that was said by a psychologist at the University of Michigan and a divorce expert. The paragraph discusses what his beliefs of divorce are and how they affect children as well. Solinger also added a refutation paragraph stating that not every divorce ends in an ugly matter and “isn’t always a terrible thing.” Following that, she then ends the article with a very heavy paragraph that generalizes her thoughts on the topic. “It generally proves to be more beneficial for a child if his/her parents stay in an imperfect marriage rather than getting a divorce. The various activities that are involved with a divorce severely damage a child.” I would say this is a credible source because it has many reliable resources that she used to construct her article, and it was also published by the Iowa State University.

In the second article I found, It strictly addresses the aftermath effects to children that happen with divorce. The author, Kristen Moutria, states 4 major problems: Difficulty coping, Trouble with Schoolwork, Dealing with Changes and Perceived Loss of a Parent. She separates those topics into four sub-paragraphs and discusses research or statement made by credible people about those topics, and then she briefly discusses why what they said or the research that was done about divorce and how those 4 subjects show how it is detrimental to a child. I feel that this is a credible source because all her statistics, or facts that she used were said or analyzed by reputable institutions and/or people.

In the third article, It is more of an academic journal that was based on research conducted and written by an undergrad at the University of Central Florida. Mainly the research journal discusses how most people have the belief that divorce is a horrid event that psychologically discombobulates children for the rest of their lives. but now, it was time to see if there truly are any positive outcomes. The author, Grant Mohi, discusses how he conducted an experiment to test this theory. Mohi used a multi-method research design, and surveyed data from 233 college students from divorced and intact families. He then randomly selected 10 of those who responded saying that they were from a divorced family, and had a face to face interview with them. His results ended up showing that “many young adults do experience positive outcomes after the divorce and that these outcomes are dependent on a variety of familial and social factors that shape the divorce experience.” It all depends on how an individual specifically reacts. I would definitely classify this article as a credible source because it was published by a reputable institution, has very factual evidence and statistics and seemed professional.

For the final article, I found an article that somewhat relates to the second article structural wise. In this article, the writer discusses the benefits of divorce to children and breaks those ideas into 4 sub paragraphs (communication skills, organization skills, time management skills and relationship building skills) about the skills that they possess because of a divorce situation. He goes into depth about how the skills benefit children, and some kids who don’t go through a divorce situation made lack in these skills. At the end of the article, there was a chilling statistic,”An estimated 40 million American families are living apart these days.” This statistic made me truly realize how common divorce is in society today. I would say this is a credible source because there were multiple statistics and factual-based evidence that supported the claims of the article. Though it is a .com website, it still seemed to be pretty credible

After reading all four articles, I would say that I still feel that divorce affects children in a negative way. Although, the positive side presented arguments that were some-what convincing, I have just seen multiple cases where it has destroyed families and individual people emotionally and physically. From personal experience, I have watched some of my closest friends go through divorce from all ages, from elementary to high school and almost all of them reacted in a negative way. They changed as a person and become someone who they or i never thought they would become, it was truly sad to experience.

References

First Impression post #6

--Original published at MaddiesCollegeBlog

For this week’s first impression I decided to do the second option that discusses how we are able to recover certain memories. The question asks,” Why do you think some memories are so much stronger than others?”

In my personal opinion, I feel that memories that come to us stronger than others are ones that impacted us the most in different ways. for example, most people can remember exactly what they were doing when 9/11 was happening because its impact was so strong and emotional it gave them a reason to remember. Where some memories are maybe not as significant or carry heavy emotion. Maybe a way to study this is to randomly select a certain amount of people and all survey them on how 9/11 impacted them or another significant memory personal to their own life and see what their responses are, and maybe have the rate how strong they feel that memory is. This study could then determine how powerful that certain event was to them.

First Impression #4

--Original published at MaddiesCollegeBlog

For this weeks first impression post, I decided to chose option #2, which discusses the ongoing debate about increase gun violence in first-person video games. I actually have a decent amount of personal experience with video games, I have played a decent amount of call of duty in my free time, along with my friends guy-friends also playing lots of “violent” video games before. But I mainly just stuck to games like Sims or Mario Kart. However, as there is a recent increase in mass shootings and gun violence it has made me reconsider my very strong consensus of this debate.

I feel as if video games are not the complete connection to one’s reason to commit such a crime. I believe that there are very many other contributing factors that push an individual or group to do this, such as a mental health issue, how they were raised, or peer pressure perhaps.

I believe that it is a very bombastic reason to completely ban violent video games. there is no real, significant or valid evidence that supports this case. I think that more research and studies need to be conducted in order to make this type of drastic change. I also feel that it is unrealistic to think that video game companies would just completely stop creating games without weapons, gore, and so on. They should definitely be aware of how far they are taking their graphics but should not totally shut their ideas down.

First Impression post #3

--Original published at MaddiesCollegeBlog

For this week’s first impression post, I decided to watch the TED talk called “Exploring the mind of a killer”, by Jim Fallon.

The reason I watched this TED talk was because I am very intrigued by this specific topic and I personally love watching Netflix shows/documentaries about this type of stuff. I have always pondered if the minds of those who kill have always been off. is it a psychological issue? or maybe, a biological issue? does it have to the with the brain structure or a personality/social issue. All questions that I have put deep thought into.

The TED talk began with Fallon talking about a past experimentation that he performed with psychopathic killers. He used their brain to record specific data, along with their thoughts. He discussed with his results that there is precise brain damage to those who kill. He went on to discuss about a certain gene that he believes is passed down through heredity for violence, which then led to him to discussing what his own family history is like and if there were any possibilities there.He even brought up that there was 7 men on death row on his own fathers side.

What I found to be the most interesting was how he brought up the gender of most murders are usually male, and not female. I found that to be an interesting statistic and the biological view behind it to be even more fascinating.

I felt that Jim Fallon is a very trust worthy source. All his claims had evidence that seemed very factual. He also stated that he is a professor and as a degree in neuroscience, which means that he definitely has a lot of knowledge about this topic. He talked about his own personal research on brain structure and CAT scans (in general and on his own family).

A research idea that I would do based off of this TED talk would be looking at the their past, how they grew up and how they were raised. if they were bullied, socially awkward, or maybe had a lot of friends. I feel that a person’s past definitely effects how they act in the future. I would maybe give them all a survey to fill out that talks about their past and then maybe do multiple sessions where I go in and talk to them about to see their body language, the way they talk about it etc. I think another great research topic would be if serial & psychopathic killers could be integrated back into society after receiving their punishments. I think I would do a longitudinal study of maybe 3-5 specific killers.