I watched the TV news recently and made a note of the various topics mentioned. Here they are, in order:
1. Concern for the future
of workers’ jobs, after a British car company was sold to a foreign
corporation.
2. The American President
orders a travel ban on people from some Muslim countries to the USA for
security reasons.
3. Thirteen terror attacks
in the UK were averted over the past four years, amidst fears of more to come.
4. Supermarket chain fined
£300,000 for food safety breaches.
5. Zoo ordered to close
after 500 animals in its care had died in less than four years.
6. The World Health
Organisation reports that air pollution is one of the greatest dangers to
health around the globe.
7. Talks have started to
persuade parties to form a new power- sharing government in Northern Ireland.
If they fail, the British government will have to impose direct rule.
8. The 30-year anniversary
of a ferry crossing disaster was commemorated. 193 passengers died.
9. Three British-based
scientists have won a prestigious prize for work on the brain.
So what, you might say.
Does it really make any difference to the way we live or think? In fact,
research into the impact of news reporting on our emotional and psychological
state is not encouraging. One study showed that just a few minutes of negative
news had a significant effect on mood. People who watched just three minutes of
negative news in the morning were 27% more likely to report their day as
unhappy six to eight hours later. The impact was not just on mood – their work performance
was also affected. 39 Another survey found that watching negative news resulted
in people becoming more anxious and sad, not just about the news items, but
also about their own personal worries, concluding that negative news can
‘exacerbate a range of personal concerns not specifically relevant to the
content of the program itself’.40
We are deeply impacted by
what goes on around us, especially via the media and advertising industries. It
is claimed that in one 45-minute journey, the average London commuter is
exposed to more than 130 adverts, rising to 3,500 in a whole day.41 Although half
of them do not make an impact, clearly many do. Like the proverbial frog being
slowly boiled in water we are so saturated with marketing messages that we are
unaware of their powerful effect.42 Successful advertising rests on two key
foundations: create dissatisfaction with the present and then portray a better
future – accessible only of course if you purchase the product. Advertising is
very effective, but it promotes a lifestyle of autonomy and self focus that
some have called narcissistic – and has severely affected long-lasting,
mutually dependent, healthy relationships.43
Socially
connected – or moving apart?
Increasingly ‘everyone is
connected’ through social media, but there is mounting evidence that their use
can be detrimental to relationships and well-being.44 Face-to-face interactions have
faded over the past several years, raising the question: Does substituting
technology for direct human contact lead to unforeseen negative consequences?
Social media are now such
a fundamental part of life, particularly among young people, that it’s
difficult to remember what life was like before their invention. But evidence
is increasing that constant, continuous use of social media brings trouble as
well as blessing. Technology use late at night reduces children’s sleep, and
the consequences are alarming. If children are sleep deprived by just one hour
a day their cognitive academic performance can be reduced by up to two years –
the equivalent of them being two whole years behind.45 One study into the use
of multiple social media platforms among 19-32 year olds found that those who used
the most platforms were 3.3 times more likely to experience high levels of
anxiety symptoms than peers who used the fewest platforms.46 ‘Technology has
fundamentally changed our world and this generation in particular’, says
professor of psychology Jean Twenge. ‘This generation is more confident,
assertive, entitled – and more miserable. We are malnourished from eating a
junk-food diet of instant messages, Facebook posts, email and phone calls’.47
What is to blame? The
finger has been pointed at a number of culprits: the pressure to look good on
Instagram; ensuring we have many followers (not necessarily the same thing as real
friends); distraction from other activities (like school work); and of course
the dreaded ‘fear of missing out’ (‘FOMO’) – the anxiety that someone somewhere
is having a better time than me.
But it may be the lack of
face-to-face contact that is the most important reason. The biologist Aric
Sigman says that a lack of face-to-face networking can alter the way genes
work, upset immune responses and hormone levels and influence mental
performance. He considers that electronic media undermine people’s social skills
and their ability to read body language.48 Professor of Social Studies, Sherry
Turkle, writes that conversational skills, connection and intimacy are fast
disappearing, mostly because of technology. We don’t like to be bored and doing
nothing, so our phones offer us an escape from unwelcome feelings. But as a
result we don’t learn the empathy so crucial for nurturing healthy
relationships: ‘Every time you check your phone in company, what you gain is a hit
of stimulation, a neurochemical shot, and what you lose is what a friend,
teacher, parent, lover, or co-worker just said, meant, felt.’ The result of all
this is that we are losing contact and perspective.49
In one section of Turkle’s
book, entitled ‘I’d rather text than talk’, she writes, referring to a recent
study amongst students, ‘In person conversation led to the most emotional
connection and online messaging led to the least. The students tried to ‘warm up’
their digital messages by using emoticons … and using the forced urgency of
TYPING IN ALL CAPS. But these techniques had not done the job. It is when we
see each other’s faces and hear each other’s voices that we become most human
to each other’50 [my italics].51 I stopped= making jokes and humorous comments
very early on in my emailing career. There was just too much scope for
miscommunication.
This issue of
communication is central to our understanding and developing of relationships.
Only a small amount of our interpersonal connections is in fact conveyed by the
words we use. The rest is down to intonation and crucially, non-verbal gestures
and body language. There is some disagreement on the precise relative
proportions (the figures I have most often encountered are 7 per cent verbal,
38 per cent intonation and 55 per cent non-verbal body language) but that
non-verbal exchange is much more significant than words alone is not in dispute.52
It is therefore clear that using words-only in a text or email can never adequately
convey what we mean to express.
All of which brings us
back to our question, who’s writing our script? It’s very likely that the media,
advertisers and other people are having a big say, composing a life narrative
that we unconsciously follow from cradle to grave. We generally don’t it give
it a moment’s thought, but how often have you stopped and asked yourself that
question, ‘Whose script am I following?’
This
is an extract from Dr Andrew Parnham’s new book, Lasting Happiness: In search of deeper meaning and fulfilment,
available now in paperback, priced £9.99.
39. Shawn
Achor and Michelle Gielan, ‘Consuming Negative News Can Make You Less Effective
at Work’, https://hbr.org/2015/09/consuming-negative-news-can-make-you-less-effective-at-work
40. Graham
C.L. Davey, ‘The Psychological Effects of TV News’, http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/why-we-worry/201206/the-psychological-effects-tv-news
41. Owen
Gibson, ‘Shopper’s eye view of ads that pass us
by’,https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/nov/19/advertising.marketingandpr
42. The
idea is that a frog immersed in water, which is then very slowly heated to
boiling point, will not jump out, but die, since it is unable to detect the
gradual rise in temperature. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog.
The experiment may be apocryphal, but the metaphor is a significant one!
43. Tim
Kasser, ‘What psychology says about materialism and the holidays’, American
Psychological Association (Dec 2014) http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/12/materialism-holidays.aspx
; Tom Sine, ‘Mustard Seed versus McWorld’ (Monarch: 1999), pp. 122-123; Robert
Emmons, ‘Thanks’ (Houghton Mifflin, Boston: 2007) pp. 149-150.
44.
Christine Schoenwald, ‘Why giving up Facebook will make you way happier, says
science’, http://www.yourtango.com/2015283529/why-giving-up-facebook-will-make-you-way-happier
; ‘Online networking harms health’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7898510.stm
45. Jenny
Kleeman, ‘I’ll go to school on two and a half hours’ sleep’: why British
children aren’t sleeping’, The Guardian (4 March 2017), https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/mar/04/go-school-two-half-hours-sleep-british-children-arent-sleeping
; Panorama, ‘Sleepless Britain’, BBC 1, 6 March 2017
46. Lydia
Nuzum, ‘Pitt study indicates presence on multiple social media platforms linked
to depression, anxiety’, http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2016/12/20/pitt-study-indicatespresence-on-multiple-social.html
47. Quoted
by Sally Brown, in ‘How we live now’, Therapy Today, June 2017, p. 8.
48.
‘Online networking harms health’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7898510.stm
49. Sherry
Turkle, ‘Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age’ (Penguin,
London: 2015). A very helpful summary is found at Jill Suttie, ‘The Place of
Talk in a Digital Age’, http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_place_of_talk_in_a_digital_age?utm_source=GGSC+Newsletter+%232-+November++2015&utm_campaign=GG+Newsletter+%232++-+November+2015&utm_medium=email
50. Sherry
Turkle, 2015
51. The
crucial importance of face-to-face contacts is one of the most deeply rooted
foundations of the human psyche and provides the basis for all interpersonal
relationships, as we will see in Chapter 5.
52. The
basis for this will become apparent in Chapter 4, as we explore the workings of
the two hemispheres of the brain.
No comments:
Post a Comment