Ironically, "social media" has made the developed world (where social media is used the most) a lonely place.
What I disagree with the most in the article is the generalization that younger people who use social media the most are the most lonely. Now, admittedly, I don't know what is the definition of "using social media the most." I use social media often, even though, I am not lonely, & I dislike talking to people, other than my family, because I find most people morons.
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More than two thirds of adults in the UK feel lonely as social interaction appears to be on the decline. Younger people who use social media & technology daily experience the most loneliness, a study has found.
A nationwide study conducted by The Big Lunch found that 68% of adults in the UK say they feel lonely either often, always or sometimes. This is most acute among 18 to 34 year olds, with 83% of this age group experiencing loneliness.
More than a third (38%) said they now have less interaction with people they know than they did 5 years ago, while a quarter (27%) only interact socially with others once a week or less.
The research also found that adults in Britain spend only 4% of their time – around one hour a day – engaging in social interaction &, in a typical week, interact with only 6 friends, family members or neighbors, either in face-to-face conversations, a phone call or chatting online.
On average, women spend 15 minutes longer interacting socially each day than men.
Dr. Rebecca Harris, a psychologist at the University of Bolton, said: “The findings show that we’re spending less time having social interaction than we used to, we have fewer friends than we’d like & we’re finding it harder to make new friends. This decline in social contact could be contributing to the rise of loneliness in the UK.”
“Loneliness is far more complicated than people imagine. It’s often seen as a one dimensional state, either ‘lonely’ or ‘not lonely’ & that just isn’t the case,” she added. “It can be a temporary state, but when prolonged, it’s a serious issue.”
While social interactions are declining, many also find it harder to make new friends. A third (33%) admitted they now find it harder to make new friends than they did 10 years ago.
The majority of UK adults have a small number of close friends. One in 10 even said they do not know how to start friendships any more. More than 40% of 18 to 34 year olds wish they had more friends, while 15% say they are “too scared” to talk to people they don’t know.
Young people feel lonelier than the elderly, the study suggests. Around half (48%) of people aged 55 and over say they never feel lonely. In comparison, 16% of 18 to 34 year olds said they always feel lonely.
Commenting on the research, Dame Esther Rantzen DBE, Founder of ChildLine & The Silver Line, said: “Loneliness has become an epidemic in the UK. This survey highlights how loneliness affects both young people & the older generation, while other research shows that it can contribute to depression & other serious risks to health.”
Especially directed towards those who always say, "curb population growth. There's not enough resources in this world."
There are more than enough resources in this world to support everyone, but it's up to us (or perhaps our governments) to decide how best to use our resources to satisfy everyone's needs; be it financial, energy, human, water, or food resources.
Teen years always the most troubling & scary part of our years. Although, this article is a good one, every parent has a different way & experience of bringing up their teen through those difficult years. Some pass with flying colours, while others crash & burn. Every parent has their own story & wisdom to pass on to other parents. What actually works is different for everyone. But then, it never hurts to learn from others, either, or at least keep these thoughts in the back of one's mind.
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Conventional wisdom has long held that our brains are largely developed by puberty. However, research in the past 10-15 years has shown that our brains continue to develop in fundamental ways through the teen years & even into the late 20s & 30s. In fact, Jensen argues in her new book, The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents & Young Adults, the teenage years comprise one of the brain’s most critical periods for development—likely every bit as crucial as early childhood. “That 7 years in their life is, in a way, as important as their first 7 years of life,” Jensen says. “It is probably one of the most important 7-year [periods] in their entire life.”
Among the most popular misconceptions about brain development is the idea that the most important changes happen in the first 3 years of life. This “myth of three,” has been the source of intense parental anxiety over the fear that “adults are in a race against time to provide stimulation to their infants before their synapses are lost,” writes Paul Howard-Jones, a professor of neuroscience & education at the University of Bristol in the journal Nature. ... Behind the seemingly invincible teenage boy with the booming voice & adult body is a brain that is still incredibly vulnerable to everything from sports-related concussions to mental illness & addiction. New research is uncovering ways in which the activities that so often typify teenage years, such as experimenting with cigarettes & marijuana & alcohol, can lower a teen’s IQ or increase susceptibility to mental illness later on. Chronic stress stemming from family violence, poverty or bullying has also been linked to changes in the teen brain that can raise the risk of mood disorders or learning disabilities.
At the heart of our understanding of brain development are 2 basic concepts: grey matter & white matter. Grey matter consists of neurons, the brain cells that form the building blocks of the brain. White matter, axons, are the connections that form between grey matter, helping to move information from one area of the brain to the next.
While grey-matter growth is indeed almost completely finished by the age of 6, white matter—the wiring between brain cells—continues to develop well into the 20s. In fact, says Jensen, that wiring is only about 80% complete by the age of 18.
Along with new wiring, the brains of teens & young adults are also undergoing a process called myelination, in which those white-matter connections are being coated in a protective fatty material. Myelin acts as a form of insulation, allowing signals to move faster between brain cells, helping to speed the flow of information in the brain. Since both the wiring to the prefrontal cortex, & the insulation, is incomplete, teens often take longer to access their prefrontal cortexes, meaning they have a harder time making accurate judgments & controlling their impulses. The process of myelination continues into the 30s, giving rise to questions about how old someone must be to be considered to have a fully developed “adult” brain.
At the same time that teens’ brains are laying down connections & insulation, puberty has triggered pituitary glands to release hormones that are acting on the limbic system, the brain’s emotional centre. The combination of heightened emotions & an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex explains why teens are often prone to emotional outbursts, says Jensen, & also why they seek out more emotionally charged situations, from sad movies to dangerous driving.
Hormones also appear to have a different effect in teens than they do in adults. The hormone THP, which is released by the body in response to stress, has a calming effect in adults, but actually seems to have the opposite effect in teens, increasing stress. It’s one reason why teens are prone to anxiety & post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s also a good reason, Jensen says, why parents & schools should be sensitive to the problem of bullying.
Along with new wiring, insulation & hormones, teen brains are highly sensitive to the release of dopamine, which plays on the areas of the brain that govern pleasure & helps explain why teens seem to take so many risks.
It’s not that they don’t know any better. In fact, reasoning abilities are largely developed by the age of 15 & studies have shown that teens are as accurate as adults when it comes to understanding if an activity is dangerous. Their brains are just more motivated by the rewards of taking a risk than deterred by its dangers. So even if they know something might be bad—speeding, drinking too much, trying new drugs—they get more pleasure from taking the risks anyway.
Central to our understanding of how teens learn is “pruning”—a period when the brain begins to shed some of the grey-matter cells built up in childhood to make room for the growth of white matter. A long period of grey-matter growth in childhood, followed by vigorous pruning in adolescence, has been linked to higher intelligence, Jensen says.
It’s for this reason that Jay Giedd, an expert in child & adolescent brain imaging at the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, describes the teen years as a special period of “use it or lose it” for the brain. Brain cells grown in childhood that continue to get used in adolescence form new connections, while those that go unused wither away. It’s also another reason why parents should be anxious about what happens during the teen years—adolescence now appears to be a period that can make or break a child’s intelligence.
A significant consequence of pruning is that IQ, once thought to be fixed for life after childhood, can in fact change dramatically during the teen years.
Learning is a process of repeatedly exposing the brain to something that stimulates the production of dopamine, which strengthens connections in the brain’s reward centre & helps form new memories. Addiction, therefore, is simply a form of “overlearning” by the brain, Jensen says. That process can be controlled by the prefrontal cortex, but since teens are so primed for learning & have less of an ability to access the prefrontal cortex, they’re also more susceptible to addictions.
In an era marked by the ideological tug-of-war over how best to raise our teenagers, what’s a parent to do with this new science of the teenage brain? More rules—an approach exemplified by Yale professor Amy Chua’s 2011 Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother? Or in intervening too much, do parents risk raising teens whose brains never learn how to become an adult—an approach typified by the backlash against “helicopter parenting” & movements like “slow parenting” & “free-range kids.”
In Teenage Brain, Jensen puts herself squarely in the camp of the highly involved parent. She encourages parents to proof-read their teen’s homework, help them make lists to prioritize their assignments, watch them as they do schoolwork to see if they’re getting distracted & to not be afraid to “sound like a broken record” in reminding teens over & over again about the dangers that could befall them.
She encourages parents to “be your teen’s frontal lobes” & to “try to think for your teenage sons & daughters until their own brains are ready to take over the job.”
Jensen argues that it’s a parent’s job to protect their teens from their own often short-sighted behaviour, while allowing them enough room for “safe failures.”
In the quagmire of parental advice, it’s no surprise that the counterargument to the neuroscience approach to parenting is robust, & passionate. Psychologist Robert Epstein, author of The Case Against Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen, believes that adolescent rebellion has little to do with brain development & lots to do with how society treats teenagers. He argues scientists have it backward: teens don’t act out because they have immature brains struggling to navigate an adult world, but because they have adult brains railing against a society that treats them like children.
Other research is challenging the notion that teens have a less mature & less connected prefrontal cortex & are therefore inherently more impulsive than adults.
At Temple University, Steinberg has used a car-racing video game to show that when teens are alone they perform as well as adults on tasks involving a tradeoff of risk & reward. But when other teens are in the room watching, adolescents tend to make far riskier decisions. Adults show no difference if other adults watch them, suggesting that teen risk-taking is likely social.
BJ Casey, director of the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology at Cornell University, found that teens could be less impulsive if they were offered rewards. The greater the reward, the longer teens took to make a decision, suggesting that parents trying to control a hot-headed teen might want to offer rewards for good decisions rather than punishing bad ones.
“You look at the high school dropout rates & the people that fall off the curve not because of academic reasons, but because of peer pressure or drugs,” Jensen says. “It’s so sad because this is a time where you can actually make up for your innate weaknesses. We could get so much more out of our teenagers—& who they become later in life, in many cases—if we took a different approach to this window of time.”
That's exactly how the majority of this world are living now. They are the real "walking dead" or zombies. Well, when the majority shuts its eyes off, covers its ears, & becomes mute at the evils & injustice happening all around it, then expecting anything other than chaos & suffering in the world is utter stupidity & nonsense.
This is becoming a very common scenario in our Muslim societies or even among individual Muslims. Excuse: I am a Muslim in my heart. I don't need to dress in a certain way to show that I'm a Muslim.
Let's forget about religion for a minute at all. Let's look at this trend (& this article) from 2 real-world examples.
Scenario 1:
She becomes a consultant at IBM. Now, the IBM "dress code" is to look professional in front of a client. It's not different or unusual from any other professional firm's attire; Deloitte, KPMG, Grant Thornton, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Accenture etc. Now, when we think of a female consultant's professional dress, we think of proper attire in a nice colour, covering her from neck to knee, at least, coupled with a nice pair of heels (arms can be bared ... for those people who may start to split hairs).
Now, imagine if she wears the dress what this girl describes, into a client meeting, as a representative of IBM, as an IBM consultant. Would her manager give her a warning? Would she be disciplined more severely if she keeps ignoring those warnings? Would she be fired ultimately if she keeps coming to office in sandals, short shorts, showing her navel ring, & heck even drunk, to the office & at the client's premises?
Would IBM be considered a very harsh, controlling, "patriarch" of an employer? Can she say about IBM that IBM is a very "patriarchial" employer (you are not my father to tell me what can I wear to office or not)?
Why all of us in this world when sign on the dotted line of an employment contract are then beholden to the rules & regulations of that company or employer? We all have had to sign papers about our internet usage, attire, behaviour in office etc. If we don't abide by those rules, what does the company warn us about?
If we don't abide by the company rules, we will be let go. There is not even partial acceptance of the company rules. You have to accept either all or none of the company rules. Company is like, if you don't like our rules & want to do whatever you want to do, you are free to go anywhere else. Heck, you don't even need to give a 2-week notice.
Scenario 2:
It's Friday night in June. Very nice weather outside. You are a parent of a 16-year-old girl. As we all know, teens are usually rebellious. She has just started dating this guy with a hot rod & tattoos & definitely looks like much more older than her, perhaps 24-year-old.
It's 8 pm. You are at home preparing dinner with your spouse in the kitchen. You suddenly hear a motorcycle horn from outside. You instinctively know who that is. Your hear your sweet daughter bouncing down the stairs from her room upstairs. You step out in the foyer / vestibule to wish her goodbye & to tell her to take care.
But, wait a minute. You are shocked with what she is wearing. She is wearing a skimpy shirt, covering her neck to breasts area, a short denim short, & a pair of platform heels (tummy & legs are all bare). Of course, she has lots of makeup on her too.
Would you allow her to go like that on her date? She is a free person & living in a free country. If you will, then you are a dream of a parent to any teen. BUT, most concerned / good parents won't.
They will scream at her to go back upstairs & change into something more appropriate. She shouts back into your face, "why?" & "you are a horrible mom/dad," & "she hates you."
Your response: "as long as you are living under my roof & eating my food, you will follow my orders, otherwise, you are most welcome to leave this house & live anywhere else & do whatever you want to do."
Aren't you a very harsh or "patriarcial" parent? Would you be awarded a Parent of the Year award? You seem to be a horrible person since you are ordering around a free person in a free country.
However, other concerned parents will congratulate you for what you did & said. You said that as long as she is living under your roof, she needs to follow your orders / house rules / customs etc. She is always welcome to leave the house & not follow your orders. Doors are not locked on her.
Let's link these 2 real world analogies with religion now:
It's the same rule with religion. No religion is forcibly holding anyone in it. You don't want to believe in it or believe in it partially, you are always free to pack up & leave. BUT, when you sign on that "dotted line" (by entering in it whichever way a person enters in that religion, whatever that religion might be), then either you accept all of it or none of it.
It is clearly stated in chapter 33, verse 33 of the Quran that wives of the Prophet, stay in your houses & do not display your finery to everyone outside. Muslim women are supposed to follow the wives of the Prophet, so that's an order to all Muslim women to cover up & stay in your house. It is not anyone's interpretation or hadith; it is stated right in the Quran.
Problem is we are afraid of our employers & even our parents to do what they tell us to do. But when it comes to religion, we are not only oblivious to what the Quran & Hadiths say but we will believe anyone saying anything about it. How many people have actually read the Quran with translation in their own language? They've read Quran in Arabic when it's not even their language, which is like reading that French novel without knowing a word of French ... I don't think you will understand a word of it.
Quran is a book of message or even Hadiths & you are supposed to read it & understand it. People are not even curious enough to know about the religion they are following. But they don't want to leave Islam. Do you become an accountant without reading an accounting book? or become a medical doctor without reading a medical book? or become an engineer without reading an engineering book? etc but when it comes to Islam, that person has never opened the Quran or even a book of Hadiths but have become a master in religion to comment on women's dresses, & prayers, & women's rights etc.
Can you do you an audit of a company & issue an opinion without an accounting certificate (CPA)? You won't be allowed to do it. If you want to audit a company's F/S, & issue opinions, then you are required to go through the professional accounting body's whole exam & become a proper accountant.
Similar to prescribing drugs (medical doctor) or performing surgeries (surgeon) or selling a house (realtor) or building a house (engineer) or designing a house (architect). Then why all of us become such masters in Islamic theology that we issue our opinions like this girl so easily that I will wear short shorts & drink whisky & party it up in a club but still be a Muslim & even worse, other so-called Muslims wholeheartedly support her. Idk who to call a moron here; that (& other) girls like her or other Muslims who support her in doing this.
Nobody stopping you from getting out of Islam. But when you want to be called a Muslim, then you do have some rights & obligations. As my real-world examples above show that what Quran is asking Muslim women to do is no different than a country, or a state, or an employer, or a teacher / principal or a good parent ask people under their care to do; follow my laws, rules, & regulations. There is no partial acceptance of the rules. You can't pick & choose & interpret rules yourself as you like. If you want to be an American, then you must follow American laws; no ifs & buts. Otherwise, you are always welcome to get out of America & give up your American citizenship. Similar to Canadian, or French, or Turkish, or Saudi Arabian, or South African, or Brazilian laws.
But why is it when it comes to religion, we like to follow our own interpretations of beliefs, or pick & choose or distort the rules as per to our liking? Why don't we do this same thing in the secular, non-religious, real-world? Why do we have double standards? Why do we not call that cop or Judge that I am as much as an American / Canadian / British as that other person; you can't judge me since my intentions were not to harm other Americans / Canadians etc (like this girl says that Islam is looking at her intentions & not how she dresses).
One more thing I want to add here is that what Dalai Lama said that our "best religion is our heart." You know this PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), which is becoming very much prevalent in NATO soldiers, esp. American soldiers. They go through therapy but PTSD is still on the rise. What's the essential problem here? PTSD is essentially their hearts & minds being in conflict; heart says what you did in the war is wrong (whatever that may be) & the soldier tries to rationalize it through his/her mind that what he/she did was correct. Similar problem is here. In most cases, other Muslims are not judging these Muslim women who like to dress in such way as this woman described in her blog. I've been told this excuse even in conservative countries like Pakistan. It's not anyone's judging them but it's their own heart is telling them that what they are doing is wrong, so they try to rationalize it by deflecting what their heart is saying to them to what other people are thinking or "judging" them.
I can say a lot more on this topic but then the classic, nonsense reply would be, "you don't know me & what I've gone through in my life so keep your opinion to yourself."
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