MediaPsyched.com

I was so diligent at first in posting to my site but I guess I have succumbed to the dreaded blog disease of “otherthingshavetakenoveritis”.  I was pulled back to this board when one of my regular readers (who comments directly to me rather than posting) called and told me that I needed to post something - anything - to get rid of the “Facebook suicide” post as the unchanging topic one sees when going to my blog.  I great lesson for me.  I post an article about those who abandon their online sites and then I log no activity for several weeks! Was I sending an unspoken message to my faithful readers of my blog’s impending demise?   And I didn’t even consider that effect on people regularly pulling up my site and seeing suicide as the unchanging word jumping out at them each time.

A great lesson for the one who has been preaching about how words and media have an effect!  So I am back and maybe not daily but will post as I can and find interesting items.  Thanks to my reader base for your offline comments.  It was a great lesson.

It is not surprising that maintaining all your social network “friendships” can be a time-exhaustive routine. Just how far can you cultivate an online friendship when there are dozens or hundreds of others waiting in virtual line for your attention?

So what can you one do to escape the pressures and tedium resultng from the desire to have a large group of friends?  When you just just can’t take it anymore and have no desire to share your life with all these online acquaintances, one option is to commit what is being termed “Facebook suicide” - or terminating your social networking site.

Although it’s impossible to estimate exactly how many people have “deactivated” (the site has yet to release figures), there are a growing number of Facebook suicide groups on the site. (One, the Facebook Mass Suicide Club, encourages members to “cancel your account before it consumes you. Join this group so we can do it together!” So far, 143 people have joined.)

Phillip Hodson, a fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), says: “Building a Facebook profile is one way that individuals can identify themselves, making them feel important and accepted. But this can lead to disappointment once people realise how insignificant their online existence really is. Not only are online friends not necessarily real friends, they can turn out to be people you don’t wish to know at all. I’m not surprised that those who feel their virtual life is unsatisfying commit online suicide. I really think we make a mistake if we hope to find our collective raison d’être via sites such as Facebook.”

Others have said that they prefer to cultivate their real life friendships and that they realized they needed to get a “real life.”  Everything has a life cycle and now we see that the quest and the subsequent time commitment for having multiple virtual friends naturally leads to a desire to step away from the demands and a desire for simplification. It’s not surprising that these suicides are becoming more frequent.

I hadn’t planned on writing about Chris Crocker because it seems everyone else has already written something about him. But for those you don’t know who Chris is, Chris is a 19-year old boy still living with his grandparents in the mountains of east Tennessee. He creates videos on YouTube and has finally hit the bigtime with a video (”Leave Britney Alone”) in which he is shown having a nuclear meltdown about Britney Spears’ abysmal descent into self-destruction.  (I still cannot bring myself to believe he isn’t just having some sarcastic fun rather than being a distraught Britney-fan.)

It is now being announced that Chris, because of his videos, has been signed for his own reality show. So the YouTube virtual star is now a reality star.  See, in todays’ instant media environment anyone can be a star if you just create enough drama. 

A parody of Chris’ rant has already been posted to YouTube.  It’s even funnier but the guy performing is already on tv!

More from the book Words That Work by Frank Luntz. Dr. Luntz ends his book with 21 words and phrases that he predicts will be relevant in media messages over the next two decades:

These words cut to the heart of Americans’ most fundamental beliefs and right to the core values that do not change no matter how we vote or shop, or what delivery devices we use to play music, in the year 2020…

• Imagine (allows personal definition)
• Hassle-free (we want it to work!)
• Lifestyle (self-defined and aspirational)
• Accountability  (provides what is promised)
• Results/Can-do Spirit (the bottom line)
• Innovation (imagining the future)
• Renew, Revitalize, Rejuvenate, Restore, Rekindle, Reinvent (takes the best of the past and applies it to the present and future)
• Efficient/Efficiency (getting more for less)
• The Right To… (is essential)
• Patient-centered (places the focus on us not the corporation)
• Investment ( responsible handling of resources; “spending” can appear wasteful)
• Independent (No ties or conflict of interest)
• Peace of mind (a positive state vs. “security” which implies having to be on guard)
• Certified (official guarantee)
• “All-American” (pride rather than patriotism; more weight placed on by older population)
• Prosperity (sense of overall well-being and wealth)
• Spirituality(implies morality and seriousness without going into particular denominations)
• Financial security (cautious about change and protective of what is; can maintain)
• A Balanced Approach (rejects radicalism)
• A Culture of… (lends weight to a subgroup)

All of these words produce some form of emotion in the message’s recipient.  In our abbreviated, high-speed world, we want guarantees and the ability to visualize the outcome.  It is interesting that the word “imagine” is so strong but it makes sense.  In our visually-driven world, we want to “see”.  When we imagine we can personalize the message specifically for ourselves.

Good phrases to keep in mind whether producing media or just attempting to persuade someone in conversation.

The subtitle for Frank Luntz’ book Words That Work is “It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.” How true. How many times have you had to say, “But that’s not what I said!” ?

Although many will consider this a partisan book, there are some very good points that should be considered whenever a message needs to be successfully delivered. 

The book begins with the Ten Rules of Successful Communication: 

1. Simplicity: Use small words.
2. Brevity: Use short sentences
3. Credibility is as important as philosophy
4. Consistency matters
5. Novelty: Offer something new
6. Sound and texture matter
7. Speak aspirationally
8. Visualize
9. Ask a question
10. Provide context (frame) and explain relevance

Sounds like basic advertising.  But how often do we actually incorporate these rules into our own messages? Take the time the next few days and look and listen to the messages bombarding you.  What makes one phrase stick in your memory over another?  What emotion is stirred?  When we speak are we successfully communicating our message to where our listener actually hears what we’re trying to say?  How do we know if they’re hearing something completely different?

At first glance this article on the etiquette of using a laptop or other device in business meetings does not fall under the realm of a media psychology topic.  But I am going to speak from experience here…stay with me.

The article focuses on attendees in a corporate business meeting and their use of a laptop while people are speaking.  Not for note-taking or relevant access to info needed in the meeting but for conducting outside business and personal communication and web surfing these people deem is more important to their lives than the meeting.  The ugly head of “me” raises again. The idea that if a person is not interested they can use their time for something that interests them is very self-centered. 

Back when I was travelling internationally for my employer, I was amazed at the obsession of people answering cell phones and PDAs.  I was based in a US office and the majority of managers were expats from other countries - I was the lone US born female.  I would sit in meetings and watch as these guys would attempt to show their importance by obsessively interrupting and ignoring the person running the meeting by giving priority to the device.  Completely clueless in corporate protocol.

Rudeness is part of it.  You can’t teach some people good manners.  But the proliferation of the expectation of having every environment as we want it is narcissitic.

I am out of the loop nowadays for the young workers evidently:

Laptops in meetings are also becoming fashion accessories, especially among employees in their 20s and early 30s. Their PCs have stickers like those of a high school binder: snowboard products, or geeky sayings like “My other PC is your laptop — I’m a hacker.” There are political bumper stickers and all kinds of things that show off their interests, their image, their sense of humor.

Do I really want to look at and be exposed to the individuals’ beliefs, thoughts, etc. in my work environment.  It’s bad enough to have to read car bumper stickers…but now having the read the backs of laptops?  Me, me, me.

I’ll close my rant today with my recollection of a very famous corporate titan’s words years ago as the cell phone became ubiquitous in our business lives.  Someone asked him why he didn’t carry a cell phone.  His response was to the extent, “Well, if it’s that important they will call back. I don’t have to answer just because someone is calling.”

Just about every scenario seems to have been distorted into a reality show.  MTV’s new bi-sexual dating reality show is evidence that reality show subject matter has been pretty much exhausted.  Tila Tequila, who describes herself as bipolar (a serious psychiatric condition also known as manic-depressive),  is infamous for having the most number of “friends” (more than 2 million) on the social networking site MySpace.com.

Tila identifies as a bisexual.  The show’s plot will have 16 heterosexual men and 16 homosexual women vying for her undivided attention. An executive vice-president of MTV, Tony DiSanto, exclaims:

“The show is a rollercoaster ride of drama, conflict and emotion, busting stereotypes and challenging the norm—proving that the rules of attraction are made to be broken [my bold/italics].”

This statement holds more weight and gravitas than it first appears.  Our society is continually bombarded with the blurring of the norm.  In this case, exotic off the wall scenarios (girl-on-girl makeout sessions, bitch fights, a lesbian fighting a straight guy over Tila’s attentions, etc.) will divert attention from the show’s intent to normalize the sexual behavior.

Continued exposure to a stimulus can deaden the response.  This over the top, disgusting format is an attempt to deaden any moral opinion or response from the audience. Sadly, though, the audience of this type of show probably won’t - and more so are incapable - consider the moral aspects of such a prurient exhibition.

Do I hear fiddles?

Online memorial pages for the deceased are becoming as popular in the UK as they have been in the US especially since the rash of murders which have occurred in England recently. An interesting development that is occuring as a result of these pages has been termed “death-networking.”

The sites are not only used as shrines, but have increasingly become a forum for “death networking”–a medium for users to discuss everything from gang culture, to suicide, to stillbirth. [For] a generation which spends so much of its time of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, it is quite natural to mourn and honor dead friends online.  [According to the founder of one of the largest UK sites,] “young people find it easier to express themselves this way. If they had to visit graveyards or go to funerals they wouldn’t know what to say, but on the Internet they are more confident and comfortable with saying how they feel.”

This makes very good sense especially for teens and examples were given in the article of other topics being discussed that are tangental to the person’s life and death such as gang mentality, etc.   Ideally this forum would be a supplemental outlet to discussions conducted face-to-face with parents.

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Just an observation, but of the course the mandatory environmental reference had to be worked into the article:

Candy [a founder of a site memorializing her teenage daughter] goes as far as to predict online shrines may soon consign cemeteries and graveyards to the past. “Online memorials are good for the environment,” she says. “We are running out of space in this country for graves, and cemeteries–well yes, there are some nice ones, but generally speaking you wouldn’t want to live next door to one.

So (sorry-I just can’t resist asking),  ”will these virtual memorials qualify for carbon offsets?”

Walk in to any book store and you can find rows of “how-to” books especially on parenting and raising children. As a society we can crown a book on the top of the bestseller list if we think it will tell us how to do whatever we want perfectly.

So what happens when a Britain’s top child psychologist and parenting expert who admits having promoted the “how-to” obsession with her own books and television series says enough is enough and for people to stop reading the parenting books and use common sense!

In the foreword to her new book Dr Tanya Byron says something rather unexpected. The parenting industry, she declares, is marketing a “simplified and unrealistic view of parenting”. The raft of books and television programmes that has sprouted from the modern preoccupation with the “right” way to rear a child is not helping but increasingly disempowering parents. They are becoming overwhelmed and confused by a burgeoning industry that is presenting the most instinctive human function — raising one’s offspring — as a combination of easy tips and techniques to be learnt like a five times table. The genre, she seems to be saying, is a monster spinning out of control.

We want the instructions for everything.  Sometimes, just because a book hits the bestseller list, too many people blindly put their faith in the book’s content.  Somehow we may feel that if we just do what someone instructs then we can’t be blamed if it doesn’t work.  How many times have you heard, “Well, I followed the instructions.” Yes, wisdom needs to be shared. Yes, how to books can be beneficial.  But common sense must not be forfeited to a blind trust in another’s words because of a reluctance to use our own discretion in the raising of our children.

I slammed the baby videos that are supposed to produce the next Einstein, questioning the effects of video images on the neurological development of infant brains.  However, I have a completely different opinion on programs that are being developed for the older adult’s cognitive abilities as is discussed in this NYTimes article. Although the benefits have not been scientifically proven (yet),

recent research in neuroplasticity — the brain’s ability to change in response to information and new activities — shows that brain cells and new pathways continue to develop throughout life. A 2003 study found that people older than 75 who danced, read, or played board games or musical instruments faced a lower risk of dementia.

As I was conducting research with an elderly population for use in my dissertation, I had the fortune to meet a blind 97 year old woman who could run circles around me.  Each night, as she waited to fall asleep in bed,  she would perform complex multiplication formulas in her mind as a way of keeping her brain sharp! This was a person using common sense and so in touch with her mind and body that she knew what could benefit her mind.

An additional benefit for these programs is that they may serve as an engagement activity for those persons isolated at home - thus preventing mental deterioration from a lack of stimuli.  For an elderly non-Internet user, the comfort with the computer the individual develops through using these programs could lead to a desire to jump online.  Once online, these isolated people can have a whole new world open up to them. Online human contact can counter the physical isolation. 

I discussed the other day the incomprehensible behavior of the parents who sacrificed their children to the upcoming CBS reality show “Kid Nation.” Now some of the details of the agreements the parents had to sign are starting to leak out. What has our society come to when a parent is willling to sell their minor child away for a shot at tv fame?

In return for letting their little precious have a shot at reality fame, the parents greedily signed on the dotted line of a 22-page contract basically turning their child over to strangers.  All for $5,000.

The parents and the children agreed not to hold the producers and CBS responsible if their children died or were injured, if they received inadequate medical care, or if their housing was unsafe and caused injury.

Now this is where is really gets insane… 

But while such agreements might be standard for adult participants in a reality show, it also takes on a different tone when the minor and the parent are being held solely responsible for any “emotional distress, illness, sexually transmitted diseases, H.I.V. and pregnancy” that might occur if the child “chooses to enter into an intimate relationship of any nature with another participant or any other person (my bold).”

So who is “any other person” on the set if the only kids on the set are the participants!!!! Adults! So these parents pimp out their kids to an uncontrolled environment, acknowledging that they take responsibility if any other person (read “adult”) impregnates a 12 year old girl or transmits HIV or assorted STDs to their 8 year old! What if a pederast preys on the 15 year old boy?  No problem since the fees have been paid in exchange for silence. What goes on in Kid Nation stays in Kid Nation.

This is insanity.  On the parents’ part and on CBS’s part.  The parents pimp their kid so they can say “my kid’s on tv” and most likely in the process transfer the idea of celebrity onto themselves.  Now that’s being media psyched to the worst extreme!

Before naming his child, Mark Pankow checked to make sure [the child’s name] hadn’t already been claimed. “One of the criteria was, if we liked the name, the domain had to be available.”

Parents determining the name of their child on the availability of a web name domain????? This has to be to be one of the ultimate representations of the self-centered, attention grabbing ,”look at me” aspect of the web.

So the new trend is to set up websites for your children so that everyone can go to the site and see everything about the wonder child!  Let’s remember that this will be a bonanza for pedophiles shopping for new targets. After all the warnings about not using your real name and identifying comments on MySpace and the other social sites, these parents are actually promoting their children and all their contacts and personal details! What are they thinking?  Oh yeah, anything to get you to look at me!

Technology is changing faster than we can write about it. It won’t surprise me in the least if by the time these babies can type on the keyboard, it probably won’t be a keyboard we will be using. And the seeds of narcissism that was planted in the young ones will be full blown and we’ll be having to deal with these nuts out in the real world.

CBS Television has a child reality show debuting this fall called “Kid Nation”.  Controversy is already brewing about the ethical implications of letting 40 children all between 8 and 15 establish their own society.  25% of the children were under age 10! What type of parent would send away their child to such an unstructured environment? The developmental gap between an 8 year old and a 15 year old is gigantic.

“Who is ultimately responsible here, the network that dangles the $20,000 prize in front of these parents or the parents who have allowed or encouraged their children to move forward with this situation?” asked Matthew Smith, chairman of the Department of Communication at Wittenberg University in Ohio and editor of “Survivor Lessons: Essays on Communication and Reality Television.” “Obviously, the situation wouldn’t exist if CBS didn’t say, ‘Come, but don’t bring your parents.’ But also, the parents, after I’m assuming reading lengthy legal documentation from CBS, still went through with it and said, “Go on ahead. I think little Suzie or Johnny can be fine for a period of 40 days without me.’ Even when I say that aloud my eyebrows start to do funny things.”

Again, it is necessary to look beyond the surface of the concept and into the motives of all involved.  Are the parents exploiting their children for a glimpse of fame?  How does the visit to contrived reality affect the child once back in their anonymous real reality?

Also, it will interesting to see the response of the critics on the social strata promoted in this series.  The children are assigned to “upper class”, “merchants”, “cooks”, and “laborers” based on the results of competitions.  So the show encourages and awards the upper class members and denigrates the laborers. I am surprised on one has jumped on this aspect of the show yet.

Take a look at this picture and tell me what’s wrong.

I am only speaking from experience but every bullet I have ever fired didn’t look like these afterwards. 

We are constantly bombarded with images in such a rapid fashion that there can be a tendency not to analyze what is being shown.  It is accepted at face value for what we are told it represents.

I think there is still a very strong attitude that if an image comes from a “reputable” source then the accompanying text is an accurate representation of the image’s content. Implicit trust overrides critical thinking efforts. Society as a whole is media illiterate — lacking the ability (and desire) to discern the accuracy and subliminal intents of information poured forth constantly.

But maybe the text is accurate…perhaps someone may have thrown the bullets at the house thus hitting it.  Even so…be honest. Was that the initial impression you got from the caption?

I have always believed that plunking a baby down in front of a tv is the easy way out for parenting.  Rather than interacting with the baby, a digital image is now used to distract their attention from the human presence.  Now comes more research reinforcing that “educational” DVDs that purport to enhance infants’ language development actually can be detrimental to their lingual development.

As a former international marketer, I consider the creators of the Baby Einstein DVD series brilliant in their choice of name branding.  Once you can hook the brand loyalty, you can get away with a lot in terms of your product.  In an age of having to have the best of everything, many of today’s parents think they are getting their baby on the fastrack to brilliance through purchasing a guarantee that their baby is the next Einstein. Or perhaps they are attempting to compensate for their lack of one-on-one interaction in their baby’s development.

These parents are buying an illusion without considering the actual implications of having a developing brain subjected to visual and audio content which can stimulate that little brain and neurological system in undetermined ways.  This study focused on the babies under 16 months.  

Another area I think needs research is the effect of watching DVDs in a moving car.  I have to believe that there is some effect from focusing on a embedded screen with moving images while the periphery is rapidly passing by. We are going to have a generation of children who have never looked beyond the screen in front of them whether at home or on the road.

He may not be a psychologist, but Dennis Prager has simple common sense.  He has an interesting opinion article on the overstimulation of our children:

Today’s young people have the ability to experience excitement more than any generation in history. Outside of school, excitement is available almost 24/7. MTV is exciting (MTV has done far more damage to this generation than has the tobacco industry); video games are exciting; the nearly all-pervasive sexual stimuli are exciting; MySpace (largely a human cesspool) is exciting; getting tattooed is exciting; piercings are exciting; many pictures and videos on the Internet are exciting. The list of exciting things many children experience is as long as there are hours in the day.

All this excitement in their lives bodes poorly for the future happiness of millions of American children. Real life, let alone daily life, will seem so boring to them that they will not be able to enjoy it. And more than a few of them will opt for lives of constant excitement, often in ways destructive to themselves and others.

This observation is very important. Our technological advances -which do produce some fantastic, wonderful results - can meanwhile be programming our children’s behavior Pavlov style.  Eventually, unless there is some outside stimulus, the child  may be incapable of functioning or responding.  The effects of online written communication are readily evident in the inability of even college students being categorized as literate.  At our local community college, if I recall correctly, 70% of the entering students require remedial composition…but I would bet that almost 100% text message fluently.

One other comment about the reference to MTV and the effect it has had on our society.  Last night I was watching a rerun of the 1991 “Cape Fear” remake with Robert DeNiro.  This presentation had comments throughout the movie in a bar at the bottom of the screen (remember “pop-up videos”?).  During the pivotal scene between the stalking, sociopathic adult DeNiro character and Juliette Lewis’ naive, unconsciously sexy 15 year old, the kiss that results is one of pure evil and violation.  How appalling to read in the notes that MTV nominated that scene as one of that year’s “Best Kiss” scenes! Is this another effort to “train” our children to accept any behavior no matter how inappropriate?

Gosh…if I only had the readership of the Wall Street Journal!  Exactly the topic I posted yesterday - the ill effects of online Second Life affairs - was the topic in today’s WSJ! Read this article!

This is serious.  People are completely fabricating their self-images and investing their emotional and psychological essence into fantasy. Proof are the alter-ego avatars they create for themselves.  ”Living in a dream world” used to be a derogatory comment about someone!

The moral costs of this virtual free for all are incalculable.  This is a topic that will be exploding - unfortunately with mostly negative results.

By now you probably know that I am not wild about Second Life.  I have come to consider it an escapist exercise and the more I observe of it the stronger my conviction becomes.  As with any effort relying on getting people to spend money, the limits must constantly expand to keep the hook in the participants.

An article in today’s NYTimes discussed the trend of designing, building and decorating homes in Second Life. Interesting in that is gives people a creativity that perhaps finances doesn’t permit in real life.  However, what startled me was the references to marriages - and divorces and remarriages - that occur in Second Life. Various quotes:

• The two, who are married to other people in real life, met in a Second Life club, hit it off and were married six weeks later in a Second Life ceremony — a more or less common occurrence (as are Second Life marital spats and Second Life divorce) that often occurs with the knowledge and consent of real-life spouses.
• They met while she was still with her first Second Life husband and became fast friends, then married shortly after her “divorce.”
• For his part, Mr. Roy, like many real-life spouses of virtual bigamists, seems unworried by his wife’s extramarital marriages. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” he said. “You are a completely fictional person in Second Life.”

Well, the characters may be fictional but are emotions fictional?  Doesn’t the effort to create virtual relationships not need real emotions behind them?  What occurs in persons who channel their emotional efforts toward a fictional existence and character rather than to the humans who are alive around them?

If someone is in an actual human relationship, I cannot see how dating, getting married and having sex with your partner (married or not) in Second Life can be considered anything but a form of emotional adultery. 

Not surprisingly, the article just ignored the ramifications of this moral and cultural affront.

The fine line of the Internet.  In China, the government is sending children “addicted” to the Internet to a summer camp in order to “wean” them off their addiction.

China has a tenuous relationship with the Internet, primarily because of the lack of ability to control what the population sees and hears. The government will also have patrols looking for minors entering Internet cafes.

There is good and bad in unfettered access to any type of information being at our fingertips.  But the social implications for change within restrictive regimes are to be watched closely as countries attempt to “control” their citizens.

There’s a saying that something good can come from bad.  An AP story on the development of a virtual reality therapy for those returning from Iraq with post-traumatic stress syndrome highlights one prospective good.

This new technology allows for a re-creation of the actual traumatic event including sounds, smells, and temperatures.

Previously, options for treating PTSD involved group or individual psychotherapy, or having a person imagine their experience, Wiederhold [President of the Virtual Raelity Medical Center in San Diego] said. “The issue is you want to access the fear hierarchy in patients,” Wiederhold said. “Only about 15 percent of people are good imaginers. They have difficulty maintaining that state of imagining a scenario. Virtual reality is a much more vivid experience.”

Although this technology has been in trial in other circumstances, I am glad to see such an aggressive effort to develop this for the returning servicemen and women. Combined with appropriate therapy, this virtual reality can hopefully contribute to a healthier “real” reality