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.

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.

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!

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.

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?

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.”

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?

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?”

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.

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.