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“The more I investigated depression and anxiety, the more I found that, far from being caused by a spontaneously malfunctioning brain, depression and anxiety are mostly being caused by events in our lives. If you find your work meaningless and you feel you have no control over it, you are far more likely to become depressed. If you are lonely and feel that you can’t rely on the people around you to support you, you are far more likely to become depressed. If you think life is all about buying things and climbing up the ladder, you are far more likely to become depressed. If you think your future will be insecure, you are far more likely to become depressed. I started to find a whole blast of scientific evidence that depression and anxiety are not caused in our skulls, but by the way many of us are being made to live. There are real biological factors, like your genes, that can make you significantly more sensitive to these causes, but they are not the primary drivers.”

Kilde: The Real Causes Of Depression Have Been Discovered, And They’re Not What You Think | HuffPost

“The challenges posed by internet platform monopolies require new approaches beyond antitrust enforcement. We must recognise and address these challenges as a threat to public health. One possibility is to treat social media in a manner analogous to tobacco and alcohol, combining education and regulation.”

Kilde: Why not regulate social media like tobacco or alcohol? | Roger McNamee | Media | The Guardian

Det bliver spændende at se hvor gennemskuelige de så er alle de nye oplysninger om privathedsindstillinger, som facebook lover at gøre tilgængelige. Eller om det hele er spil for galleriet for at bremse kritikken og tilpasse sig EUs nye datareguleringslov.

“We recognise that people use Facebook to connect, but not everyone wants to share everything with everyone – including with us. It’s important that you have choices when it comes to how your data is used,” Egan wrote in a blog post.”

Kilde: Facebook reveals privacy principles for first time, helps users control access | Technology | The Guardian

»Vi er tværtimod nødt til at skrue ned, fordi vi er på vej ud i noget, som ikke er gavnligt for os som mennesker. Vi har set udviklingen i Japan, som siden Anden Verdenskrig har vækstet enormt meget og opnået en virkelig høj velstand. Men de er også et af de lande med højest selvmordsrate og en enorm dårlig trivsel. Så udviklingen er kommet til en meget høj pris. Jeg siger ikke, at vi skal tilbage til hippietiden, men vi bliver nødt til at erkende, at udviklingen er uholdbar, og at vi må gøre op med væksttyranniet og New Public Management,« mener Eva Hertz.

Kilde: Psykolog advarer: Danskerne dør af dårlig ledelse og for høj arbejdsmoral – UgebrevetA4.dk

Om konsekvenserne  af at sætte markedet over alle andre værdier.

“Corporate profits have never been higher — since records were kept. But the well-being of Americans has been shattered like never before in modern history. Even Costa Ricans have longer life expectancies. All of Europe lives longer, healthier, happier, saner lives. No other society in all the world has regular school shootings, an over-the-counter opioid epidemic, and shrinking real incomes. These are not coincidences, misfortunes, anomalies — they are cause and effect, two sides of a coin. Markets did what they do: maximized profits — but only at the ruinous expense of a catastrophe of human possibility.”

Kilde: How America Collapsed – Eudaimonia and Co

Den selvforstærkende effekt i at mange likes giver flere likes er en af de psykologiske grundsten i såvel celebritykultur som populisme. Her er beretningen om hvordan dette gøres til en forretning, så dem der har råd kan købe virtuelle followers fra firmaer, der også sælger likes, shares og retweets fra falske eller stjålne profiler.

“By some calculations, as many as 48 million of Twitter’s reported active users — nearly 15 percent — are automated accounts designed to simulate real people, though the company claims that number is far lower.

In November, Facebook disclosed to investors that it had at least twice as many fake users as it previously estimated, indicating that up to 60 million automated accounts may roam the world’s largest social media platform. These fake accounts, known as bots, can help sway advertising audiences and reshape political debates. They can defraud businesses and ruin reputations. Yet their creation and sale fall into a legal gray zone.”

“Devumi has more than 200,000 customers, including reality television stars, professional athletes, comedians, TED speakers, pastors and models. In most cases, the records show, they purchased their own followers. In others, their employees, agents, public relations companies, family members or friends did the buying. For just pennies each — sometimes even less — Devumi offers Twitter followers, views on YouTube, plays on SoundCloud, the music-hosting site, and endorsements on LinkedIn, the professional-network.”

Kilde: The Follower Factory – The New York Times

Mute
justmuteit.com
The newest app in this genre, Mute tracks screen-time and pickups, and logs your “detox streaks” with an emphasis on celebrating the latter.

Moment
inthemoment.io
Moment sets daily limits on your usage, and will even try to force you off the device with a barrage of notifications if you choose that option.

Space
space-app.com
Space starts with a quiz to assign you a phone-user “type” (from Rabbit Hole Wanderer to Sticky Social Mitt) and then helps you set goals to change your habits.

Hold
holdstudent.com
Aimed at students, Hold tracks how much time they spend not using their phone, and converts that into points to be redeemed for real-world rewards.

Forest
forestapp.cc
Forest takes a different approach: starting the app plants a virtual tree, which grows for as long as you don’t quit the app (and thus use other ones), but dies if you exit.

“Raising awareness of one’s own smartphone use can be the first step in the right direction of decreasing smartphone use,” says Dr Daria Kuss from Nottingham Trent University. “Often, individuals are not aware of the frequency and extent of their smartphone use.”According to British apps developer Nick Kuh: “A lot of these companies are employing behavioural psychologists to really nail that: finding ways to draw you back in. I’ve worked on apps like that myself, and it’s not something I’m proud of.”

Kuh is trying to make amends: his latest app is called Mute, and launched for iPhone this month (free). It’s one of several apps – Space and Moment are others – that track how often you unlock your phone and how much time you spend using it, in order to help you reduce your time on it.

Kilde: Mobile phone addiction? It’s time to take back control | Technology | The Guardian

Sociale patologier er en strålende beskrivelse af symptomerne på et samfund i kollaps.

“And that is my last pathology: it is one of the soul, not one of the limbs, like the others above. American appear to be quite happy simply watching one another die, in all the ways above. They just don’t appear to be too disturbed, moved, or even affected by the four pathologies above: their kids killing each other, their social bonds collapsing, being powerless to live with dignity,or having to numb the pain of it all away.

Kilde: Why We’re Underestimating American Collapse – Eudaimonia and Co

Lad os omsider få standset illusionen om at der er vigtig læring i at bruge en ipad.

“Children need to be prepared for the future, we are told. But companies don’t want children who learned PowerPoint aged 10, they want employees who know how to think from first principles. All those mind-numbing software programs will soon be obsolete anyway. Most coding classes only teach children to assemble pre-made building blocks.”

Kilde: Children are tech addicts – and schools are the pushers | Eliane Glaser | Opinion | The Guardian