Land without technology- Epilogue

Okay... so... I must make another concession on the topic of technology being the downfall of all that is good and right in the world. Also... if it's not reading across, I am definitely being sarcastic here, as there are numerous benefits from technology at large. My harping is mainly focused on the preservation of creative thinking in young children while their innate developmental tendencies allow for it to such a florid extent. But, New York Times, you bring up some interesting ideas with this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/magazine/19video-t.html?pagewanted=2&_r=3&ref=general&src=me

While this is still not tackling my issue of fostering organically generated creative abstract thought, it does make an interesting case for ways the mass appeal of extremely reinforcing video games can be harnessed and used to benefit kids. I guess I am now wondering why this hasn't been utilized to a larger degree sooner? Educational tech games have been around a while. I know when I was a kid, I could spend hours on Math Blaster... does anyone else remember that computer game? It was awesome, and believe me when I say, me describing anything related to math as "awesome," is a rarity.

I think one of the major important parts of this article, was mentioning how testing is such a scary huge deal, you pass or you fail, live or die. Those tests are so stressful for kids and teachers alike and I think they really take away from the purpose of learning. While as the article mentions, some people feel kids should learn for the sake of it, not through games, kids aren't learning from the sake of it now, they are learning for the sake of the exam and isn't that even worse? I don't see the benefits of learning out of fear and pressure and stress rather than out of fun and enjoyment and enthusiasm. I think there is something to be said for the forgiveness of mistakes that is taught in video games. Sure you may die a gory death but you get to try again, sure maybe a few levels back... maybe all over again, but the point is you get to learn from mistakes and go back and that is a really valuable lesson.

I still don't think this is an IDEAL system to implement and I think age restrictions for tech based learning should be put in place. To me, that video of a two-year old smoking was just as scary as videos of two-year olds playing with ipads. But, I do think maybe there can be a happy medium.

While we're on this, can someone design a video game for GRE prep? It's a little late for me now, but I could have really used a dopamine rush during my studying a few months ago. I don't wish that kind of hell on anyone.

Big fat cartoon tears

photo by Urbancitylife- http://www.flickr.com/photos/breakingsights/


Did you see Toy Story 3 this summer? Well I did and if you didn't then you missed out my friend. Boyfriend and I went in proudly with our 3D glasses and slushy (regrettable choice) braced to be surrounded by a massive crowd of 10 and unders, but we were relieved/surprised to find that there were plenty of other twenty-somethings already there. Boyfriend wasn't as surprised I don't think, but he is an unabashed cartoon lover so it hardly made a difference to him either way. Anyways, we loved the movie, and I got all choked up more times than I want to publicly admit to. Boyfriend did too, but he is also an unabashed sap so he won't care that I'm calling him out (right?).

This week we watched Le ballon rouge (The Red Balloon). It's an older French short film that I had been meaning to watch for a while and finally got around to. Basically, it's a very simple film with almost no dialogue and the main characters are a boy and his balloon. It was so heart-breakingly pure, that's the best way I could describe it. Of course it involves some imagination to get swept up in the story of a balloon loving a boy. But still, the idea that such a simple object could illicit so much emotional response was really intriguing to me.

Okay, so if you haven't seen Toy Story 3, I hope you have seen at least some Pixar movie in your lifetime a. because they are great and b. because I'm going to keep referencing them for the duration of this post.

I started thinking about the other movies they have made that surround typically inanimate objects, mainly Wall-E since that is another one we have watched again recently. How an animated robot can elicit such a strong emotional response from people, kids and adults and of course it does this because it has been given human traits for us to connect with. It's not like we are connecting with a plain aluminum box that just sits there... like a box. Anthropomorphism and the reaction it draws from a subject is really interesting to me because I don't really understand the evolutionary background behind it. I assume that it's not something that was developed as an intentional asset of its own accord, but rather is simply the brain generalizing the perception of traits we have been conditioned to pick up on in humans. We know we are looking at a robot, but what we see are emotions that have been crafted into a mechanical face, we stop seeing the machine and just register these facial cues.

Okay, so then what about the red balloon? Even without human expressions an object can display emotion through action, even when restricted to the vague actions allotted to a balloon... like floating/rising/falling/speeding up/hanging still/and SPOILER ALERT: popping (come on.. like you didn't know that would happen?). Sure, in this scenario we have the attachment of the boy to the balloon to respond to as well, and reading the attachment he displays helps convey what the balloon cannot.

Okay then, back to Pixar, the very beginning clip of the lamp jumping on the I. We connect to A LAMP people... and I tip my hat to you Pixar, for making us all a little bit crazy for having an emotional response to a desk lamp. Obviously Ikea thought this was pretty funny to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdIJOE9jNcM

I just find it interesting how easy it is for us to connect to the most subtle human cues of emotion when they are displayed on inanimate objects and yet, we seem to have such a hard time picking up on these things with other people. It's like we get distracted by all of the other aspects of connecting with another person that we are too busy processing simultaneously, that we miss the crucial points.

So after my rant on how video games and media are ruining the world, let me clarify, PIXAR is exempt from those statements.

I remember when I was little I was pretty much bored by any show that involved real people. There was too much dialogue and I just tuned out. I loved cartoons and animation and I think this speaks pretty generally for most kids these days. It's interesting to me that something simpler would be MORE captivating to children. When I did watch kids shows with real people, they would always really exaggerate their facial expressions, watch a clip of Sesame Street and you'll see what I mean. Old school cartoons, whether they involved inanimate objects, animals, or people, all involved really overly emotive characters and it makes sense that kids would latch on to that in order to learn these cues. Now however, animation is very different. Rather than being simple exaggerated subjects, they are extremely complex and over the top and I think we really lost something there (minus you Pixar).

Okay, my point is, if we have this amazing ability to generalize and perceive emotive facial cues imposed onto objects even if this is just a messy side effect from the evolution of this ability, you'd think that we would be stellar at picking up on these with other humans, right? I think the fact is that we ARE really good with this with other humans but we let other things get in the way.

I'm not the only one who thinks this. Malcolm Gladwell, think so too and he wrote a book called Blink, which you might be interested in reading. That is, unless this whole post to you was a waste of eye muscle movement aside from the funny Ikea commercial. In which case, I suggest you go watch Le ballon rouge and I DARE you not to have an emotional response.

Status: Keeping up with the Jones'

image- Le Love
Ok, so not to continue to rip on technology while.. you know... writing on a blog... on a computer... I'm a hypocrite ok, accept it and let's move forward or we're never going to get through this entry.

But seriously, I have been thinking a lot about this lately. I have a hunch that I am not the only person out there who spends a few too many hours a week on Facebook perusing... (ok stalking) her friends/acquaintances. Does this sound familiar? Raise those hands higher and repeat after me "My name is ______ and I am a Facebook-aholic." But really, why do we do this?

I started thinking about it and about how I FEEL when I look at Facebook, what it is I am looking to find and what keeps me checking in. If you read one of the articles linked in the previous post you would know one theory of how reinforcing these little internet check points are, how they might actually be re-wiring (I hate how vague that term is.. but you know what I mean) our reward systems and decreasing our patience. I don't entirely disagree with this, but I was thinking a bit more and I have perhaps a more tangible theory on some of the detriments of Facebook.

What are we looking for? Or rather, what are we putting out there? Photos of happy times with friends, of new apartments, of playful pets, of raging parties and famous concerts, of delicious food and new babies and weddings. What are we posting? Status updates of new jobs, of relationships being built, of visits with family and travel plans, of weekends well-spent and announcements of new projects.

So what AREN'T we posting? Photos of us when we wake up in the morning, when we're hungover, when we're sick, when we don't feel like going to work, when we are folding laundry or judging ourselves in the mirror. We don't announce breakups and often avoid even posting true relationship status for fear of the dreaded "____ is no longer in a relationship," newsfeed. We don't announce deaths of family and how awful they are, we don't announce being fired, we don't announce feeling depressed, feeling anxious, feeling lost.

Who is on Facebook? Mainly, people in the twenties. People who are in college, or recently out or are somewhat new to the working world. I just can't imagine that alllllllll of us on this network have it all together at this point. Yet, look at what we put out there, how would anyone know otherwise?

How do we connect to friends these days? A lot of it, is on Facebook. There are fewer phone calls and more messages sent, fewer voice mails and more texts. Do you remember what your friendships were like in middle school and high school in the pre-Facebook era (for those who remember)? Well I know at least for me, my friends were my friends because they were the people I could go to when I had a problem, when I was upset about something and needed to talk it out.

I think that Facebook has set some new norms for our friendships and for us as individuals. We don't communicate directly as often and what we do put out there is so positive positive positive, that if you feel anything but, it feels like a failure. It's hard to keep up with the Jones' when the Jones' seem to only to go on lovely trips, have adorable babies that never cry according to photo documentation, eat delicious meals, never work since there is no evidence to show otherwise and have perky put together status updates dripping from your iphone at all times.

Ok, and I know I am just as guilty of this as anyone (I'm a hypocrite, remember, you accepted it a few paragraphs back too late now!). But honestly, why WOULD we post anything else? Putting cries for help out there aren't really effective even if we had the guts to put it out there. What do you get back, a little icon that says "_____ likes this" to your "I am feeling emotionally sound for the first time all week," status? The pay off for taking the risk of putting out such a vulnerable statement into the masses, just isn't worth it.

So, do I think this is going to change? No. Am I going to start posting when I feel sad, or hopeless, or like I have no idea what I am doing with my life (and as a 23 year-old, I'm probably going to feel this way from time to time for... a while...see this New York Times article for reasons as to why- http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html- see I'm normal!...)? No. When people do put out those kinds of status updates do I think to myself, I wish they would call someone and talk about it rather than a half-hearted invitation to no one in particular to reach out? Yes. But do I reach out to them? No. Because it's so hard to tell whether people actually want those things acknowledged or if it is a way of venting semi-anonymously that is what makes it appealing. Maybe reaching out would be over-stepping the fourth wall that is put up with a screen. So the barriers of tech-communication are laid and we try to clumsily navigate them as the pioneer generation of the technological new world.

I just wanted to point it out as something to keep in the back of your head. Next time your newsfeed seems particularly sugar-coated and you're wondering why you're the only one who seems to be struggling amidst all the smiling faces just remember that you're not. If you need further proof, just read some blogs, those are always whiny and annoying right? Anyways, the Jones' were probably overcompensating train wrecks.

Once upon a time, in a land without technology...

photo by me
A couple months ago, some of my friends and I played Dungeons and Dragons for the first time. For those of you who don't know, this game is awesome, seriously. It's awesome because it is based entirely on the imaginations of the players. You can never run out of ideas, or plot lines, or moves, or missions because you make it up as you go. I then realized that the fact that this kind of game was so novel to me was kind of sad. That a game based on imagination was so revolutionary, so different and so thrilling, says a lot about my own lack of imaginary use lately.

I've also been thinking a lot about video games, and the fact that my boyfriend just got an Xbox has nothing to do with it.. I swear. Anyways, video games are also awesome. I mean, I personally don't have a lot of experience beyond N64, but just watching him play with these extremely vivid images and winding plot lines is enough for me to understand how it can consume someone's afternoon. That along with evidence that some video games produce a dopaminergic response similar to eating and having sex... explains a lot. However, my boyfriend is an actor, and he uses his imagination all the time, so the fact that he can spend hours playing those games doesn't really bother me. He already had a childhood full of creativity and imagination and I have seen the photos of him in crazy costumes to prove it.

I too had my share of imaginary play growing up (see previous posts for plenty of embarrassing examples). However, I really worry about kids today (and I KNOW I sound like I am 50 years old but bear with me) growing up who only know how to play using these devices. I feel like there should really be some mandatory imagination hour put into the schedules at school in between all of the absurd test prep that begins as early as elementary school these days. Imagination is the child's specialty. Their true mastery is the ability to be entirely unfazed by the rules of reality that limit our thought as we grow. It is not only a natural skill to develop, but imagination increases our cognitive flexibility, something that has a lot of benefits, including helping to cope with trauma later in life should it occur. Rigid inflexible play is also often a sign for a variety of mental illnesses and disorders. Of course, children vary in their play and some are more elaborate or outlandish than others, so we are talking about the extremes here. I just hope that kids now are getting the opportunities to use their brains in this way because it only becomes harder and harder to find the outlets to do it as we get older. It's no coincidence that professions in the arts are so glorified and coveted. They allow us to do what we are programmed to do from such a young age.

I don't feel like diving into my entire thesis right now (maybe another day) so if I didn't convince you I don't care... for now; but you still have to admit, if nothing else, when kids use their imaginations, it's pretty damn cute.

Exhibit A: my linking wasn't working so copy and paste below, then enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM35grvNkss

Exhibit B: for those of you not yet convinced to go turn off the computer and go play dress-up, here are some good articles on the other downsides of too much tech time.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/features/timestopics/series/your_brain_on_computers/index.html

Pom-poms and dryer sheets

images from Le love and Free People

My boyfriend was out of town a lot this past month and so I was forced to embrace some alone time. I'm typically a social person, so I wasn't thrilled at the prospect, but soon found myself enjoying some time to myself. Most of it consisted of doing what I had been doing already, but in my underwear. For some reason, doing mundane things in the house becomes a thrill when you're just in your skivvies. It's weird, but I felt even more like an adult. I could cook dinner, provide for myself in the apartment that I pay rent for, AND I could do it in my underwear because there were no rules but my own. Surely, the boyfriend would not object to this behavior when he is indeed home, but it's different when you're alone. It's not like you're in your underwear to be sexy or alluring, you're just comfortable and free, and I felt like a kid, and I felt like such a grown-up all at once. Being in your underwear makes everything you do more fantastically sensory. You lie on a soft blanket and it is that much better because it is soft on your back, and your shoulders and your calves, all at once. Or you go with that urge to stretch your legs while you're standing in the kitchen because you can, because you don't have the constriction of jeans. Or you hang out outside on the porch (yes I hung out on the porch in my underwear.. our backyard is fairly tree covered I promise) and the breeze is so much more potent.

At my old hospital, after we had breakfast on the unit, the kids were sent to their rooms to get dressed, brush teeth and make their beds. They were mostly encouraged to do this on their own whenever possible, and the staff would monitor the halls to make sure the toothpaste wasn't being spread on the mirror and that no one was hiding dirty bed sheets in the closet (which someone tried almost daily). Anyways, all the kids had come back to the group room and we were going to start our daily programming but one was missing, let's call him Ron. He was the youngest of the little kids group, he had just turned 5 and had these big blue eyes that would just make your heart melt, even when he was screaming at you while pouring milk all over the kid next to him... okay, he made MY heart melt anyways. So, I went to his room to go check on him. Ron had a lot of sensory sensitivities and was likely somewhere on the Autism spectrum. When he was upset, he liked to be wrapped tightly in a big blanket and he would sit there and rock himself calm and while this image of quiet rocking just screams of instability when you picture it on an adult, when you're 5, it's cool. Anyways, I went to Ron's room and he was standing on his bed in nothing but his Lightning McQueen, Cars, pull-up. He had attempted the whole, getting dressed thing, but was distracted by the dryer sheet that was left in his laundry basket. He held it to his nose and was just breathing it in. His eyes were closed and I watched him for a good 30 seconds, not wanting to interrupt what was such a blissful moment.

For all the problems that Ron had, he was able to find complete joy and serenity in a dryer sheet. It went on for about ten minutes before we finally went back and brought him to group. Before we went back to the group room, he stashed the dryer sheet under his pillow, his secret hiding space that was also inhabited by a piece of thread and a tiny red pom-pom from crafts.

Just a reminder, that no matter what larger problems you have going on -and believe me, if you're 5 and you're in an inpatient psychiatric hospital, you probably have some heavy stuff happening in your life- having some quiet time to just be alone in your underwear, enjoying the simply things around you, is the most therapeutic thing you can do.

Happy lounging.

No monsters in the closet

photo from- http://www.flickr.com/photos/ruminating_slav


sitting in bean bag chairs
eating pretend plastic meals
wrapping up in blanket cocoons
choosing breakfast cereals
playing kickball
making sand castles
riding bikes
drawing pictures on the floor (on paper... just lying on the floor.. mostly)
making endless race car tracks
reading stories
over
and
over
bed time hugs
tuck ins
checking for monsters
leaving the doors open juuuuust a little bit


A list of normal things that kids do.

Also a list of things we used to do all the time at my old hospital on the inpatient children's unit.

I think there is a lot of misconception surrounding mental health in almost every aspect, but it certainly just obscures all knowledge of fact when it comes to hospital images. It goes without saying that there is of course, a wide range in the hospital facilities in this country and even starker range around the world. Still, there is need for some clarification here and it is understandable since 'mental hospitals/psychiatric facilities' (I work in one and even I don't know what politically correct term to use now, which says a lot) are so closed off from the public to (I believe) protect the patient's privacy. Of course every patient has a right to privacy in any health related matter, be it cancer or pink eye or bulimia. However, what we may gain in the momentary protection of the patient's rights, I think we also sacrifice in perpetuating stigma and the mysterious dark imagery surrounding these places. If people had a more accurate picture of what treatment centers looked like I think it would be a big help. Unfortunately, the powers that be would disagree and I do understand that the protection of the patient comes first.

So I cry out to the media! To the arts! Those who make a living in showing us aspects of life that we can't otherwise get exposure to, because it is from another culture, another time, another city, or just someone's life whom we will never meet. Now the film industry has created a number of very popular movies surrounding mental health, and some of which I would greatly suggest you watch (I'll keep doing research and come up with a list soon), while others might as well be filed in the horror genre. The psychiatric field is certainly not some pristine branch of medicine where everyone just lies on plush couches and plays racquet ball on the grassy hillside of the hospitals for months at a time and magically wind up cured of depression... though... it seemed to be at one time. On the other hand, there was a time when hammering an icepick through someone's eye socket and scrambling the pre-frontal region of the brain was widely practiced and it might shock you to know that was continuing in the U.S. until about 50 years ago. Just like any other field, it's been through a lot of change, especially in the last century. I won't go into a full lecture, the point being, I think there have been some mixed messages out there about mental health treatment (for good reason given the checkered past) and I'd like someone to clear it up.

Then again, if there was a movie about mental health as it truly is today, it probably wouldn't attract too much of an audience (maybe that's why it hasn't been done). Where it does seem to be mainstreamed is where it's leaking out in the Hollywood culture, in the destructive relationships and drug use and self-harm that has been splashed all over the tabloids. So I would ask you, Hollywood, to try and create a really realistic movie about mental health treatment as it is today, but it seems you're sick yourself! So now I return to my first post, what is this undeniable connection between mental illness and creativity? Maybe I'm totally wrong, it could simply be that because these artists have garnered so much fame and attention, from Van Gogh to Lindsay Lohan, (and I'm sorry for referencing those two in the same sentence) that it merely seems that there is a connection because we KNOW about it in those personal cases that are exposed. What we DON'T know is that our neighbors, and the people in front of us in the grocery store or next to us in the movies are being treated, or have been. We don't know because know one talks about it in the industry itself because of confidentiality, and no one talks about it in their personal lives because of stigma. So don't you see the cycle? We can't talk about it, so no one knows what these illnesses are really like, and we can't show the treatment centers, so no one knows what they really look like, and we can't share the treatment plans etc. etc. etc. so NO ONE KNOWS ANYTHING. Since we are curious by nature, we make up ideas of what it must be like, and we buy into the dark imagery because it scares us and makes us excited, so people with these issues sure as hell won't talk about it because they know that we've already made up what it looks like, and that it's not pretty, and they don't want to be looked at like that.

It has seemed to me that children with mental illness face the toughest battle often times, for a multitude of reasons I will surely touch on later. Sometimes it's not pretty at all. Sometimes it is scary and sad but that is why they are getting help and that is beautiful. So I want you to know, that sometimes, and not always, but sometimes, it can look like:

sitting in bean bag chairs
eating pretend plastic meals
wrapping up in blanket cocoons
choosing breakfast cereals
playing kickball
making sand castles
riding bikes
drawing pictures on the floor (on paper... just lying on the floor.. mostly)
making endless race car tracks
reading stories
over
and
over
bed time hugs
tuck ins

checking for monsters

leaving the doors open juuuuust a little bit



I wish I could leave the door open wider so you could see more.

In the morning

photo by unknown + ffffound on Le Love

I came into work early today because I am weird and can't sleep so I come into work at 7:30 when I don't need to be here until 9:00.

Anyways, the campus of the hospital is gorgeous early in the morning and it's before a lot of the main campus staff show up but the patients are usually up early for one reason or another. I was coming in, wearing my work clothes which is just like a game of dress-up trying to seem professional but never feeling really comfortable. Walking up to my building a man comes down the hill of his unit and I know he's a patient because he's just wearing sweat pants and a tie-dye t-shirt and his hair is all disheveled and his face is puffy with sleep and he waves and says "hi" groggily and I wave and say "hi" back.

For a split second I'm jealous that he gets to come here and be himself and wear pajamas and let his hair stay messy and stretch on the lawn of the hospital with no shame or worry. I need to come in and pretend to be a grown-up and pretend to do important things all day long and I have to follow a dress code even though no one sees us but the other RA's in the office because if our bosses let us wear casual clothes the jig is up. They would be admitting that yes, it's true that it's all a facade and that it doesn't matter what we look like because we don't have any in-person important responsibilities. So we wear nice business-casual clothes to sit in our annexed office and pretend to do important things.

I feel like a massive fake and I envy his realness and I think how we are all the same in the morning. We all have puffy disoriented faces and messy matted hair and are cozy and relaxed in our comfy worn out loose fitting clothing and we all want to stay that way all day. But some of us get dressed and put on the act while others don't and we look at them and think "they're crazy, look at their disheveled hair," and this is said with a tinge of resentment because though we'd never admit it, they are doing what we wish we had the balls to do sometimes.