Happy Saturday, sweet readers!
This week’s Psychology Around the Net has the latest in Apple investors calling on the company to take steps to reduce the psychological risks of too much phone time, why it’s important to stop using mental illnesses to label ourselves, a new book that looks at how social geography affects our psychology, behavior, politics, and more.
Investors Pressure Apple Over Psychological Risks of Screen Time for Kids: After partnering with a doctor from Boston Children’s Hospital, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and a psychologist at San Diego State University to review research regarding how smartphone use affects students’ mental health, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) and JANA Partners LLC (who collectively own $2 billion in Apple stock) sent Apple a letter “calling on the tech giant to take the lead in developing steps to help mitigate the psychological risks of too much phone time.”
3 Wonderfully Uncommon Reasons to Form Better Habits: Many people make the resolution to exercise more (or, at all) in order to “lose weight”; however, what if you made the resolution to exercise in order to “take control”? Would you be more successful?
Can We Please Stop Labelling Ourselves with Our Mental Illnesses? When you label yourself with a mental illness (whether or not you actually have one), you’re both downplaying how serious mental illness is by making it sound like a passing mood or quirky personality trait and showing the difference between how we perceive physical health and mental health problems. You’re not a broken arm; you have a broken arm. Just as you aren’t bipolar; you have bipolar disorder.
Sleeping for Longer Leads to a Healthier Diet: According to a new study out of King’s College London, there’s a simple lifestyle change you can make to help reduce how much sugary food you eat and lead you toward a healthier diet in general: Get. More. Sleep.
‘The Space Between Us’: New Book Explores the Deep Impact of Geography On Politics, Psychology, Behavior: In his new book The Space Between Us, Harvard University Associate Professor of Government Ryan Enos examines how strongly influenced our psychology, behavior, and politics are by social geography and the “us versus them” and “here versus there” mentalities. During this Harvard Gazette interview, Enos dives into these topics as well as how we can overcome the power geography holds over us so we can increase inclusion, especially in cities becoming segregated through gentrification.
Why Our Obsession with Happiness Is Making Us Unhappy: It’s time to take stock of our personal definitions of happiness and figure out whether striving for happiness based on those definitions is leading us toward happiness at all.
Source: psychcenteral
