-
Why the modern world is bad for your brain
The Guardian: Our brains are busier than ever before. We’re assaulted with facts, pseudo facts, jibber-jabber, and rumour, all posing as information. Trying to figure out what you need to know and what you can ignore is exhausting. At the same time, we are all doing more. Thirty years ago, travel agents made our airline and rail reservations, salespeople helped us find what we were looking for in shops, and professional typists or secretaries helped busy people with their correspondence. Now we do most of those things ourselves.
-
Hard Work, Hard Times: Self-control and Joblessness
The Huffington Post: A big part of parenting is teaching kids self-control. Yes, sugary snacks do taste good, but even so, we shouldn't eat them too often. Yes, we know that math homework may not always be fun, but it must come before TV. Yes, soccer practice may seem tedious, but it's the road to excellence on the field and beyond. And so forth. No parent disputes this. It's in the manual. Indeed, we're all expected to take this life lesson on faith. Hard work and effort are virtues worth instilling, and worth having. But what do we mean by "worth"? Does self-discipline today really pay off later in life -- in jobs, paychecks, promotions and bonuses, professional prestige and wealth?
-
Writing Your Way to Happiness
The New York Times: The scientific research on the benefits of so-called expressive writing is surprisingly vast. Studies have shown that writing about oneself and personal experiences can improve mood disorders, help reduce symptoms among cancer patients, improve a person’s health after a heart attack, reduce doctor visits and even boost memory. Now researchers are studying whether the power of writing — and then rewriting — your personal story can lead to behavioral changes and improve happiness. The concept is based on the idea that we all have a personal narrative that shapes our view of the world and ourselves. But sometimes our inner voice doesn’t get it completely right.
-
For Couples, Success at Work is Affected by Partner’s Personality
Scientific American: What does it take to get ahead at the office? It's well-known that personality influences professional prowess, as high earners tend to be extraverted, ambitious, conscientiousand self-confident. Whether you measure success in wages or personal satisfaction, superstars in the workplace tend to be energetic and proactive, with a high need for achievement.
-
Smartphones Don’t Make Us Dumb
The New York Times: AS much as we love our digital devices, many of us have an uneasy sense that they are destroying our attention spans. We skitter from app to app, seldom alighting for long. Our ability to concentrate is shot, right? Research shows that our intuition is wrong. We can focus. But our sense that we can’t may not be a phantom. Paying attention requires not just ability but desire. Technology may snuff out our desire to focus. The idea that gadgets corrode our attention span sounds logical.
-
Paying Attention Doesn’t Mean You’ll Remember What You Saw
We can forget a piece of information just seconds after having used it to make a judgment if we don’t have expectations of using it in the future, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. This finding, which has been named “attribute amnesia,” indicates that memory is far more selective than previously thought. "It is commonly believed that you will remember specific details about the things you're attending to, but our experiments show that this is not necessarily true," said researcher Brad Wyble, assistant professor of psychology at Penn State.
