Social Media Health

No one has failed to notice that the current generation of youth is deeply - some would say totally - involved with digital media. Professors Howard Gardner and Katie Davis name today’s young people The App Generation, and in this spellbinding book they explore what it means to be “app-dependent” versus “app-enabled” and how life for this generation differs from life before the digital era.

How is it that we can walk unfamiliar streets while maintaining a sense of direction? How can we come up with shortcuts on the fly, in places we've never traveled? The answer is the complex mental map in our brains. This feature of our cognition is easily taken for granted, but it's also critical to our species' evolutionary success. In From Here to There, Michael Bond tells stories of the lost and found - Polynesian sailors, orienteering champions, early aviators - and surveys the science of human navigation.

In this hilarious and life-affirming memoir, Rob explores what it will take for him to become a little less Bear (Pooh) and a little bit more Bear (Grylls) and how mild-mannered, anxious rule-followers can get their own share of (gentle) adventure from time to time.

Parenting has never been the easiest job in the world, but with all the parenting advice out there, it's hard not to become bewildered. Today everybody has a different method for dealing with the madness. And who's to say one method is better than another? How do you choose? The truth is that whatever drumbeat you march to, all parents would agree that we just want our kids to be happy. But in the face of all the many parenting theories out there, happiness feels like it has become incidental.

A depressive illness or a passing feeling? Mental detachment or a precursor to genius? Melancholy is a critical part of what it is to be human, yet everything from Prozac to self-help psychology books seems intent on removing all signs of sadness from contemporary existence. Complex and contradictory, melancholy’s presence weaves through the histories of both science and art.

Your Mind: An Owner's Manual for a Better Life combines extensive psychological research with decades of clinical practice and delivers its wisdom in a practical, easy-to-digest narrative. Through examples and exercises, Drs. Cortman and Shinitzky present a step-by-step strategy to help you make use of the truths and become a happier, healthier you.

This nonfiction self-help book for young listeners with disordered eating and body-image problems delivers real talk about eating disorders and body image, tools and information for recovery, and suggestions for dealing with the media messages that contribute so much to disordered eating.

Almost everyone is doing it. Aimlessly scrolling through their social media feeds. From presidents to the postmen, most people you know and probably even yourself. Mindlessly, your fingers move across the screen, and content, from selfies to memes, flickers by at a blistering pace. Why is it that the screen sometimes seems more important than looking up and being present in real life? And what does it mean that more and more people are turning into so-called "Scroll Zombies"? Sven Rollenhagen thoughtfully discusses social media use and how it affects us both psychologically and physically.

In late 2019, Dennis Oya's persistent cough was just the beginning of a harrowing tale of neglect and systemic failure in a Washington prison. Diagnosed eighteen months later with tuberculosis (TB), Oya's case sparked one of the largest prison TB outbreaks in decades, affecting over 3,000 contacts. This outbreak, and others like it, exposes the glaring weaknesses in prison healthcare systems. In Outbreak Behind Bars, Homer Venters reveals the grim realities of how communicable diseases thrive in the overcrowded, unsanitary conditions of correctional facilities.

The Facebook Narcissist is the first book dedicated to exploring the relationship between narcissism and social media. Lena Derhally, a licensed psychotherapist certified in Imago therapy, delves into how social media enhances individual and cultural narcissism and how it may create or exacerbate toxic narcissistic tendencies in people who use it. Social media is here to stay, but with education and awareness on how it makes us and the world more narcissistic, we can change the narrative and focus on the ways in which social media can be positive, and even improve the world.

On September 5, 2015, 14-year-old Sherokee Harriman drove a kitchen knife into her stomach as other teens watched in horror. Despite attempts to save her, the girl died, and the coroner ruled it a "suicide". But was it? Or was it a crime perpetuated by other teens who had bullied her? Sherokee's short life and tragic death created a national media and social media frenzy, much of it centered on sensationalism rather than the truth. Meanwhile in LaVergne, the community sought answers to questions about who, if anyone, should be held criminally responsible for "bullying".

Life today for citizens of the developed world is safer, easier, and healthier than for any other people in history thanks to modern medicine, science, technology, and intelligence. So why is an epidemic of fear sweeping America? The answer, according to nationally renowned health commentator Dr. Marc Siegel, is that we live in an artificially created culture of fear. In False Alarm, Siegel identifies three major catalysts of the culture of fear - government, the media, and big pharma.

In today's digitally driven world, disaster is only a click away. A rogue tweet can bring down a business; an army of trolls can run a celebrity off-line; and virtual harassment might cause real psychological damage. Shame Nation is the first book to both explore the fascinating phenomenon of online shaming and offer practical guidance and inspiring advice on how to prevent and protect against cyber blunders and faceless bullies. Author and acclaimed Internet safety expert Sue Scheff unveils all sides of an issue that is only becoming more relevant day.

In Smarter Than You Think, Thompson documents how every technological innovation - from the printing press to the telegraph - has provoked the very same anxieties that plague us today. We panic that life will never be the same, that our attentions are eroding, that culture is being trivialized. But as in the past, we adapt, learning to use the new and retaining what’s good of the old.

Let's take stock of young America. Compared to previous generations, American youth have more schooling (college enrollments have never been higher); more money ($100 a week in disposable income); more leisure time (five hours a day); and more news and information (Internet, The Daily Show, RSS feeds). What do they do with all that time and money? They download, upload, IM, post, chat, and network. (Nine of their top ten sites are for social networking.) They watch television and play video games (2 to 4 hours per day).

Nev Schulman is the host of the wildly popular TV series Catfish which investigates online relationships to determine whether they are based on truth or fiction (spoiler: it's almost always fiction).

Narratives about decision making are often inadvertently tailored primarily to men. Meanwhile, narratives about women in business overlook decision making or offer advice that is unhelpful and can even backfire. How Women Decide fills this gap. It takes on the very real psychological and cultural obstacles women face, asks how these affect decision making, and suggests practical changes for approaching important choices.

As a man, are you suffering from melancholic depression and have been for a long time? Are you constantly lethargic, off your game, and continuously short-fused? If you feel deflated and have lost your vigor, there may be issues within your endocrine system that public health does not make you aware of. In Testosterone & Depression, Luke Warren presents a case you may never have considered.

In Propelled, Andreas Elpidorou makes a lively case for the value of discontent and illustrates how boredom, frustration, and anticipation are good for us.

Pour retrouver l’équilibre, nous devons plus que jamais donner sa juste place à l’hémisphère droit du cerveau (imagination, intuition, rêve), autant qu’à l’hémisphère gauche (structure, analyse, jugement). Ainsi, nous aurons les outils pour transcender notre histoire, qu’elle qu’en soit la complexité. On en sortira - on en guérira. Elle ne sera plus une prison. Tous les passionnants récits de ce livre sont vrais. Ils offrent autant d’éclairages sur l’éventail infini des histoires de vie.