PsyBlog & Twitter: My Personal Opinion

On the PsyBlog website i found this article about Twitter. When i first saw the article, i thought it was just advertizing Twitter, and guess what? I was right. That's all this article is about; How you can now find PsyBlog on twitter. There were so many people that were tweeting article's from PsyBlog back and forth to eachother and because it got so many "Tweets" that PsyBlog just decided to open their own little page thing. So now people that follow PsyBlog on Twitter will get automatic updates on the latest articles. Now everybody has their own personal opinions on things, and because this is MY blog, i am going to state my opinion on this situation.

• I hate twitter, facebook and myspace is one thing, but twitter is just a whole different thing.
• I can understand how people want to communicate with eachother online and share articles back and forth, but why do you have to make that a world-wide affair? Why do you need to share with everybody what you are reading? It's so annoying.
• One thing that i really hate about twitter is that there are moviestars and singers out there on twitter that update their status while they are out and about and say where they are, or say that they were shopping at Gucci and found the greatest shirt! Or singers thanking fans for being at their concert and putting it on twitter when really they can just pick up the mic and thank the fans in person. These people that use twitter are just asking for attention, whether it is positive or negative attention.
• To me, it is just flat out annoying. Who cares where people are, what they are doing. Unless you are some crazy psycho obsessed person, why would you want or need to know what one individual person is doing.
• Another thing i can understand is if say, Obama wanted to share his opinion over twitter. & tell the citizens about a law that is going to get passed that will make, (just for example) animal testing illegal, doing that is one thing, but if he was to go on there and tweet about how his maid didn't clean right, or how him and his wife arn't seeing eye to eye. That is just flat out ANNOYING, you don't need to share your personal life with the whole world.

Some things are okay to share with other people. Personal opinions, your views on things, but sharing personal information over the internet i think is just stupid. Not everybody needs to know about your personal business. Again, this is just my personal opinion, the people out there who tweet, be my guest. I just think it is a waste of time and cyber-space. (Which i guess wouldn't literally make sense because cyber-space goes on and on) But still, Keep your personal life to yourself. Because thats what it is, PERSONAL!

*Chapter*6*Blog*

This chapter to me was extremely boring. It is hard to like something and think it is not boring when you don't exactly understand it the best. - In this chapter they talk about sensation & perception a lot. Sensation has to do with the process that our nervous system uses, and perception has to do with organizing and interpreting the information that we recognize in our every day lives. When you just view the definitions of the words it is a lot easier to understand to me, then when you put it in a more complex scenario. One of the things i thought was really interesting in this chapter was: The Sensory adaptation part of the chapter. Here they are talking about how when we are always stimulated in the same way, our senses get to be adapted to whatever it is and . They use a phrase in the chapter; "We perceive the world not exactly how it is, bus as it is useful for us to percive it." I thought that was a pretty bold, and also very true statement. One more thing i found interesting was: Transduction. It is like a conversion of one type of energy to another. When we have sensations, and when the stimulous energies, like sounds and smells, our bodys turn those things into something that is more easy for us to understand. When i think about that i think about the nervous system and automatic things that our bodies to to help us. Over all i think this chapter had some really good points in it. But a lot of it at a time is just hard to take in and understand all at one time.

.Illusion.Blog.

The ones that i did were:

1.Motion Induced Blindness
2.Stereokinetic Phenomenon
3.Rotating Snake
4.Snake Illusion Ad Lib
5.Pinna-Brelstaff Illusion
6.Waterfall Illusion
7.Spiral Aftereffect
8.Reverse Spoke Illusion

I didn't really learn anything from these illusions. But i guess what i did realize is that your eyes can play alot of tricks on you and that what you see sometimes isn't exactly what is happening. One thing can be happening, but you have to pay extra close attention some times to actually be able to understand what is really going on.

One thing that suprised me with these illusions is how people can come up with stuff like this. Like the reverse spoke illusion, its just a gray picture that has different shades and moves in the opposite direction. How do people come up with things like this just to have you eyes play tricks on you. It's weird, but it also is really hard to think about.

I think watching these little animations will help you change the way that you look at the world because it gets you to notice alot of the little things that you normally wouldn't notice. I think once you watch what is happening in these things, you will start to notice the little changes and things that happen in your life that you didn't pay attention to before.

I think these experiences, not necesarraly the ones that we watched, but in every day life, will help us concentrate on things that are so small that you tend to miss every day. They will help us to day to day by showing us and pointing out all the small changes that we missed before.

The Extra Credit Assignment

This extra credit idea that the teacher gave us i think is a fantastic idea. I haven't done it yet, but i did talk to my mom about who i should ask the questions to. So we were talking and i had a bunch of ideas as to who i could do this assignment with. My first idea was: That i could go to a nursing home and find a person there who would be willing to do this with me and answer the questions. I just thought that would be a great idea because there are so many people in nursing homes today that never get visitors and never have anybody to talk to, so i thought it would just make somebodys day if i was to go in there and want to have a conversation and here about some old man/womens childhood. My second idea was: That i could go to my moms moms house and talk to her about it and ask her the questions. I was thinking that would be a good idea, but then i got to thinking how her memory is just so bad and i would feel horrible asking her a question that she didn't understand. So i am not going to go to my grandma. So my last idea was: So, i'm not very close with my dads mom. So i was thinking i could go over to her house and do it with her, and that could bring us alot closer. And i really think that would just make her day. She really doesn't see much of me, so to have me go over there and start up a conversation about her childhood i think would make her feel really good. So i haven't completely figured out what i am going to do, but i think spending time with one of my grandparents and getting to know them a little better would do alot of good. This extra credit thing was just a great idea. We can get to know a stranger, or come closer with our own family. Just a great, great thing to do. I'm looking forward to it! :)

How Rewards Can Backfire

This article i found on the psyblog page. It was one of the top stories, so i figured it must be good and worthwile to read.

They say that the best was to get motivation is to dangle a reward in your face. So some psycologists were studying this, and figured out that rewards is the wrong way to go when you want to get something done. They say that they are "Overrated"

They did this test on children: They had all these kids and gave some of them a reward for drawing without them knowing about it ahead of time, some of them were just given the reward when they were done with it; it was called a surprise reward. And others didn't get a reward at all. So they tested these children, and figured out how motivation and bribing them with a reward would motivate them more or less then if they were not going to get a reward or wern't told about it. For a picture on this blog, i showed the little table that they included in the article showing the results of the experiment.

Other information that they told you about the reward was that: When people have a reward, they are not nearly as creative as they would be if they were not told about the reward. And that knowing about the reward gives the children, or anybody, really bad problem solving skills.

So i guess what this article is telling us is: When people are told they are going to get a reward for something before they are to do the experiment, they rush through things, don't think it out, and don't have good problem thinking skills.

Oh and nevermind about the picture. I couldn't get it to work! :(

.Personal.Blog.

So i don't really want to do 5 million psyblog things, so i figure i can do another personal blog. Anyway, so this week is really really hectic. Because i am taking a college course, i should have everything all organized and be responsible enough to take care of all my classes. Well, i forgot all of my school stuff in my boyfriends truck, so this week i haven't had any of my books, or notebooks for any of my classes! It is soooo bad! I haven't been able to hand in any of my assignments that are due, or write in my planner. I haven't even been able to use my own pencils. So nobody make this mistake.

So this week, even though it is only Wednesday night, i have had soooo much fun in school. We have been taking alot of trips in biology to get bugs from different rivers, and we have been looking at them, and i find that stuff really interesting. So it was really fun! And also, today, we got to dissect cow hearts, and i was wearing the aorta that i pulled out of the cows heart. It was really fun.

This week was just great so far. And i hope i don't get too bored with all of these blogs!

**Hereditability Assignment**

I'm not too sure what we are suppose to do with this assignment. If we are suppose to print it and hand it in, or talk about it in class. Or if we are suppose to somehow upload it or send it to the teacher through e-mail. Does anybody know? We were suppose to do those activities and then answer some questions. Somebody let me know! :)

Do Your Parents Matter Assignment Blog

I know we don't have to do a blog on this, so instead of doing a psyblog article, or a personal blog. I thought i would write about this assignment that we had to do.

The things that we have to answer on this sheet i think is really different than what i as expecting. When you read the assignment title you think, do your parents matter? Do they influence you life? I wasn't expecting to have to write about moving in with different people and seeing how my life would change. So if i was going to just write an article about if parents matter or not, it would go something like this:

My parents matter alot, and i'm sure alot of other students would say the same thing. They may have alot of rules and make us do alot of the things that we don't really want to do. But they really are only trying to better our lives and make it easier for us to do things in the future. The house work that we have to do teaches us what we are going to have to do when we are older. So why do we have to do so much, its like, we do the dishes once, we know it sucks, but they make us do it again and again, and AGAIN. We get the point. But then there comes the rules that we have. They make us be home by 12:00. They have reasons behind that too. Think about it. If you were at some party, and your parents tell you to be home at 12 and you stay there till 1 against their wishes, and this party gets busted, then you'll wish that you would have listened to them. It makes alot of sense. Like when i crashed my friends car, i told my parents i was in Wausau with that friend, when really i was with a totally different friend. I crashed the car outside of Marshfield, then i had to call them, 15 minutes after i lied to them about what i was doing and tell them exactly what had happened. If i would have just not lied and listened to them in the first place, none of that would have happened. Thats why i think now that i have to listen to them, because they have a reason behind everything they say and do. So guess what? They Matter!

.:Essentials of Group Psychology:.

So there was this article that i read on Psyblog, and it was very interesting. It was all about how people that you are around always influence you. In positive and negative ways and how we can't even control things. It talks about how when you are around people that are negative, it rubs off on you, and when you are around positive people, it does the same. They use the word "warp" in the article to describe it. I really do believe that is how it is. When you think about it: or when you think about peer pressure, that's how it goes. If one of or a few of your friends are trying to get you to do something or act a certain way, more times than none we do what they want us to do. Its bad and good i suppose. If they are trying to make us do positive things, it can be good that what they say affects us. But then again, if they are trying to make you do something bad, and you do it, that isn't good. It also talks about like, groups of people and how there is a leader in a group. It tells you how to figure out who that person is by picking out characteristics in the person, such as; how much they talk, how much control they have over you, believing what they say very easily, and knowing you can rely on them are some major factors. There really is a leader in every group of friends; think about how you are with your friends; do they run to you with their problems? Or are you the one going to them and listening to what they have to say? Also just the productivity of what we do in a group as well as our decision making and creativity. Everything we do is always influenced by people that we are around. Being in a group can help us in many ways, and they can also hurt us as well. So i guess you just have to find the right group to be around. People that ain't going to bash what you say, accept your ideas and thoughts, and also a leader or group that isn't going to not let them influence your reasoning or ideas. We have to respect the power that a group has on us, and not let someone take over us and walk all over us. Sometimes that is hard to find. Don't you think?

Personal Blog

So i know this happens to everyone how you sometimes just have so much on your mind and you just don't know how to deal with everything that is on your plate. But right now i just feel like there is so much going on in my head and i don't know how or what to do with it all. All the choices and decisons, how to deal with things, whats best for me, all that good stuff. How do we really even know if we are making the right choice. Don't you ever just want to test drive something before you make the real decision. But with the things that i'm dealing with right now, its really not possible. I will lay awake night after night debating what i should do. There is only a few people that really know what is going on in my life, but all those people that know what's going on really only know half of the story and not the whole truth. Why can't we just have a conversation with ourself? God, it's so hard to find the right person to tell everything to. And when you find that one person who knows everything, i always seem to find something that i have to hide from them. Being a teenager today seriously sucks. Ughhh.

..Conscisousness and the 2 Track Mind..

This chapter was pretty boring to me actually. I'm not sure if others thought the same way, but thats how i felt. The only really interesting thing i think was the driving activity where you learn about the different parts of the brain. That was pretty cool.

These different dream theories on page 107 were really kinda interesting. I didn't know that there were different theories behind your dreams. So thats something that i learned in this chapter that i didn't just learn, but that i will use it too!

One more thing that i learned was about the addictions and going through withdrawl. Its very interesting. Sure i have heard about it before, well, people going throught it and dealing with it. But i have never read about it like this before and saw it in a context. Its pretty cool to hear about and read about.

One idea that i thought was very interesting was the whole physical dependance thing. It has to do with withdrawl. I just didn't know there was an actual name for the pain that you go through. So that was very cool.

When i think about the whole withdrawl thing, it really brings into my mind what my brother goes through. He is an alcoholic, so i really agree with the whole pain thing that they talk about. Its not a good thing, but one thing i don't agree with is that they don't consider people that have withdrawls a person with a disease. They just consider it an addiction. So what i am trying to say is that i think they should be talking about how it is not only an addiction, its also a disease.

Are You a Liar?

This article i got from psyblog.com, it was so interesting. You don't really think about how much people lie... and in reality, we really do lie allot. Even if it's not even a big lie, maybe it's only a little white lie, but we still do it. All the time. Just say we went home and our parents asked us how school was, just to get them off our back, we say it was good. There is a lie, right there. This article really does teach you allot. It kinda explains to you if you are a liar or not. Cool cool.

Just like what i just explained about the white lies, in this article it is exactly how i explained it. Its so bad, why can't people just be outright honest all the time.

Good article! Read it! You will learn allot!