Spotlight Blog 3: Option 1

We all face peer pressure in life. From small, meaningless things to big life decisions, we feel pressure from others to make a certain decision. A lot of times, the decision that others want you to make may not be the best one. For this reason, people need ways to deal with peer pressure. There are a lot of tips on the internet for dealing with peer pressure for all different kinds of audiences. For this post, I chose tips for college students, high school students, and athletes.

The first website I found was bestcollegereviews.org. Their first suggestion was to find a group of students that are focused on school. This is definitely a good first step. Surrounding yourself with the right people is very important. If your friends have the same values as you, it will go a long way towards not feeling peer pressure. Not everyone has the same values though, and even if you find a group of friends that are focused on school, stuff happens and you could still find yourself in an uncomfortable situation. Whether it is alcohol, drugs, sex, or something else, you might need a way to deal with pressure. The website says to say “thanks, but no thanks” to offers to do something you are not comfortable with. If that does not work, politely leave the situation. Finally, if neither of those work, get in contact with an adult you trust. I think these tips work in an ideal world and should usually work but sometimes people will keep pressuring you. In that situation, being all nice about it will not really work. You should be firm or even get aggressive. It might not be the best for your relationship with that person but it will get you out of that situation. Getting out of the situation is usually the best way to deal with peer pressure.

The next website was 6 tips for dealing with peer pressure in high school. It is by teens.drugabuse.gov. I read through it and it really was not tips. The article was more of excuses to give people so you avoid drinking or doing drugs. These are good to have but they’re nowhere near perfect. People will eventually pick up on the excuses and one of two things will happen. Either you get left alone or pressured more. In the case that you get left alone, then the excuses did their job. But sometimes people will keep pressuring you. The website does not really give any tips for if you find yourself in this situation. If that situation does come up, it is probably best to follow the tips from the first website and politely leave.

My final website was tips for dealing with peer pressure for athletes. Peer pressure for athletes is a little different than regular peer pressure. It comes more as pressure to perform. This pressure can affect your performance positively or negatively depending on how you handle it. Their first tip is to reframe the pressure. Instead of seeing it as negative, see it as positive. This change in perception is huge. It puts you in a much better mindset which will go a long way towards performing better. They then say to reduce external and internal sources of pressure. Parents, coaches, and for some athletes, reporters can put a lot of pressure on. The website suggests that you talk to them about it. A lot of times, your parents and coaches do not know they are putting pressure on you and talking to them and letting them know will get them to stop. You also put pressure on yourself to perform. The website advises that you let it push you to perform better. Their next tip is to know the symptoms of pressure. If you can recognize the pressure, you can start to deal with it. The first step is knowing it’s there. Their next tip is to use the pressure in your training. Knowing you have a big game coming up can push you to work harder to get ready. This can be really good for you but it could also spell disaster if you overdo it. You have to make sure you are using the other methods of dealing with pressure, not just training. So many athletes have gotten hurt from pushing themselves too far while getting ready for a big game. Their last tip was to make a checklist. If you have a specific process that works for you, it is best that you write it down and follow it. Pressure could make us do some things that could harm our chances of success, having a checklist can keep you from doing something out of the ordinary.

Week 15 First Impression: Option 2

At all points in life, you can never really know what someone is going through or dealing with. Mental illness can be sneaky like that. Someone seems fine on the outside but is really struggling on the inside. Thankfully, there are many organizations working to help people with mental illnesses get healthy again. One of those is Change Direction, a campaign supported by Michelle Obama. Their website shows some ways for people to keep good mental health, signs that someone may have a mental illness, what to do if someone is suffering, and some public service announcement videos. I think the campaign has a good chance to be successful. They give out clear, easy to follow steps for people to take in order to improve their mental health. They explain possible signs of a mental illness really well. In my opinion, the most important information they give are the ways to help those dealing with mental illness. A really close friend of mine at home was dealing with mental illness at one point. Along with the feeling of worry about my friend, there was this other feeling of having no idea what to do. They’re better now but at the time it was an awful feeling. Those tips would have gone a long way. I think the only real weakness of the campaign is that a lot of this is done on your own. I could see people checking in on themselves or others and just saying, “Oh, I’m fine” or “Oh, they’re fine” because they might be afraid of what it means if everything is not okay. Some college students will pay attention to this and some won’t. A lot of times, students just try to push through until they get a mental break. It’s not really healthy at all but with everything else you need to do in college it gets the job done. I think if Etown was to do a mental health campaign, they should model it after Change Direction. It would help the people who really need it.

Media Production Project

For over a century, neuroscience has believed that memories are stored in the synapse of neurons. This thinking has driven efforts to treat mental illnesses like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Alzheimer’s. Findings from a recent study could potentially shake up all of this. Scientists at UCLA have found evidence suggesting that memories are not actually stored in the synapse and could possibly be located in the nucleus of the neuron.

The study, led by David Glanzman, focused on neural activity in a mollusk called Aplysia after it was given pulses in its tail. The Aplysia were put into groups and given the pulses. Then, after 24 hours, they were either given more pulses, nothing at all, or a blockade that should prevent the memory from coming back. In order to find out whether the Aplysia still had the memories of the pulses and how strong they were, the scientists looked at the varicosities in the neuron’s synapse. Varicosities are areas that react to the pulses. Glanzman’s team then ran two more experiments; one with another blockade and one with a blockade and more shocks to see if a memory could be “brought back”. The expectation was that the amount of varicosities would go up with the amount of pulses and that the varicosities that were made by the pulses would stay there.

Surprisingly, not all of the scientists’ expectations were met. The Aplysia that received two rounds of shocks had more varicosities. Ones that received either the blockade or nothing kept the same amount. This was expected but what the scientists did not see coming was the varicosities not staying in the same place. Some new ones formed and ones that were there for the first measurement disappeared. The second experiment followed the same pattern and the third experiment gave Glanzman’s team another perplexing result. Even when the Aplysia were given the blockade, memories of the previous pulses could be triggered by more pulses. None of these findings were consistent with the accepted theory that memories were stored in the synapse. This led the scientists to believe that 100 plus years of thinking could possibly be wrong. Memories may not be stored in the synapse.

Now while these findings could mean big changes in neuroscience, the experiment does not allow for causal claims. Before anything can be set in stone, more testing must be done and testing must be done on the human brain. To the scientists’ credit, this was acknowledged and they said there would be more experimentation to come.

There is a long way to go before it can be proven that memories are not in the synapse but imagine the implications if it is. Treatment for PTSD and Alzheimer’s is based off of the thinking that memories are stored in the synapse. This could change everything about how these illnesses are handled. New, more effective treatments will come out for those suffering. People will get their lives back, families will get their loved ones back. And on the negative side, people will have thrown away loads of money based off of false thinking. If Glanzman and his team are correct, their findings have the power to change science.

 

 

Reflection:

This project gave me a lot of insight into what being a journalist really is. There is so much more that goes into writing an article that I previously thought. Along with just summarizing something, there are deadlines and restrictions. All of that just adds stress. For me, the words restriction was the hardest to overcome. The article I found was a little over 550 words and it seemed like there would not be a problem at all. Then I started typing and came up on my restriction pretty quickly. I had to go back and really make my word use more efficient and that was really hard. In the end, I was able to get all of the information I wanted in but there were some details left out in the process. Most of the information that was left out had to do with the procedure of the experiment. There were a lot of steps taken in each procedure. I felt like I could leave them out because they were not very controversial steps and I thought I was able to give the reader a good understanding of what was happening even without those steps. What the findings of the experiment meant were the most important to me and leaving out the steps in the procedure gave me the space I wanted to talk about the findings. This project has not really changed how I see journalism but it does give me a new respect for it. The writing itself is not that difficult but what did it for me was the decision making. You need to think long and hard about what you need the reader to see and how you can do that given your restrictions. I can honestly say I was not prepared for that aspect but working through it was pretty eye-opening.

 

Links:

Original Article:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/memories-may-not-live-in-neurons-synapses/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Scholarly Journal:

https://etown.instructure.com/courses/5871/files/996724?module_item_id=212156

 

Johari Window Blog

Our psychology class recently did a project where we created a Johari Window. Basically, you select 5 to 6 traits from this wall of about 40 that you think describe yourself the best. You then send it to other people and have them do the same. At the end, you have an idea of what people think of you. Selecting the traits that best describe myself was a weird process. It really made me look myself in the mirror and to be honest, it was a lot harder to see that I imagined. I wanted to pick traits that I believed described me but also that other people would believe described me. The results actually surprised me a little. I had ruled out some traits that I thought described me because I did not think others would feel the same way. As it turned out, when everyone else filled out my window, those traits that I had previously ruled out were the most popular ones. It was eye opening and it made me happy to know that people saw me as I thought I saw myself. I also felt a little stupid for doubting myself in the first place. This project taught me to believe in myself a little more and that I do a pretty good job of actually being the type of person I want to be. I’m not sure how valid of a test this is. Sometimes, people could just pick “good” traits and not actually reflect who someone actually is. When done properly though, it gives a really cool perspective. Despite what a lot of people, including myself, may say, we care about what others think. The Johari Window is a good tool to show that.

http://kevan.org/johari?view=benthorpe