CONTROL STIMULI TO CREATE A CLEAR HEAD

“Cigarettes, alcohol, and commonly prescribed pharmaceuticals like Adderall and Prozac all come with warning labels. Has the time come for warnings to accompany the use of media, particularly social media? Is there unhealthy or unsafe exposure or dangerous doses so to speak?

On the surface, this may sound preposterous, but as you read these research findings below, ask yourself if you might rethink your exposure to media and start controlling it for yourself.

• A study in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research found that the closer you are to your (turned off) smart phone, the more it acts like mental kryptonite. Simply keeping it anywhere near you distracts you and can lessen your capacity to think.

• The more time people spent on Facebook, the worse they felt and the less satisfied they were with their lives, according to University of Michigan researchers in a 2013 article for PLOS ONE.

• People watching news coverage of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing reported higher acute stress two to four weeks after the tragedy than people who had direct exposure to the events at or near the bombings, according to researchers in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of United States of America (PNAS) journal.”

- Paul Napper and Anthony Rao from The Power of Agency