Megan Novelli's Archive

Addicted.

0 Commentsby   |  11.29.10  |  The Schools of Psychology (Part IV-B)

1. Media

2. Tobacco

3. Alcohol

4. Recreational Drug

5. Food Addiction

6. Gambling

7. Prescription Drugs

8. Sex Addiction

9. Shopping

10. Work Addiction

These are the top ten addictions in todays society.

I believe that people use these things as excuses to escape from having to deal with emotional, financial, household, and other problems in their lives. All of these are readily available, and mostly legal substances for adults or anyone to use. But its shown that prolonged or excessive use can lead to a problem with addiction. Some do however have addicting substances contained within them, such as the nicotine in cigarettes. Some are even considered good for you such as work but it is yet again an escape if it becomes too great of importance in your life. Just about anything can become an addiction in your life. There are many contributing reasons out there for someone to have addictions; genes, an early use of drugs, social environment, childhood trauma, etc. but I believe that it is mainly a choice when it comes to addictions. Whether they have a strong enough convictions no matter what they are to lead them away from what pulls them toward addiction. I myself have experienced that pull and was able to stave it off.  I did it for myself and my family, it is a hard thing to do but it isn’t even close to being impossible. I believe that anyone who isn’t able to cast off the chains of addiction just needs to find their cause, it’s just a matter of being strong enough to do it and everyone has that strength within they just have to access it.

http://upcoming.current.com/search?q=10+Most+Common+Addictions+in+America

Smart House

3 Commentsby   |  10.25.10  |  The Schools of Psychology (Part IV)

Our text defines artificial intelligence (AI) is defined as a “special branch of computer science that investigates the extent to which the mental powers of human beings can be captured by means of machines.”  The first thing that came to mind was immediately the movie Disney movie from the 90’s,  Smart House. The plot of the movie involves a family, “The Coopers win a “House of the Future” complete with a virtual housemaid codenamed “PAT” (Acronym: Personal Applied Technology). The PAT AI is great for house maintenance, throwing massive parties and making sure the family runs smoothly and flawlessly. But when Nick starts going out with Sarah, the person who created the smart house, Ben reprograms the PAT’s AI Behavior to act more motherly (and makes her watch 1950’s sitcoms), so no one will think that they need a mother. PAT gets far too overprotective, chaotic, and mad, and it’s up to Sarah and Ben to work together and defeat a very smart house (controlled by the now-motherly cybermaid) which tries to take over and control what they see and do.”

Disney\’s Smart House (part 1)

Smart House gone wrong

The reality behind this is that there are houses out there available to live in.  They can make life easier but along with technology also come problems.  I believe most everyone has experience a complication with technology one was or another.  From losing a paper due to a computer crash or simply not having cell phone service in an area.  Computers can only be as smart as those who design them. So where is this to lead us?

Humor

2 Commentsby   |  10.04.10  |  Announcements

“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” Proverbs 17:22

Glass Door:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHergy3iILs

How does one know when to laugh at something and when not to?  Is it okay to laugh with someone if they are laughing at themselves?  What if someone trips, do we laugh at that? What if that same person tripped and hurt themselves, is it still okay to laugh?  We sometimes unconsciously evaluate situations and weigh certain factors such as social responsibility and social consequences when wondering if it is “okay” to laugh.  How do we know when to laugh or when not to? Dr. Robert Provine states “Laughter is part of the universal human vocabulary. All members of the human species understand it. Unlike English or French or Swahili, we don’t have to learn to speak it. We’re born with the capacity to laugh.”  Laughter provides a distinction between danger and an okay situation.  “One of the remarkable things about laughter is that it occurs unconsciously. You don’t decide to do it. While we can consciously inhibit it, we don’t consciously produce laughter. That’s why it’s very hard to laugh on command or to fake laughter… An evolutionary perspective of laughter would state that “We believe laughter evolved from the panting behavior of our ancient primate ancestors. Today, if we tickle chimps or gorillas, they don’t laugh “ha ha ha” but exhibit a panting sound. That’s the sound of ape laughter. And it’s the root of human laughter.”

Happiness In Music

1 Commentby   |  09.06.10  |  Pre-Renaissance (Part I)

The definition of happiness by  

Epicurus: "Happiness is man's greatest aim in life. Tranquility and rationality are the cornerstones of happiness."

 Are we all looking to find happiness? We all like to be happy.  We like when others make us feel happy and I would like to assume that we too like to makes others happy.  Helen Keller describe happiness: "True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose." Bette Davis  states: "You will never be happier than you expect. To change your happiness, change your expectation."  Musicians are by no means the "scholars" of modern time nor do the speak for everyone but I believe many if not all songs speak truth about life.  Happiness is a common reoccurring theme in all genres of music.  Sometimes the pursuit of happiness is seen as a bad thing that makes us do selfish things but others see it as the reason to do good. Some of the songs that first come to mind are:

Saves The Day- Obsolete
"Who says what happy really means?

Tonight I will redefine everything and tomorrow I will start in on my better days
And so each their own definition of happiness
But no one ever reaches it so I don’t think I’ll breathe that way
But happiness is when there’s nowhere left to go

Because in that state of mind there is no state of self"

The Weepies- Happiness

"It's a mean town but I don't care

Try and steal this

Can't steal happiness"


Dead Prez- Happiness
"If I had a chance to make a wish

Every day would be just like this, full of Happiness

I feel great

Even though we got mad things to deal with

Happiness is all in the mind

Let's unwind, and find a reason to smile

I'm just glad to be livin'

Feelin' fine

Leavin' my bad times behind"

The Fray- Happiness

Kid Cudi- Pursuit of Happiness

John Cougar Mellencamp- Love and Happiness
The Verve- Lucky Man
The Verve- Happiness Is

Megan Novelli's Comment Archive

  1. Megan Novelli on Fiction: Fulfilling Our Needs?
    3:41 pm, 11.29.10

    The world has become a fast pace race, everyone is seeking to get where they want to go the fastest that they possibly can, even advertisements want to get your attention first, everything and everybody has begun to move faster in order to maintain with everyone else. People do not like to just sit around anymore and do nothing anymore, they want something to occupy their time even for a split second. the busier a person is the better they feel they are maintaining with the world. Even if they are sitting they cant just let their mind sit still they need something to grab its attention and hold it. Some are still able to sit and read for entertainment but most people are unable to do just that. Our world has become so fast paced that we are letting our thoughts be overrun with everyone elses, we need to be able to sit alone sometimes with our thoughts just to know who we are and what we believe in.

  2. Megan Novelli on Is Hogwarts a Mental Institution?
    3:28 pm, 11.29.10

    This is interesting in the correlations but if you are just looking at the harry potter books point blank, you are reading too much into it. Take it for what it is a work of fiction for entertainment purposes. You could easily say the same for the movie avatar and how it correlates to the US invading the middle east. I just take these for point blank entertainment values.

  3. Megan Novelli on Self Diagnosis: Who Made You the Doctor?
    3:21 pm, 11.29.10

    I deem that people are ridiculous in the sense that they believe they are able or even qualified to diagnose themselves also think that people nowadays have developed a high sense of hypochondriasis and sites like webMD only further their sense of hypochondriacism. Even if the person has a serious illness, they could easily self diagnose it completely wrong and end up dead or seriously impaired, when they could’ve easily gone to the doctor and been properly diagnosed.

  4. Megan Novelli on Boomstick.
    3:16 pm, 10.25.10

    Ms. Myer,

    I was not surprised at all when I saw the Rangers’ picture. I was curious as to how you would try and relate them to this topic but you did so wonderfully. I (and I’m sure others as well) often find that I compare myself to others. This is seen academically or even in a nonthreatening environment, such as that with close friends. Like today for example when a peer had their paper returned (which I had proofed and therefore feel I deserve .2% of the credit) and saw their excellent grade and then saw mine. Mine was not bad but still we want to be as good if not better to those around us. If we stop striving to be better then we have less motivation. Yet, in comparing ourselves to others we sometimes just seem to feel inadequate.

  5. Megan Novelli on Bad Habits
    1:37 pm, 10.11.10

    I agree with you that if a person doesnt modify their behavior then they wont be able to change overall, that there would definitely be something residual there. I would also like to see those two programs side by side to see which is more effective in altering the person it is applied to because i believe the 12 step program would be a highly more effective program because it does stress behavioral change.

  6. Megan Novelli on Recapitu - what?
    1:28 pm, 10.11.10

    People have room for the god module and they use it, I agree with you that god made our brains receptive to him, which is why we came up with Christianity. Just because psychologists have discovered that we have a physiological response i dont believe that it is all necessarily physiological, i think that we have a spiritual connection which stimulates our physiology, almost like running releases endorphins.

  7. Megan Novelli on Right or Left Brained...
    12:07 pm, 10.11.10

    I believe that the philosophers used their predominate right hemisphere to search for conclusions and answers but they used the left as a guiding tool. Without the left there would be not boundaries and they would probably not come up with a solid conclusion that could be proven and back-traced. I think to be a one of the great philosophers you definitely need to have an active right brain with a guiding left to add support to the right.

  8. Megan Novelli on The Psychology of Religion
    1:46 pm, 10.04.10

    I think ACU is rather closed off and over protective in not wanting to push boundaries but they are progressively becoming more “edgy” (for lack of a better word). Last week in chapel they even played a clip from South Park, i mean come one, who would have ever thought that they would be watching South Park in chapel.

  9. Megan Novelli on What's Love Got to Do with It?
    1:36 pm, 10.04.10

    I think our genes do predetermine what we are looking for in our mates but only to a certain degree. culture, society and our families shape the rest of what we seek and what we want. Same goes for divorce, they may have produced healthy offspring but society and culture can influence the relationships as well as behavior. so i think genes play an important part but are nowhere near being the defining factor.

  10. Megan Novelli on Theoretical thoughts about empathy.
    1:31 pm, 10.04.10

    I thought that you are correct in your theory that when someone builds up their emotions when someone they know and/or like gets hurt they have to release it in some sort of fashion and that it can happen in concern or laughter depending on the outcome of their injury severeness.