I just watched the most fascinating interview of this woman Isabela Granic paired with Iain McGilchrist which will be an interesting one to share when the video from it is put out. It was part of a series just concluding put together by PERSPECTIVA. I especially enjoyed it because at the close they selected a number of twenty somethings to ask the questions.
One of the things she has been doing is teaching a college course on McGilchrist’s book The Master and His Emissary so she asked particularly good questions of him. But her own insights centered on developmental psychology were even more interesting and hopeful.
In the meantime here is a video about a video game designed specifically to help kids cope with anxiety, which would surely also be a healthier alternative for kids who play a lot of video games. I’d considered sharing this on the Education Forum and if anyone would like to move it there it would be fine with me.
I need to watch.
Oldest daughter is finishing her 3rd year of undergrad, living on campus. She has had a horrible time trying to connect with people, even her roommates! They are just never present, even if they’re in the apartment at the same time. Oldest Daugher’s apartment mate just leaves her door closed all the time, so it’s not even clear if she’s there or not.
The connection to devices, or rather, the preference for a virtual world/existence/relationships over the actual world with living people seems to have completely altered the way young adults interact. At least at CMU among my daughter’s acquaintances.
“Fear of the Ghosts is the beginning of Calmness.”lol.
I don’t understand how it works but it is really cool indeed. A lot of people I’m close to see also really big horror fans and often I hear one reason why they love horror is because it’s a crested fictional world full of terror that creates anxiety but because they are only able to suspend reality so much they are able to rationalize away the fear which in return helps them remain calmer in real world bad situations. The same logic they expressed reminded me of what the video mentioned about the game is supposed to create some anxiety so that they learn to better handle it.
My first sentence was a pun on “ fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom “ which seems countered later on by love casts out all fear. As a Christian, one major change that has developed in my life is from the more “ fear God because if you don’t obey him you don’t love him and if you don’t love him you’ll be tortured forever and ever in hell “ which overtime has turned into “ we don’t need to fear God because God is love and he’s there to help us “. So it’s more like fearing you’ll badly represent God and the church versus fearing some angry wrathful torturous being.
So with this game it makes me wonder, is it healthy to learn to cope with stress by ignoring it as in just putting it away or is it better to learn to cope with ut because you trust everything will work out kind of stuff.
Maybe an analogy will explain it better.
If superman’s gf/wife ( I’ve never seen anything about Superman except the Batman film ) fell from a roof would it be more emotionally healthy to handle the stress by saying “ ehhh if I die I die and just calm down “ or is it better to think “ im safe because Superman will save me “ type of thing.
Perhaps she could join a campus club? Even if it’s not official. There are normally tons of them. A lot of time younger people are scared of just reaching out. A lot of the same guys I’ve talked to who are afraid to approach a woman they think is pretty also are typically afraid of approaching a random group of men, or a individual, over being rejected as friend worthy.
Yeah. It’s nuts. She’s part of a neuroscience student group, but they don’t really do much socially. The FEW Bible study and Christian groups on campus have seemed vapid with really inexperienced leadership. Even the grad student she’s supposed to be helping in the lab doesn’t answer her communications.
I went to a commuter university on purpose; I wanted nothing to do with dorm live. But I had a great group of friends from Campus Crusade, got mixed up with some blind computer science grad students for a while, always had someone interesting to chat with before class. The drop dead handsome guy from my Brit Lit class who spent his weekends in gang shootings in Detroit; we chatted once in a while. People just interacted more, I think. Lots of pleasant short-term relationships, because it was more interesting to chew the fat with someone from a class than it was to stare at our shoes or read the text book, waiting for the previous class to move along, so we could get started.
How dismal. I did as you and went to a commuter college to begin with but, for me, mostly because I was older by the time I was ready to get serious and needed to work quite a bit too. Then, when I transferred to Cal that was just an easy walk from home.
I wonder if there are networks of neuroscience college students who would be at all helpful. Doesn’t take the place RL of course.
I really think @jstump might find her an engaging podcast guest. She shares in the interview how her own negative religious experience prevented her from making that available to her 17 year old sons. I’m sure there are quite a few more out there who find their way to a healthier regard for the sacred too late to help their kids.
