Category: Connection

Have you at any point asked why there is so much misery, drug dependence, alcohol addiction, and brutality in our society? Is there a concealed reason for all of this? Perhaps it is the constant use of social media in our lives and the fact that even being without our phones can cause some people panic attacks. The introduction of frequent technological use has impacted our lives, therefore severing our connections to each other.

Some people believe they can live happily without connections, whatever they may be. However, human connection allows us to understand important values in our lives, such as empathy and the ability to build relationships. These relationships give us a sense of belonging, increasing our confidence and self-esteem. It makes us feel important, worthy and loved, it is an almost therapeutic-support system. In an increasingly isolated world, feeling socially connected is vital to our mental health.

Human connection can be hard for some, finding it difficult to really connect with another human at the heart level. We frequently attempt to squash or silence the unpleasant agony of detachment by being over-occupied, binge eating and drinking, gambling, using drugs, sex, shopping, and the overuse of technology – in fact, anything that changes our outlook for the time being. Empathy is important as it helps us understand how others are feeling, allowing us to respond appropriately to certain situations. However, with such early and easy exposure to horrible situations and events, people lose their ability to be shocked and therefore feel remorse. It would only take me five seconds now to look up a photo of a murder scene.

Video game usage is increasingly becoming a problem in modern society, with young children, particularly boys, and even adults developing addictions. These games expose and encourage violent outbursts and keep people from actually interacting with those around them. Instead, they develop relationships with strangers online, where the only topic of conversation is their hit score.

If you have ever felt detached from affection and devotion in your youth, it can be considerably challenging to confide in any kind of human connection as an adult. The decisions we make in our relationships whilst growing up impact our ability to form healthy relationships and connections as adults. However, with this logic, we are unfortunately heading towards a path where all those who are currently in their youth are relying solely on social media platforms to communicate with their ‘friends’, e.g., their followers.

Never in history have we had so many gadgets helping us connect with other people through social media platforms, and yet I doubt we have ever felt so disconnected from our soul and tribe, from our passion and compassion. We put ourselves in a contradictory and ironic situation when we realize that never before has it been so easy to say hello to an old friend, and then so easy to also completely ignore them.

Humans live for connection. We can’t function without it. So how will we function when we’ve lost all our connections?

Background

The question above is focusing on the study of the way our brains function that allows us to procrastinate causing us to postpone tasks that we have to get done and instead focusing on more satisfying activities. When we procrastinate we allow our bodies to focus on activities where our brains produce high amounts of dopamine. Procrastination isn’t just a lack of self-motivation and laziness but it’s mainly due to the internal activities your brain processes. There are several internal parts of our brain that cause procrastination; many of these internal factors I will be discussing and providing studies that have been done to further support the question this inquiry will be focusing on. Referring to research done by (Ferrari, Joseph) it is proven that about 20% of individuals are known to be chronic procrastinators, and furthering this reasoning about how and why these individuals procrastinate due to internal processes by providing different studies and evidence (Jaffe, Eric).

Evidence #1: Internal process of a procrastinator

Elaboration: Scientists have examined about 264 individuals using MRI to look at different regions of the brain and to find correlations between the different sections of the brain and how one section can affect another section of the brain. The individuals who were being examined also took a specific survey providing the scientists with deeper information on the level of control they have upon their actions. After examining and surveying these individuals, the biopsychologists at Ruhr University Bochum found that individuals who have a weaker control over their actions had a larger amygdala, which warns individuals about the negative effects a particular action can have and they also found out that people who have a weak ability to control their actions also have a weaker connection between their amygdala and their dorsal anterior cingulate cortex which uses information given by the amygdala to allow the individual to recognize what to do in a certain situation. According to (Sharma, Uma) having a weaker connection between your dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and your amygdala results in having a more difficult time controlling your actions, therefore causes a higher level of procrastination in specific situations.

Evidence #2: Connection between the DACC and procrastination

Elaboration: The DACC which is referred to as the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex studied and examined by the institution and department of psychology at Princeton University. The DACC is positioned in the brain where it is closely connected to the limbic system and the cognitive prefrontal cortex. DACC is found to be involved in pain processing, performance monitoring, decision making, emotions, learning, and motivation, which also plays a big role in procrastination. The DACC demands cognitive control; this can be defined as the set of mechanisms needed to reach a goal, more so when an individual is distracted or is procrastinating. An individual with a weaker DACC and weaker cognitive control results in a higher level of procrastination. The DACC is part of the frontoparietal “attention networks”; studies proven by MRI have displayed that the patterns of the anterior cingulate cortex depend on the task the individual is doing when the individual has a weak DACC, the cognitive control is minimized leading to the individual to instead put off tasks and rather focus on a more pleasuring task (Maria G. Cersosimo, Eduardo E. Benarroch).

Evidence #3: Distraction effectivity on procrastinators vs non-procrastinator

Elaboration: A case study that was done in 2007 had proven that students who were procrastinating at the beginning of the school semester experienced less stress and claimed to be healthier and experience fewer illnesses in comparison to nonprocrastinators. Individuals who were considered procrastinators were reported to be overly stressed and were experiencing high levels of illnesses near the end of the term due to the overwhelming load of school work and exams due to the weaker connection between their amygdala and their DACC which is the main cause of their hardship towards staying focus and completing tasks and assignments on time. According to Tuckman, Smith, and Abry, there are many emotional related excuses that allow individuals to procrastinate such as “not feeling the mood to do it” or “ lacking the initiative to get started” these emotionally related excuses connect to the level of connection individuals have between their amygdala and their DACC, this leads back to evidence #1 where I discussed that individuals who do have a weaker connection between their DACC and their amygdala are more likely to be a high level of procrastinators. People who do have a weaker connection between their amygdala and their DACC are studied that they have less control over their emotions that affect their goal reaching work ethic, leading to procrastination. A study called “Emotional Working Memory Task” was done on individuals and their ability to keep a goal-reaching mindset while being neutrally or emotionally distracted. For this case study, the individuals being tested had to keep particular information in their mind for a certain period of time, throughout this time period the examiners will be looking at individuals who show signs of emotional or neutral distraction. Individuals who were being examined were asked to give fast and precise responses to the probes while being asked to ignore any distractors, as a result, participants that had longer reaction time and poor precision due to emotional distractions were reported to be more highly distracted than participants that had an accurate and rapid response, due to being able to control and overcome those distractions. Researchers have noticed that in previous results of this study, individuals that had poor accuracy and slower responses had been reported to have a high rate of activity occurring in a specific section of their brain which is the central area of the brain and this section of the brain includes the amygdala and lower activity rate in the DACC section of the brain (Krause-Utz, Annegret).

As a result, I have concluded that individuals who struggle with high levels of procrastination have a weaker connection between their DACC and their amygdala. As of my evidence discussed above, many of the areas of the brain affect one another and connect to one another such as the amygdala and the DACC, having weak internal connections between these two results in high levels of procrastination.

As I listened to the TED talk of Sherry Turkle, I realized that technological know-how brings us to a tricky connection to a delusion world. Turkle states that technological know-how turns into an effective psychological device that controls humans. Nowadays, human beings use technology to join extra regularly than have physical communication. This state of affairs is authentic and observable. Some reasons would possibly be due to the fact of painful truth that no one is listening to us, in which we believed that science is more successful. We can’t deny the reality that it is handier to make a dialog through the virtual verbal exchange using our units than speak to anyone face-to-face, right? However, does the use of technology lead us to real connections to others, and is it successful in making a lifestyle that we can love?

According to Turkle, technological know-how is making a bid to redefine human connection. It can manipulate us on how we care for every other and ourselves, but it additionally permits us to confirm our values and our direction. If we let technological know-how control us humans, humans are indeed residing their lives in a fable world. It is now not top that we are always structured on technology to make the entirety take place the way we prefer it. We only maintain our lives extra tricky because we can’t make it occur in real time. As time goes on, we enjoyed nothing until we forgot the fee of solitude, the value of having real-time for ourselves. Because of being enormously dependent on technology, we additionally suppose that we are physically reachable to any person we are talking to, but the truth is we are lots extra concerned about the aspect which we are usually handed, our devices. But it is never a cease for us to rethink the impact of technology. We have to put in the idea that people create technology, therefore, we should be the one who is successful in controlling it. We have to think about how to use the technologies successfully and effectively to increase a more self-aware relationship with others and with ourselves.

Turkle cited that having a consistent connection helps human beings alter themselves, it’s shaping a new way of being. This suggests that human beings ought to have steady connections to the actual world. We have to locate a real associate in life, an actual connection to ourselves and others, to battle the struggles of being alone. Let us also use applied sciences in the right route to make the life that we can love.

The poem ‘Crossing Brooklyn Ferry’ by Walt Whitman focuses on human beings as social creatures by stating that humans are connected through life and their interactions with one another.

Whitman shows this in the poem in paragraph 3 where it is stated, “I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence;/ Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;/ Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;/ Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d;/ Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood yet was hurried;/ Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-stemm’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d” (Whitman, 22-27 ). The author is saying that whatever emotion the audience is feeling then, even if they are from different eras, he also felt that too. This is to show the relationship between the author and any and everyone who has ever been to that region share a common feeling, simply because they live in a common society, and also because they will be passing the same area, and will see the same river and natural things that he saw during his own course of this journey. Whitman uses ‘just as’ several times to emphasize the fact that they will have emotions that are alike.

In paragraph 4 he says: “These, and all else, were to me the same as they are to you;/ I loved well those cities;/ I loved well the stately and rapid river;/ The men and women I saw were all near to me” (Whitman, 50-54). The poet is additionally trying to say that he has a mutual feeling with the people in that region, just because they have visited this area, although they do not know each other they have established a bond. The poet specifically uses the words ‘near to me’, this just draws more attention to the fact that the poet is stating how close humans are to one another, even if they are not aware of it. The ferry which is being mentioned in the poem symbolizes the connection between human beings. This is because the ferry is the vehicle being used to transport people from separate generations to places. This helps to establish a connection between humans, meaning that even though they might not know each other, they have a simple connection through the ferry which is similar to life as an experience.

In paragraph 6, the poet says: “I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine;/ I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan Island, and bathed in the waters around it;/ I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me;/ In the day, among crowds of people, sometimes they came upon me” (Whitman, 60-63). The poet is trying to further explain that although times might change, people will rarely change. A famous proverb says: “There is nothing new under the sun”. This adage explains the central message that the poet is trying to communicate with the readers of the poem, which is that something that is occurring now has previously taken place and most likely will occur in the future. This repetition of the past helps to depict the social world that we live in, all because similar activities are taken place over and over again, without anyone or thing forcing these events into place, except human connections to each other and their surroundings.

To sum up, everything that has been stated so far in the poem ‘Crossing Brooklyn Ferry’, perfectly shows how the social world and human interactions work, hand in hand. Things and people may change, but nature and emotions will remain the same.