Saturday, January 31, 2015
Reading Is for Everyone!
One thing that sprung up on my mind lately was reading. Reading is one of my favorite things to do. Books have always been a great escape for me when I was stressed or something to do when I was bored. As I got older, reading slowly left the picture as school consumed more of my time. What's of importance about books that I had to talk about them is the fact of how important they are. Books are limitless. There are books on about anything and everything you can think of and even if reading is not your favorite thing, chances are you can find a book you like. They are what we use to learn, to spread information, to pass time, and they are timeless. Books written hundreds of years ago, we're still reading today. From all the genres to the plot line, books have so much to offer. We always take away something from them. That is what I love the most about books, that we learn so much from them. Books have widened how I see the world, and have offered different perspectives to life. Some thing to pass on if reading is not your thing, is to read until you do find something you like. Reading is such a big part of everyday life that we might as well enjoy doing it, especially if you're a student! Some advice for finding books you like is to read randomly. A good place to start is to think about what fascinates you and looking for books about that. If that's not working, then you could always go for the book with an interesting title or cover. Lastly, you could pick a book that's really popular (it has to be popular for a reason). Whatever works best for you, just know that the choices are endless, so if you bump into a few books that aren't so good, don't lose hope. You will find your dream book soon enough. Happy reading!
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Social Media and Stress
While scrolling across Google articles, I come across
multiple that talks about a new study that came out that talks about how social
media does not cause more stress in people. This statement made sense to me and
didn’t make sense to me at the same time. Some people are always concerned
about the likes they are going to get, and if they are going to get a lot. Then
there are the other people who couldn’t care less and have social media for the
fun of it. What the studies revealed was that social media is not directly
linked to stress, but the material posted on social media can affect people and
cause stress in them. “The relationship between
stress and social media use is indirect. It is the social uses of digital
technologies, and the way they increase awareness of distressing events in
others’ lives, that explains how the use of social media can result in users
feeling more stress.”(1)
I then continued onto read what can affect your stress level
when looking on social media is how close you are to someone, and what they are
posting. If you are close with someone and they post something distressing, you
will be stressed out. “The
burden you feel after hearing about someone else’s struggles is the ‘cost of
caring.’”(2)
This made a lot of sense because, of course, people are going to feel bad for
their friend or family member when they share bad news; it is because we care
about them. There is also a flipside. If you aren’t as close with someone who
is posting stressful things, then you will actually feel a sense a relief that
you are not in the situation, as pointed out in the article “This is how Facebook stresses you
out, according to study,” “observing negativity far enough away in the digital sphere is
actually a reminder that things could be much worse.”(2)
Although unfortunate to the person experiencing it, it is a great reminder for
us to be grateful for our lives and our experiences. Social media has become a
significant part of everyday life, so knowing how it affects our lives is just
as important as knowing how it works.
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