The long-term psychological impact of social media on individuals and their individual sense of “self” remains to be seen. But there is one thing we do know. Our daily lives have been digitized, tracked, and tied up in metrics. Our real selves have split into online avatars and profile pictures and status updates.
And while social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are powerful tools that have the potential to build communities, connect relatives in far-flung places, leverage careers, and even elect presidents of the United States, they are also unleashing a myriad of complex psychological issues that have altered our collective sense of reality.
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Envision a world where patients can attend a weekly therapy session—confiding every thought and fear that is preventing them from living their fullest life—but instead of sitting on a proverbial couch in a therapist’s office, they are streaming live in high-depth video from the comfort of their own home.
Put an iPhone or iPad in the hands of a typical two-year-old and prepare to be amazed. She can not only find the app to play her favorite “Ponyville” game, she will
probably also organize your contacts with touch-screen skills that are quick, deliberate, and intuitive.
In San Juan de Lurigancho, an impoverished district on the steep outskirts of Lima, Peru, approximately one million people are reinventing their lives.
“Many people who live in Lurigancho have left their homes in the jungle or the mountains during the recent terrorist period which ended around 2000,” explains Dr. Carroll Cradock, a former president of The Chicago School of Professional Psychology who now serves as an honorary faculty member in the School of Human Sciences at Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas (UPC), TCSPP’s partner institution in Lima, Peru.
Dr. Azara Santiago-Rivera learned about social injustice and inequality at an early age. Her father was in the Army, so her family traveled extensively, adopting cultural norms at every new location. While they embraced and celebrated the diversity around them, others did not. Being of Puerto Rican heritage, her family was often subjected to overt racism and discrimination.
In an issue devoted to the psychology of social media, we decided to launch a Q&A discussion about a topic that is having a direct impact on our industry—the American Psychiatric Association’s proposed addition of “Internet addiction” to its newest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-5. We chose three faculty members to interview on three aspects of the debate: defining addiction, the impact on families, and why Facebook might be in a category of its own.
It’s not often that a psychology student gets to meet an official from the Israeli Consulate, or a woman whose sister was pronounced dead after a terrorist attack, or a famous hostage negotiator from the FBI.
D.C. Campus Receives $1.8 Million Grant to Launch New Academic Leadership Program for Women. Dr. Orlando L. Taylor, president of The Chicago School of Professional Psychology’s D.C. Campus, says a $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will help serve an urgent need in the higher education community.
As a young man, Patrick O’Connor pored over the pages of The Flash, comparing his plot in life to the trials faced by his favorite comic book character. It made sense. Here he was, a struggling student, transferred from the South Side of Chicago to the manicured lawns of the suburbs, trying to
figure out who he was, and where he was going.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL MEDIA: FINDING BALANCE IN AN EVOLVING DIGITAL WORLD.
It has become exceedingly clear that social media is and will continue to be an integral part of our lives for decades to come. Who could argue that helping people to connect and communicate with each other regularly is not a good thing, especially in times of crisis and tragedy, when it allows each of us to quickly share life-saving information or respond to a national tragedy? Communication brings us together as a human and global family.
Dr. Michele Nealon-Woods, …
