PsychAdemia

A BETTER WORLD – MY SYNOPSIS 

As part of the world’s constitution the social sciences plays important roles that govern our existence as well as other sciences. The age of enlightenment has forgone different kinds of revolutionary changes from the Stone Age to the Digital Age. The various fields of study have immensely sharpened our world. Thanks to endless research/experiments, and the ever probing minds of great thinkers such as Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt, Auguste Comte, karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Gordon Allport,  Cesare Beccaria , Charles Darwin, and a host of others to numerous to mention. Studies in behavioral patterns have pushed the frontiers and modified the barriers of the way psychology defines or perceives the individual as one unit of a societal collective.

We can only acknowledge that there has been a lot of a debate in regards to some theories and issues, and even then, their impacts have been felt in numerous ways both positively and negatively. (I’ll like to bypass those debates/issues for now). These are areas of interest criminology, sociology and most importantly psychology.

Sociology is simply the study of societies' various empirical investigations and critical analysis that have been used to develop composite knowledge about the social activities of humans. Auguste Comte defined sociology as the science of social phenomena "subject to natural and invariable laws, the discovery of which is the object of investigation". Psychology on the other hand is the study of the mind and behavior, the main objective is to understand individuals in the society, for example areas like motivation, personality, brain function and so on.

Lets take a journey down memory lane into the adolescent years, looking back at the past from elementary school to high school I could only imagine the influence that psychology or sociology would have had on young developing minds if introduced early enough. Back in high school the pre-requisites you needed to obtain admission into higher education were English, Mathematics and other subjects that were relevant to your intended course of study hence, six years of intensive study in these compulsory subjects, I remember having issues with mathematics, I really had no choice but to study hard to pass. Even when I knew my intended course had no need for mathematics.

As time has changed, western education has afforded the availability of a wider range of subject areas to choose from. Imagine a scenario where the rudimentary levels of Psychology or sociology were made compulsory, think about it for a minute when I say elementary I mean units such as their immediate family and school function in its societal structure. Imagine, a myriad of issues would have been solved or avoided by understanding the individual behavioral patterns of the immediate environment. For example knowing why a kid derived pleasure from bullying his mates - these could be issues stemmed from parental influence or transferred aggression. Think about the benefits this would have, if we simply layed out these foundational precepts through a thoughtfully revised curriculum, the end result- A more psychologically balanced generation, equipped with better people skills since we live in a world that is social driven where the core existence is based on human understanding and mutual respect.

Tuesday, 22 November 2011

The Boob Tube and the Mind

This is where I refer to as my personal space but through the world's eyes -yours. I mentally mumble and jumble quietly day by day, since writing has become my most fulfilling outlet, I have been doing a lot of that lately. 
Sometime last week during my "Crime and Media" class while we were discussing on the topic called watching crime fiction my mind wondered off into a state of reverie. Ever since the invention of the Black box in the early 1900's the world has never been the same. It has become like an addiction with no therapeutic cure, Eyes glued endlessly from generation to generation to keep one entertained, informed, educated or .........what ever the case maybe. Just as the various industries differ and increase over time, the boob tube has always kept up with various interests to keep us glued to feed our want.


The impacts are so enormous, so much so that research studies have been carried out to show its effects. Various researchers have deduced different results saying It affects your brain switching the left side of your brain to the right side, using an emotional response which results in little or no analysis of information, It reduces brain activity and promotes physical addiction just to mention a few, I was quiet surprised with some findings like its effect on increased death rate due to decreased mental productivity and shorter attention span. 
Need less to say everything has its good and bad sides. Since the inception of "the box" the good, the bad, the ugly and so much more have been viewed and registered in our minds and thoughts, albeit subconscious/conscious. 
From inventions to agents of destruction, earth to the moon, crime to justice, Mozart’s to Elton John, Ford to Aston martins, computers to tablets, flying machine to Airbus A340 and so on and so forth the transition of various industries have happened before our eyes through our favourite black box.


I remember growing up as a child, my mother always cautioned us about the kind of programmes we watched on TV. She always insisted we watch mostly movies with moral meanings and not just for entertainment all the time. I was always inquisitive and always hid to watch the "banned" movies or programmes as she put them, as time went on I began to see the relevance of her stern measures.
Being a TV junkie myself I have enveloped my sub-conscious in different genres of movies, documentaries and soaps from Historical, Musical, Soap Operas, Fantasy, Popular culture (horror, crime, detective) Action and of-course Romance, the list goes on and on. From American to British, Italian, Indian, French, African and East Asian movies, different stories have been told that we regard as our favourites based on our personal preferences.


I don’t have a particular favourite movie but because there are so many with different story lines and meanings. A few of my favs movies include: The Godfather I, II and III, Al Pacino, The Count of Monte Cristo, Troy, Cleopatra, Ben-Hur, Roots, The American Gangster, Brown Sugar, A beautiful mind, Hotel Rwanda, City of God, Fair Game, Bridesmaids,3 Idiots, I am Khan, Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas, Peter Pan, The pacific, Jet Li, Catch me if you can, Avatar, Diary of mad black woman, An affair to remember, Perfume- The story of a murderer , Pan’s labyrinth , Slumdog Millionaire, In-Time, Twilight . The list goes on but these are just a few that came to mind at the moment.


Please feel free to leave constructive comments and these are just some of my thoughts.


Toodle-oo!