A computer gamer in Osnabrueck, Germany. / Getty Images

BY: Jack Butler March 26, 2017 4:50 am

What if the Internet shut down?

The Internet is so enmeshed in modern life that such a question seems unthinkable, an apocalyptic disaster of the sort reserved for fiction, such as E.M. Forster's startlingly prescient 1909 short story"The Machine Stops." But at the end of February, huge swaths of the Internet went dark due to problems with Amazon's servers. (The cause was a typo.) A similar outage occurred last October. That time, though, it wasn't accidental. The culprit was a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on key aspects of the Internet's infrastructure. The attackflooded vitalwebsites and services with requests, amplifying itself through loosely secured, Internet-connected devices. Such devices, includinghousehold fixtures like wireless printers and DVD players, are known collectively as the "Internet of things."

Mary Aiken's The Cyber Effect: A Pioneering Cyberpsychologist Explains How Human Behavior Changes Online deals only tangentially with such threats to the Internet. But, after reading it, one is tempted to hope that an attacksucceeds in bringing the whole thing down.

Aiken didn't set out to make the case for nuking the Internet from orbit. Her goal was rather to dissent from typical tech reporting, which breathlessly focuses on the relentless pace of change or submits paeans to Silicon Valley. Instead, she observes dispassionately how the Internet, smartphones, and related items affect us. As Aiken somewhat clumsily notes, "[w]e are living through a unique period of human history, an intense period of flux, change, and disruption that may never be repeated." At the same time, she submits another awkward, obvious, but important message: "What is new is not always goodand technology does not always mean progress."

Aiken struggles through parts of the book to convey her thesis. Virtually every page bears a trite phrase (beginning with the JFK-quoting epigraph "Children are the world's most valuable resource and its best hope for the future"), some meaningless filler (the first words of the book proper are "I am sitting on a cold, hard bench"), or a pointless rhetorical question (my favorite was "where am I going with this?"). Aiken could have used a better editor.

Moreover, the authorhas a curious habit of explaining or discovering the obvious. Is it really that surprising to learn that "people behave differently when they are interacting with technology than they do in the face-to-face real world"? Is anyone shocked to find that "the more you mention something, the more you normalize it"? Did she really need to define "content analysis" and "logic" for readers?

Yet the importance of Aiken's message inclines me to forgive these faults. The meat of the book isdata and anecdotes about technology's effects, and she is at her best simply conveying these. Aiken rightly notes that "[t]he impact of technology on human behavior begins at birth and ends at death," and providesplenty of striking examples to show how technology may be deforming human behavior.

There's what Aiken calls "online syndication," or the way the Internet has allowed all sorts of warped individuals to organize aroundtheir fetishes and festering ideas. There are the video game addicts who have literally played themselves to death, and the ever-growing cohort of mostly young males who may not be literally dying but who are increasingly checking out of the real world for the more reliable stimulants of video games and pornography. Aiken cites psychologist Philip Zimbardo's claim that the average boy watches 50 pornographic videos a week, and will have played ten thousand hours of video games by age 21.

And then there are today's infants and children, the first generation raised entirely in a digitally saturated world. As Aiken notes, we will not know how staring at screens for hours from birth will affect the neurological development of today's children,or how social media will affect the self-image of today's teenagers who have spent their entire lives cultivating themselves forit, until it's too late. Don't forget the children harassed in online game worlds or lured into prostitution; horror stories of this kindmay convince you of the need fora separate Internet just for kids, an idea Aiken endorses. These and countless other examples, drawn from headlines and psychological literature, enliven the book, and nearly suffice as expiation for other faults.

The Cyber Effect may not be the world's best-written book, but Aiken has performed an invaluable service by producing it. We desperately need pushback against the tech-addled mores of our time, which encroachon us seemingly from every direction, at every stage of our lives. The Internet has given us many great things, and it would probably be a bad thing on the whole if one of these cyber attacks does take it out. Nevertheless, we still must pay attention to the work of Aiken and others, consider the questions they raise, and try our best to resist the Internet.

Read more here:
Nuke the Internet From Orbit? - Washington Free Beacon

In 1962, a strange epidemic swept through several communities in Tanganyika, present-day Tanzania. It wasnt a virus, but laughter among teenage schoolgirls. The contagious laughter, which lasted for about two and a half years, afflicted about 1,000 people and forced at least 14 schools to temporarily shut down.

Experts later determined that the origin of the epidemic was psychological, perhaps related to stress caused by the presence of British colonialism. But such events have raised scientific questions about why humans cant control behaviors such as laughing, yawning, coughing and shivering and why they spread among groups of people.

We are a part of a human herd whose behavior is often the involuntary playing out of an ancient neurological script that is so familiar that it goes unnoticed, wrote neuroscientist Robert Provine in his book, "Curious Behavior."

Consider what is really happening when your body is hijacked by an observed yawn or you spontaneously join others in a communal chorus of ha-ha-ha," Provine wrote. "You dont decide to yawn or laugh contagiously. It just happens.

Provinediscovered that people are 30 times more likely to laugh around others than alone. To date, there has been much research thats observed socially contagious behaviors in humans and animals, but scientists are just starting to look into what makes them ripple through groups of people.

Empathy may not have much to do with it

Many studies have suggested that empathy could explain contagious yawning. A study published a year ago, for example, indicated that women are more susceptible to catch yawns than men. Researchers also noted that women score higher on empathy tests, and thought the two might be associated.

Another study published in 2008 found that dogs may yawn in response to their owners, but not to strangers or other dogs. Researchers wrote that because dogs are incredibly skilled at reading human cues and generally have unique social interactions with people, there is the potential that dogs may also have developed the capacity for empathy towards humans, and may catch human yawns.

Other studies, however, suggest that empathy is less significant in contagious behaviors than we might think. A paper in 2014 published by Duke University researchers, for example, analyzed various factors that influenced yawning among more than 300 human volunteers. Scientists considered a number of influencers such as empathy, energy levels and age. They saw that contagious yawning decreased among older people.

In our study, there was a connection between contagious yawning and empathy, but it was explained by a stronger connection between contagious yawning and age, said Elizabeth Cirulli, a geneticist at Duke University and an author of that paper.

Other research also showed that young children arent likely to catch yawns from other people, either.

Itch researchers at Washington University believe empathy has very little to do with such behaviors. This month, they published a study in the journal Science that showed that mice will scratch themselves in response to seeing videos of other mice that have chronic itch problems.

At the beginning, this [experiment] may sound like a crazy idea because, as you know, mice are nocturnal. They have very poor vision, said Zhou-Feng Chen, director for the schools Center for the Study of Itch.

Chen and his colleagues examined the brains of the non-itchy mice in the study and found that a specific

region, called the suprachiasmatic nucleus, released a chemical thats been known to signal when theres an itch that needs to be scratched.

Basically, our study shows those kinds of contagious behaviors are instinctive behaviors and are hardwired into our neurocircuitry, Chen said.

However, more research is needed to understand exactly how involved the brain is when we uncontrollably copy each others behaviors. As Cirulli noted, other factors need to be examined. Empathy, she said, shouldnt be ruled out, but is likely just as connected to such behaviors as height is to weight.

I dont think empathy is totally unrelated, Cirulli said. Its just that its absolutely not everything thats going on with contagious yawning. In some cases, its a proxy for something else.

We behave like the pack to survive

In the animal kingdom, one principle that prevails is strength in numbers. Snow geese, for example, will fly in groups as large as 5,000. A pack of zebras will whine loudly when they detect a predator nearby.

Some scientists believe that humans evolved to uncontrollably copy others behavior, as a means of communicating important information.

You can imagine millions of years ago when animals lived widely and maybe living in places where there are parasites," Chen said. "If all the animals begin to scratch, it could mean the area that theyre in may be dangerous.

He further speculated that as scratching became a regular way to alarm others that they needed to leave certain environments, its possible that the behavior became innate and written into our genetics over time.

From an evolutionary point of view, contagious behaviors actually help animals to better survive because you dont have to learn everything from scratch, Chen said.

How the brain works

While it might seem frivolous to study why we catch yawns and participate in other kinds of unconsciously provoked micmicry, the research could provide fundamental insight into how our brains work and develop. For instance, a 2009 study by University of Zurich researchers showed that contagious yawning and laughing happened much less frequently with people who have schizophrenia. Yawning also spread much less among people with autism.

Such findings still need further research to be understood. However, its promising that contagious scratching is observed among mice, for example, since theyre often used as experimental subjects to understand brain diseases.

Reflecting on her contagious yawning study, Cirulli mused that it would be interesting to study how genetics might influence a persons susceptibility to this behavior and how that might be connected to neurological conditions.

Because big genetic studies have been done on schizophrenia and autism and other diseases, you can calculate someones risks of developing those diseases from their genetic information and you can see if its associated with contagious yawning, she said.

Follow Eli Chen on Twitter:@StoriesByEli

See original here:
Contagious yawning, laughing and scratching gives clues to how the human brain works - KBIA

Bandung Mayor M. Ridwan Kamil says that his grandfather, the late cleric K.H. Muhyiddin, had a lot of wisdom, particularly relating to kindness and human relations, that is worth spreading among people.

Muhyiddin was the man who established the Pagelaran Islamic boarding school (pesantren), whose branches are scattered across the province of West Java.

The boarding school itself was established in the Subang regency by Muhyiddin around the year 1880. In line with the socio-political atmosphere of that time, the boarding school was also set up in Sumedang and other parts of the West Java province.

The boarding school contributed significantly to Indonesias struggle for independence from the colonialists. The Pagelaran boarding school in Subang, for instance, was once the base camp of the Hizbullah movement fighting the incipient nations colonial masters.

We have to remember the fighting spirit of the boarding house, carrying it to the present, where the boarding school has to remain active in contributing to nation building, Ridwan said.

Furthermore, he also said that his grandfathers wisdom and exemplary behavior should be emulated by the public.

I also hope that his exemplary behavior can inspire the generations to come. He believed that human beings could be more useful [for their fellow humans] if they engaged in creative activities in their lives, Ridwan said during the third congress of the Pagelaran Islamic boarding school management coordination institution in Bandung, West Java.

According to Ridwan, he has witnessed concrete examples demonstrating that his grandfathers beliefs really ring true in our day-to-day lives.

-(Photo courtesy of Bandung city administration/-)

Our generosity in sharing knowledge and maintaining our connections with other human beings will only lead us to experience more kindness, which is infinite in nature, he said.

By spreading kindness to other human beings, we actually leave footprints that will be remembered by other people, even long after we have passed away.

In order to sustain the legacy of his grandfathers exemplary behaviors, the mayor said he dreamt of setting up a Pagelaran boarding school in Bandung, as an institution that will preserve great values among young people.

We have so many land plots in Bandung that we can make use of. As a mayor, I have facilitated the activities of various mass organizations, religious and non-religious. If we are able to manage these activities positively, many people will respond to this initiative in an enthusiastic manner, he said.

Excerpt from:
We should emulate KH Muhyiddin's exemplary behavior: Bandung Mayor - Jakarta Post

How to predict violence after leaving an abuser

We know that leaving is the most dangerous time for a domestic violence survivor. Abusers often lash out in an attempt to regain control over their partner or may resort to extreme violence, even homicide, because they feel they have nothing left to lose. But not all abusers escalate violence when the survivor leaves. So how do you know if your abuser will?

There are plenty of stories in which an abuser becomes violent after the survivor decides to end the relationship, even though no physical abuse was present while they were together. Survivor Audrey Mabrey has one such story she told DomesticShelters her husband became violent for the first time only after they became estranged.

For the most part, though, examining your partners behavior during the relationship will give you the best clues as to how he will act once you leave.

Danger Ahead Red Flags to Watch For

Human behavior is one of the hardest things to predict, says Melanie Carlson, MSW, a former shelter advocate and case manager who is currently working on her Ph.D. in gender-based violence. Still, past behavior is the most predictive of future behavior. There are often clear patterns in behavior.

Domestic violence has a high rate of recidivism, meaning if it happens once, its likely to happen again. A Bureau of Justice survey found that women ages 35 to 49 who reported an incident of intimate partner abuse had previously been abused by the same partner.

If your partner was physically abusive during the relationship, he or she may continue to be physically abusive after the relationship ends. And if the physical violence escalated during the relationship, it is best to assume it may continue to escalate after leaving. There are other red flags to look out for, too, Carlson says.

If there was physical abuse while pregnant or in public, strangulation, threats with a weapon or statements like, If you leave, Ill kill myself, use extreme caution when leaving, she says. Those kinds of behaviors show theyre really not concerned with consequences.

Access to weapons is another predictor of intimate partner homicide, particularly intimate partner femicide, or the murder of a woman. A womans chance of being murdered by her abuser increases by 500 percent if a gun is present in the home.

Abusive partners with any military or police trainingthat makes the situation more dangerous because of their access to weapons and being more effective at doing max physical harm, Carlson says.

Dont Ignore Nonphysical Warning Signs

Of course, abusers may resort to violence once the relationship ends even if they werent physically abusive during the relationship. Carlson recommends taking caution when leaving a relationship if your partner showed any signs of controlling behavior, including financial abuse, sexual coercion, isolating you from loved ones, verbal abuse and gaslighting.

If youre dealing with any of this, its best to talk to someone who has expertise in safety planning and the resources to get you the help you need, Carlson says. Call a hotline or reach out to a shelter to talk to someone who can coach you through all the mechanisms you can use to leave safely.

Thinking about leaving but scared of what your partner might do? Read Leave Without Dying (bit.ly/2oaNbmW) for tips on what to think about when it comes to getting out safely.

Relief After Violent Encounter - Ionia/ Montcalm, Inc. (RAVE) offers free and confidential services to survivors of domestic and sexual violence in Ionia and Montcalm counties. For more information, visit http://www.raveim.org. If you are a victim of domestic violence or sexual assault, call RAVEs 24-hour crisis and support line at 1-800- 720-7233.

Link:
'Will my partner be violent after I leave?' - Sentinel-Standard