Superstimuli

Superstimuli PDF Author: Conrad Riker
Publisher: Conrad Riker
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
This groundbreaking book delves into the impact of superstimulus — technological products and behaviors that amplify our natural instincts and desires — on modern society. From social media's effects on mental health to online shopping's disruption of traditional commerce, the rise of superstimuli is driving cultural change and potentially harming overall well-being. Drawing upon scientific research and real-world examples, this book offers a thoughtful examination of the implications of technological superstimuli for both individuals and society at large.

Superstimuli

Superstimuli PDF Author: Conrad Riker
Publisher: Conrad Riker
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Get Book Here

Book Description
This groundbreaking book delves into the impact of superstimulus — technological products and behaviors that amplify our natural instincts and desires — on modern society. From social media's effects on mental health to online shopping's disruption of traditional commerce, the rise of superstimuli is driving cultural change and potentially harming overall well-being. Drawing upon scientific research and real-world examples, this book offers a thoughtful examination of the implications of technological superstimuli for both individuals and society at large.

Imaginative Culture and Human Nature: Evolutionary Perspectives on the Arts, Religion, and Ideology

Imaginative Culture and Human Nature: Evolutionary Perspectives on the Arts, Religion, and Ideology PDF Author: Joseph Carroll
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 2832502032
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description


Narrative Humanism

Narrative Humanism PDF Author: Moss-Wellington Wyatt Moss-Wellington
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474454348
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
This book attempts to clarify the narrative conditions of humanism, asking how we can use stories to complicate our understanding of others, and questioning the ethics and efficacy of attempts to represent human social complexity in fiction. With case studies of films like Parenthood (1989), American Beauty (1999), Little Miss Sunshine (2006) and The Kids Are All Right (2010), this original study synthesises leading discourses on media and cognition, evolutionary anthropology, literature and film analysis into a new theory of the storytelling instinct.

How to Calm Your Mind

How to Calm Your Mind PDF Author: Chris Bailey
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593298527
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
From the author of Hyperfocus, a treasure trove of practical, science-backed strategies that reveal how the key to a less anxious life, and even greater productivity, is a calm state of mind “After rebounding from his own burnout, Bailey devised a clear-eyed, concise method that marries science and self-help; he’s equally proficient in probing the roles of serotonin and endorphins while charting concrete steps in chapters titled ‘The Mindset of More’ and ‘Heights of Stimulation.’ Slow down, breathe, and submerge into these pages.” —Oprah Daily A PENGUIN LIFE BOOK It took an on-stage panic attack for productivity expert Chris Bailey to recognize how critical it is to invest in calm at the same time that we invest in becoming more productive. Productivity advice works—and we need it now more than ever—but it’s just as vital that we develop our capacity for calm. By finding calm and overcoming anxiety, we don’t just feel more comfortable in our own mind—we build a deeper, more expansive reservoir of energy to draw from throughout the day. The pursuit of calm ultimately leads us to become more engaged, focused, and deliberate—while making us more satisfied with our lives. And because calm saves us time by making us more productive, we don’t even need to feel guilty about the time we spend investing in it. How to Calm Your Mind is our crucial guide to achieving calm, navigating anxiety, and staving off burnout. It explains how our digital world drains us, and what we can do to abate the hidden sources of stress that burden our days. Bailey has learned to embrace the analog world and “stimulation fasts,” to use the science of “savoring” to become more focused and present, and to relax without guilt—and he shows us how we can reclaim calm, too. In an anxious world, investing in calm might be the best productivity strategy around.

Rewired

Rewired PDF Author: Carl D. Marci
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674983661
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Living in an age of digital distraction has wreaked havoc on our brains--but there's much we can do to restore our tech-life balance. We live in a world that is always on, where everyone is always connected. But we feel increasingly disconnected. Why? The answer lies in our brains. Carl D. Marci, MD, a leading expert on social and consumer neuroscience, reviews the mounting evidence that overuse of smart phones and social media is rewiring our brains, resulting in a losing deal: we are neglecting the relationships that sustain us and keep us healthy in favor of weaker and more ephemeral ties. The ability to connect and form strong social bonds is fundamental to human experience and emerged through unique structures in our brains. But ever-more-powerful technologies and ubiquitous access to media have hijacked our need to connect intimately and emotionally with others. The quick highs of clicking "like" and swiping right overstimulate the same neurological reward centers associated with social relationships. The habits that accompany our digital lifestyles are putting tremendous pressure on critical components of the brain associated with attention, emotion, and memory, changing how we process information and altering how we communicate and relate, even at a physiological level. As a psychiatrist working at the forefront of research on the impact of digital technology, Marci has seen this transformation up close and developed a range of responses. Rewired provides scientifically supported solutions for everyone who wants to restore their tech-life balance--from parents concerned about their children's exposure to the internet to stressed workers dealing with the deluge of emails and managing the expectation of 24/7 availability.

Red Pill Psychology

Red Pill Psychology PDF Author: Peter Wright
Publisher: Academic Century Press
ISBN:
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 127

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Book Description
Red Pill Psychology provides a new look at men's mental health while rejecting the usual approaches of the mainstream therapeutic industry - its gendered assumptions, casual misandry, default gynocentrism, and general disregard of men’s issues. The authors include a critique of modern sexual relations and offer new models with positive suggestions for improving the wellbeing of men and boys.

Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose

Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose PDF Author: Deirdre Barrett
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393077330
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
How our once-helpful instincts got hijacked by our garish modern world. Have you ever wondered why some men choose pornography over actual women? Why so many people watch Friends instead of going out with their own buddies? Why a person would “feed” a plastic Pocket Pet while shirking real duties? Why both sides of every war see the other as the aggressor against whom their “Department of Defense” must respond? Harvard evolutionary psychologist Deirdre Barrett explains how human instincts—for food, sex, or territorial protection—developed for life on the savannah ten thousand years ago, not for today’s world of densely populated cities, technological innovations, and pollution. Evolution, quite simply, has been unable to keep pace with the rapid changes of modern life. We now have access to a glut of larger-than-life objects—from candy to pornography to atomic bombs—that gratify outmoded but persistent drives with dangerous results. In the 1930s Dutch Nobel laureate Niko Tinbergen found that birds that lay small, pale-blue eggs speckled with gray preferred to sit on giant, bright-blue, plaster dummies with black polka dots. He coined the term “supernormal stimuli” to describe these imitations that appeal to primitive instincts and, oddly, exert a stronger attraction than real things. Obviously these hard-wired preferences pose a danger to a species’ survival. Barrett’s singular insight is to apply this phenomenon for the first time to the alarming disconnect between human instinct and our created environment. Her book adroitly demonstrates how supernormal stimuli are a driving force in many of today’s most pressing problems, including obesity, our addiction to television and video games, and the past century’s extraordinarily violent wars. Man-made imitations, it turns out, have wreaked havoc on how we nurture our children, what food we put into our bodies, how we make love and war, and even how we understand ourselves. Barrett does more than pull the fire alarm to show how these unfettered instincts fuel dangerous excesses. There is a hopeful message here as well. Once we recognize how supernormal stimuli operate, we can craft new approaches to modern predicaments. Humans have one stupendous advantage over Tinbergen’s birds: a giant brain. The message of this book is that this gives us the unique ability to exercise self-control, override instincts that lead us astray, and save ourselves from civilization’s gaudy traps.

Wild Diplomacy

Wild Diplomacy PDF Author: Morizot,
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438488416
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
Starting from a specific case, the spontaneous return of wolves to France and the intense conflicts that event has triggered, the French philosopher Baptiste Morizot invites us to think about what he calls "diplomacy with living beings." How can we conceive of cohabitation with the most recalcitrant wildlife, large predators in particular, and what concrete solutions need to be invented to make this happen? Drawing on knowledge gleaned from history and philosophy as well as from ethology, scientific ecology, and biology, Wild Diplomacy prompts us to ask what relations we want to reinvent with living beings today and how we might fundamentally reimagine our status as living beings among other life forms. This prize-winning book has broken new ground in contemporary French environmental philosophy.

You Are Not So Smart

You Are Not So Smart PDF Author: David McRaney
Publisher: Avery
ISBN: 1592407366
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Explains how self-delusion is part of a person's psychological defense system, identifying common misconceptions people have on topics such as caffeine withdrawal, hindsight, and brand loyalty.

Aesthetics and Neuroscience

Aesthetics and Neuroscience PDF Author: Zoï Kapoula
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319462334
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
This edited monograph provides a compelling analysis of the interplay between neuroscience and aesthetics. The book broaches a wide spectrum of topics including, but not limited to, mathematics and creator algorithms, neurosciences of artistic creativity, paintings and dynamical systems as well as computational research for architecture. The international authorship is genuinely interdisciplinary and the target audience primarily comprises readers interested in transdisciplinary research between neuroscience and the broad field of aesthetics.