Archive - Aug 2013
August 24th
Handicaps and Travels
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 08/24/2013 - 07:56I continue to think about what we can learn from our Facebook friends and today, I read through the timeline and have gathered this collection of random thoughts.
A friend has recently been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and has been writing a bit about it. One of her posts said,
An American College of Rheumatology study in 1992 found the the impact of FMS on your life is as bad, or worse , than Rheumatoid Arthritis. They listed one major factor in this as "clinician bias". FMS patients don't look sick, so they are often victimized by clinicians, family, and friends, leaving them with self doubt, guilt, and loss of self-esteem.
I have friends with both RA and FMS and I don't think it is beneficial to get into whose conditions are worse. Yet the comment about having invisible illnesses is very important, especially as it relates to "self doubt, guilt, and loss of self-esteem".
Are our interactions on Facebook helping others deal positively with self doubt, guilt, and loss of self-esteem, or are we posting negative comments about others or positive comments about ourselves in unconstructive efforts to boost our own pride at the expense of others?
As an illustration, another person I know, has been posting almost nothing but negative comments about President Obama and other black leaders. I suspect he doesn't considered himself racist, he's from Connecticut, after all, but he is the person most handicapped by racism that I know.
I've been thinking a bit about handicaps, whether it is invisible illness that is handicapping you, racism that is handicapping you, or more visible mobility issues that handicap you. Several friends of my shared a wonderful video Handicapped man answers "drummer wanted" ad and impresses others. Take time to watch this video and think about your handicaps and what you do to succeed in spite of them.
One final thought from this mornings Facebook posts. Many are telling great stories of heading to the March in Washington or to Burning Man. One friend wrote about her mother, who couldn't make it to the March fifty years ago because she was just out of college and had just started a teaching job.
She was broke, as many college graduates are (I can't imagine that much has changed lol); and was unable to attend the historic March on Washington.
#FastForward to 2013: she spent this whole week at Orientation at Yale Divinity School, prepping to pursue an M.Div.. And tonight she boarded a bus that's DC-bound for the 50th Commemoration of the March on Washington. "I might not get another chance like this."
I would love to be at the March. I would love to be at Burning Man. Other friends are posting wonderful pictures of their vacations, and I am long overdue for a vacation, so, I will do one last go round, cleaning the car, and then we will head off to Cape Cod.
August 23rd
More About Facebook and Sadness
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 08/23/2013 - 06:30Yesterday, I wrote about whether or not Facebook makes you sad. Today, I turn my attention to the news.
UN pushes Syria for chemical probe, activists send samples
Syria war has created 1 million child refugees
Israel strikes militant base in Lebanon after rocket fire
US soldier apologizes for 'cowardice' in murder of 16 Afghan civilians
Brazil central bank commits $60bn to prop up currency
Crisis of market confidence after Nasdaq shutdown
Illinois Unemployment Second Highest In Nation
UPS to end health insurance for working spouses
Egyptian Tomb Bats Carry MERS Coronavirus
Beastly fire disrupts Idaho vacation heaven; smoke casts shadow over economy
Tropical depression moving northwest in Pacific
Jury expected to begin deliberating case of Ohio mom accused in classroom brawl
US, Australian agents seize $330 million in cocaine from yacht in Pacific nation
Ryan Braun finally admits drug use in 2011
In contrast, I look at the messages on Facebook.
Moments of Gratitude
Today is my last full day of life in India. The grace of God has allowed me this privilege. I am grateful.
Meet the Woman Who Prevented a Mass School Shooting Yesterday
On my way to New Mexico to attend the NALEO Policy Institute on The Changing Dynamics of the 50+ Population.
An image of Christians protecting Muslims and vice versa in Egypt
A picture of a celebration of the nurse practitioner residency program graduates at the community health center.
An image of coworkers white water rafting
An image of a friend delivering his son to college
A picture of a State Rep being recognized for supporting a great community organization
A picture of a boy fighting childhood cancer as he kicks a soccer ball with his prosthetic leg
For those of you that don't know, September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month! Lets make this year matter!
August 21st
Does Facebook Make You Sad?
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 08/22/2013 - 03:23There is an old saying that you are what you eat, but these days, as I get more exercise going for walks during the day, I've come to realize, it isn't just what you eat, but what you do with it afterwards, how you metabolize it, that matters.
In the past, I've written about how the idea, "you are what you eat", applies to social media. What is your media diet? What are your friends saying on Facebook? Are you spending time reading people online that edify you or that tear you down?
It is the sort of question that those in the Christian tradition are likely to confront as they read Romans 12:2
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
These thoughts have come back to me recently as I've followed the discussion about a recent study about Facebook use. NPR ran the headline, Facebook Makes Us Sadder And Less Satisfied, Study Finds
One friend on Facebook shared this saying,
Somehow this doesn't surprise me... Too much screen time is too much screen time.
Yet as we dig a little deeper, we find some interesting details. The study, entitled Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults was of 82 people around Ann Arbor Michigan, with an average age of about 20. Sixty percent of the subjects were female.
I do question how well this sample reflect Facebook users in general, as well as some of the conjectures about the meaning of the study. The NPR article says,
The study authors did not get at the reasons Facebook made their test subjects feel glum. But Jonides suspects it may have to do with social comparison.
"When you're on a site like Facebook, you get lots of posts about what people are doing. That sets up social comparison — you maybe feel your life is not as full and rich as those people you see on Facebook," he says.
Perhaps it isn't what your media diet is, "lots of posts about what people are doing", but what you do with it. I wrote about the what you eat part of this earlier in You Are What You Eat, the Online Version. What are the choices you make about who you follow on Social Media? Are they people that you can learn from? Do they represent a diverse set of views and experiences? Or are they mostly fellow classmates at University of Michigan going through very similar experiences as you are?
To broaden it, a bit more, are you in a Filter Bubble as Eli Pariser describes it?
Today, I read Facebook posts about a young muslim woman who has already led a very tough life. She lost her son to brain cancer. She is fighting chronic illness of her own, and her relationships with others have not always been as nurturing as one would hope.
Yesterday, she wrote,
Today I was thinking about my son Junaid ... I was thinking about the moments up to when he took his last breath. I was thinking about the state I was in when he took his last breath. Subhan Allah sometimes I felt like I want to loose my mind, but Allah would not allow it, to this day I sometimes don't want to feel at all (go numb) sometimes I cry and sometimes, I ask Allah why.
This woman is one of the strongest women I know. She is doing great things for her community and I have learned a great deal from her.
Today, I read the article School Clerk In Georgia Persuaded Gunman To Lay Down Weapons, which I found through a friend on Facebook.
Yes, I have a bias towards social media. It is what I do professionally. So, I did what any person with an interest in social media and a little investigative reporting would do and sought out Antoinette Tuff's Facebook page. The items over the past few months are a nice compliment to what she said in the interview. Back in June, she posted
God is opening so many doors in my life until I can't do anything but sit here and just cry and watch HIM move just had he has promise me for so many years. Thank u GOD for all that u r doing and the many millions u r going to continue to do. To God be the glory. Thx. Thx Thx God
Little did she know what those doors would lead to, two months later.
As I write this post, I take a few moments to look at Facebook statuses. My eldest daughter is teaching in Japan. I glance at pictures of some of the places she has been. I have yet to make it to Japan, and I could get stuck in social comparison and feel sad that she has gotten to travel to places that so far, I've only dreamt of visiting.
I see posts from high school classmates that I've known for over three decades. One posts regularly about time with his grandchildren. I don't have grandchildren yet and I'm pleased that my children are busy doing other great things besides starting families right now, but I can still rejoice in my friends joy about his extended family.
Another friend from high school has posted great pictures of her vacation on Cape Cod. In a few days, I will be heading out to Cape Cod, and I look forward to my time of relaxation after a very hard year, and I'm glad to see the joy my friends trip to Cape Cod has brought her.
It would be very interesting to see this study redone with a larger set of subjects. Does Facebook usage result in declined feelings of personal well being for all people? Does it depend on age? Economic status? Diversity of friends on Facebook? What the subjects post? What sort of emotional, psychological or life skills the subjects have developed? The amount of time on Facebook?
Does Facebook make us sad? Perhaps if we are college kids who are not seeking a diverse set of Facebook friends and have not yet learned to join with the struggles of friends that are struggling, and rejoice with friends that rejoice. But perhaps that is not so much about Facebook as it is about growing up and maturing.
For me, the new worlds I see, whether it is the painful life of a muslim woman, the wonderful travel of my daughter and other friends, or the simple pleasures of long time friends brings me great joy, and I hope my readers can find ways to re-approach social media so that they can get similar joys.
August 20th
The Discarded Lottery Ticket
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 08/20/2013 - 19:57"You're under attack, xm drained 1%, resonator destroyed. Good work"
The graphical representation of a resonator on my smartphone screen turned white and then disappeared. I tapped on the 'fire' button and a circle rippled across the stylized map of the aging New England city I was in.
My glasses made a strange beeping sound and I paused to look up at the ethereal image of a twenty-five inch television floating eight feet above my head to the right. I am a Google Glass explorer and I was receiving notifications of the latest news from CNN and the New York Times. There were stories about the fighting in Syria and Egypt and the radiation leak in the crippled nuclear reactor in Fukyshima Japan.
I returned my attention to Ingress, the augmented reality game on my smartphone. I had a little bit of time I could walk around the city green before heading off to my first meeting of the day.
"The world around you is not what it seems."
In Ingress, resonators are connected to portals. You can only see them in the game. Portals are often at statues or monuments. The game has gotten me out walking more and visiting places I wouldn't normally go.
I walked passed a decrepit lingerie display, a thrift shop full of old shoes and dresses, and a store front with artifacts from a bygone era of reporting. There were For Lease signs on old banks and the Symphony Orchestra had taken up residence in a different closed lingerie store.
One of the few open businesses was a donut store with it's easily recognizable national branding. An obese woman wobbled out eating her daily dose of diabetes. She wasn't running anywhere.
"… to wound the autumnal city" the opening line of a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel comes to mind. It is eight in the morning, and I would expect to see business people heading off to work, but all that I see are the discarded people, down on their luck; the veteran who never did get the PTSD treatment he needed, the immigrant whose hopes of a better world in America never materialized, and the cop trying to keep things from getting too ugly.
There is a decayed movie posted proclaiming "The Empire Strikes Back" and a residential care building next to a large crumbling edifice with a Latin phase about God and Heaven.
I take one more lap around the city green, "Field established, excellent work," sounds from the synthesized voice in Ingress. It is almost time for me to head to my meeting. I take a few notes with Google Glass and bring up the directions.
Between the wearable computing, the augmented reality game, the news of fighting and nuclear radiation leaks, it is hard to distinguish between the autumnal New England city and Dhalgren's Bellona. The closest thing I could find to hope was the discarded lottery ticket on the ground.
August 19th
The Affordable Care Act and the Next Generation of e-Patients
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 08/19/2013 - 20:00Wikipedia describes e-Patients, or Internet-savvy patients as being "empowered, engaged, equipped, enabled" and I run into e-patients from time to time in my work as a social media manager for a Federally Qualified Health Center. Yet all too often, many of our patients are not empowered, and I've often pondered ways to help empower more of our patients.
As the health insurance marketplaces come online in October, many uninsured patients will have the opportunity to buy competitively priced quality health insurance plans. They will do this via the Internet, but will they become empowered, engaged, equipped and enabled? This is one of the many questions out there about the Affordable Care Act.
There are lots of important aspects about the Affordable Care Act that are set up to help empower patients. There are Patient Centered Medical Homes and the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute. Will these help do the trick?
I suspect not. I suspect much more will be needed. While there is a lot of talk about getting young men who think they don't need health insurance, the young invincibles, to sign up, there are a lot of efforts by those opposed to President Obama to thwart these signup efforts. Beyond that, there is a lot of work being done to bring in the working poor, people who too often are not empowered in their daily lives.
When I think of e-patients, I tend to think of affluent, well educated white patients who are already empowered in other aspects of their lives who have then faced a medical emergency, often a chronic or terminal disease. Because of this have taken a much more active role in dealing with their health issues.
Will the newly insured take more active roles in their health? Will they learn about their conditions online and communicate with their medical providers via patient-portals? Or, willing they stick their insurance card in their purses and only take them out for emergencies?
I believe that as a nation, we will all be better off if the newly ensured are encouraged to become the next generation of e-patients. I am optimistic when I hear about enrollment efforts that go beyond simply getting someone to sign up for health insurance.
So, can we get the current generation of e-patients to take an active role in helping uninsured people get health insurance, and then become empowered in managing their own health? What can we do to help make this happen?
