Tag: Technology


Existential roundup

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Welcome to the Existential Roundup, where we bring you links to some articles currently trending that may be of interest to those in the existential-humanistic psychology community. This week, we will explore social media and psychology. Technology and social media certainly have advantages. They allow us to stay connected with friends and loved ones living… Read more »

Suicide and social media: To report or not to report that is the question

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My husband told me a story of a girl he spoke to in a chatroom. He was in Ireland and she was in America. She was 15 and very upset about her parent’s divorce. While chatting, she disclosed she was going to end her life. My husband, being a big-hearted sort of person, did not… Read more »

Existential roundup

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Welcome to the Existential Roundup, where we bring you links to some articles currently trending that may be of interest to those in the existential-humanistic psychology community. My daughter came to me in tears yesterday. She related to me how a little girl in her class made her feel bad because she didn’t wear clothes… Read more »

Inconvenient emojis

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The psychiatric-industrial-complex keeps telling us that depression is best solved by pills, but every new advance in therapeutic treatments tell us otherwise. We just don’t hear about it as much because talk therapy doesn’t have a billion dollar advertising budget. The newest exhibit comes courtesy of The New York Times, which reports on a new… Read more »

Existential Roundup

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Welcome to the Existential Roundup, where we bring you links to some articles currently trending that may be of interest to those in the existential-humanistic psychology community. As today is Hallowe’en, a day that once marked the end of the harvest season one during which the veils between the living and the dead were quite… Read more »

The Tech Industry’s Depression Problem

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No one who pays attention to the tech industry should be surprised that it has what The Atlantic Monthly recently dubbed “a depression problem.” Why wouldn’t it? It’s a hyper-competitive environment in which people work tremendously long hours, fail often, and judge their self-worth by their earnings and status in an often hierarchical, often conformist,… Read more »

The Artifice of Artificial Intelligence

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Illustration by Alejandro Zorrilal Cruz. June has been the cruelest month for Artificial Intelligence. This month, a computer program beat the Turning Test—and thereby invalidated the Turing Test. The Turing Test, for those who don’t know, is a test based on a premise by Alan Turing, the computational godfather. The idea: if a computer can… Read more »

Getting Real About Virtual Realityês Victims

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Photo by Kazemaru Zen. What does the clinical literature say about how to treat someone whose avatar was sexually abused online? To my knowledge, it doesn’t really say anything—but 20 years of reportage from online cultures suggest not only that this experience happens, but that some people experience it as quite traumatizing. Such a violation… Read more »

On the Verge of Virtual, and Why Psychologists Should Care

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A boy wearing the Oculus Rift. Facebook recently announced its acquisition of Oculus (Associated Press, 2014), a company that has been making waves for developing immersive hardware for virtual reality technology. As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, the benefits of virtual reality stretch far beyond video games, and could “someday be used to enjoy a… Read more »

Existential Roundup

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Photo by Siddharth Mallya. Welcome to the Existential Roundup, where we bring you links to some articles currently trending that may be of interest to those in the existential-humanistic psychology community. March 20 marked the Vernal Equinox—the first day of Spring—when new growth begins. Thus, in honor of the impending burst of new life, this… Read more »