“This “no mobile phone” phobia is an emerging term that some psychologists use to describe the fear people have of being without their smartphone. And the latest evidence suggests that it happens because these devices have become so personalized that they are seen as extensions of ourselves. […] While previous research has linked nomophobia to anxieties around an inability to communicate and a fear of missing out, the new research suggest that phone owners also form strong personal attachments to the devices themselves, due to the photos, messages and other data that they hold.”
Category Archives: Media & Culture
10 Most White Trash Towns in Missouri
My hometown doesn’t make a lot of Top 10 lists so I was pleased to see it near the top (#3) of this list. What did it take to make the cut? Using publicly available government data, as well as Google Maps, data was collected on the following white trash metrics:
- Cities where there are lots of white people
- Cities where residents are poorer than average
- Cities where a high number of residents are high school dropouts
- Cities with a high number of single parents
- High drug use
- Higher than average Payday Loan Outlets
- Violent cities (measured in aggravated assaults)
- Cities with a high number of residents on welfare
Alas, Kennett has fallen on hard times since I left in 1984, not to mention when I grew up there in the 50s and 60s.
Two guys reading from the newspaper
Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television
Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978) is a book by Jerry Mander, who argues that many of the problems with television are inherent in the medium and technology itself, and thus cannot be reformed. From Wikipedia page:
“Television has effects, very important effects, aside from the content, and they may be more important. They organize society in a certain way. They give power to a very small number of people to speak into the brains of everyone else in the system night after night after night with images that make people turn out in a certain kind of way. It affects the psychology of people who watch. It increases the passivity of people who watch. It changes family relationships. It changes understandings of nature. It flattens perception so that information, which you need a fair amount of complexity to understand it as you would get from reading, this information is flattened down to a very reduced form on television. And the medium has inherent qualities which cause it to be that way.”
Nobody’s listening to news on the radio
“Digital outlets serve as the main source of news for the majority of those under 35, including 64% of those between the ages of 18 and 24. Meanwhile, TV still reigns supreme for 51% of those over 55.” — Business Insider