My thoughts on Shappi Khorsandi's book: Scatterbrain (ADHD awareness & insight post)

Evening all! I hope you're enjoying your week so far. As for me, it's been boring so far. Mainly because I had been stuck at home for 3 days due to having a cold, and not being allowed out.

As of such, I thought about doing some more research on ADHD during the time being. However, what actually prompted me to do some more research on this, was because I specifically wanted to find the link to being a scatterbrain & having ADHD. This was where I had stumbled upon a search result on Google, which consisted of a book on the Amazon website with the very title: "Scatterbrain: How I got off the ADHD rollercoaster" I then immediately thought to myself: "Ah, this must be the right research source I am looking for!"

And sure enough, it certainly didn't disappoint...!

This book turns out to be Comedian, Shappi Khorsandi, talking about her experiences with ADHD. It also turns out that she was undiagnosed with the said condition, and reflects on her own behaviour in the past while being undiagnosed.

(Please do feel free to comment about my picture design!)

Rather than keep using rhetorical questions to form my thoughts, and guide me through what I am going to say, I'll just get stuck in.

I don't know about any of you, (and you may agree or disagree with me on this) but I have always seemed to find ADHD personalities & characteristics highly amusing. And I sincerely do not mean this in an offensive way at all. I think this is because of of the unpredictability that ADHD behaviour brings to oneself. A common example of this would be willing to start something, but unable to get that something finished. Especially within a set timeframe. Like Shappi herself, when she was writing her book, as she highlighted the crazy things she has done when the deadline of her book was looming upon her. This is where the scatterbrain effect gets linked with this type of ADHD behaviour, as it makes you think that you have the capacity of doing so many things while within a set timeframe. But in reality, this just puts you off your primary focus, because you have scattered thoughts/ideas running around in your mind as if each of them are running their own marathon. Again, this is 1 of the reasons why I personally find ADHD amusing. 

Another thing from the book which spoke out to me, was how much focus control there is involved in ADHD focus, (hyper focus) but also the lack of focus on normal focus. It would be stereotypical of people (who do not or have a lack of understanding about ADHD) to label them as "incapable" just because they do not maintain focus like normal people. It has been proven that many people with ADHD ARE very capable of focusing on something, but in their own time. Especially when it comes to something that they are deeply interested in. If this can work for Shappi, then it can work for anyone.

Back onto the scatterbrain topic, having difficulties with controlling your emotions can create scattered thoughts into your mind. Like with most ADHD people, they may experience an overload of excessive thoughts running around in their mind, and they get to a sudden point where they need to blurt how they feel out loud, as this helps them to let of steam inside their mind. Sometimes, these thinking out loud thoughts may become too compulsive for other people around them to hear, as well as being around that ADHD person, so they feel like they are just trying to gain much unnecessary attention as possible. But in reality, that person really cannot help what they are doing.

The psychology of addictive smartphone behaviour

Yes, welcome back to yet another small, but insightful research project of mine! I say small, as this is something which I've only been doing research on for a short period of time. I did ensure to scroll down slowly though, so I could take in every single word of what I was reading to help my head process everything.

What I've chosen to publish for this post, is an inspiration from a picture I had come across on one of my psychology groups on Facebook, and I said to myself that I'll get round to making a post on my blogging website about it at some point. I thought this today would be my ideal time for me to do it! Although I had the picture, I needed to find a piece of research that would link well with the picture. I had typed in "psychology & smartphones" in the Google search bar, which took me to this article that came up 1st in the results page: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.573473/full Here's my evaluation:

*This was the picture I had come across on one of my psychology groups on Facebook*

Overview: It is without any doubt that people like to spend their boredom time on their smartphones. I for 1, can even happily hold my hands up to this as well. We like to use our smartphones for the purpose of connecting with other people around us. That being said, most of our modern social life in this day & age revolves around communicating/connecting with people on social media. While social media can be a good purpose for connecting with other people, it can also become too addictive by constantly having to feel the need to check it all of the time. If you're curious to know more about this, see: The psychology behind social media It's not just social media that can cause smartphone addiction though, using a smartphone to continuously replace basic tasks can even put an enormous strain on our mental health. (Mine included) When I say basic tasks, I'm referring to checking the time, checking emails & doing work on it. It would be definitely safe to say that smartphones are taking over mental health, and that is not good at all.

Evidence: On the subject of communicating to one another, a smartphone may seem like a perfect use to do so, as you could have friends who could be going through a difficult time, and they would love somebody to communicate to them. Unfortunately, they could be too far away to communicate to a friend in person, which is why smartphones can provide the most affective use to communicate with people, regardless of whereabouts they are in the world. Highlighting social media for a few seconds, it can be a good way for anybody looking into the creative industry by creating their own content. Moreover, creating popular content on social media can help you to earn money.

Now for the downsides. It has been proven that teenagers' mental health have typically been effected the most by smartphone addiction, as they feel the need to crave their use of social media for the benefit of socially connecting with others. This can also include craving to seek support from their social media followers in a bid to make them feel valued. Although a smartphone my not seem like much to begin with, but the more that people, especially teenagers, mindlessly play about on their smartphone, the more they are at risk from dysfunctional systems. This is just something else besides poor mental health. 

If excessive smartphone use eventually gets to the point of becoming too addictive, then it causes aggressive behaviour to come out of oneself due to their addictive use of a smartphone interfering with their life in general. Endless use of a smartphone could very well be easily done if repeating its excessive use too often. Doing so can make your mind go numb by not even thinking about doing it. This is where the depression comes into play, as your mind will get bored of doing the same thing every time, but feel like there is no escaping the addiction at the same time.

Conclusion: All smartphone addictions have a different story to tell. Meaning, they are not all the same. In theory, it really all depends on what way people behave addictively on their smartphones. Regardless of what smartphone addictive behaviour, they can all have poor mindset consequences at the end.

Understanding Narcissism

Before I even begin, I just want to clarify by saying that this research topic I had mentioned in my previous post was actually found on WebMD. (Not on Psychology Today) *I apologize there*😂

Anyway, I can't exactly remember what I was doing where I came across this article that was published on a website called WebMD. But what I do remember, is I instantly became curious to have a thorough read through the article which contains information about what narcissism is all about.

Before reading through the article, I was already aware of what narcissism is, but at the same time, I wanted to plunge my mind deeper into the subject for the intention to develop a better & wide understanding of the reasons of how narcissism is unknowingly formatted into oneself. Here's what I have gathered...

Discussion/Review:

Narcissism is what is classified as a self-involvement that creates a dark personality trait to a person. Its overall intention is to fill their ego by purposely ignoring the needs of anyone around them. It was at this point during my reading of the article where I read that narcissism may not be a permanent trait to some people who just choose to behave like narcissists. This may well be dependant on how their mental health is coping, by again, choosing to behave this way as their way of trying to block out everything going on around them. Although, you may seem to think they enjoy behaving this way on the outside, but a look into their mental health state must be considered to be able to understand more about their reason for their choice of narcissist behaviour. 

As I then found out, narcissism has a spectrum. People who are going through a temporarily period of narcissism are classified on the lower part of the overall spectrum. 

In terms of the higher end of the spectrum, you have people who have to live with narcissism attached to them day-in, day-out due to a disorder. And that disorder is named as: 'Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)' There are 2 different types of narcissism that link to the personality disorder just mentioned. The 2 things the types share in common is the fact that different childhood experiences play a role of being officially diagnosed with NPD. Another common thing in the 2 types is the different ways people will behave in relationships. I suppose that does makes sense, given how different childhood experiences are first formatted to shape a person's upbringing.

Going back to narcissism in general, it is important to factor in all of its characteristics before just saying how it is just by looking at it on the outside. You will notice right away with any narcissist behaviour that a person will make themselves look important compared to other people around them by purposely paying zero attention to how these other people will react around them. This could be followed by that person constantly wanting to be admired for every single thing. Even though, there could be hardly anything for that person to be admired for - Just for the sake of not wanting to look like a disappointment. As a warning to any person who criticises a narcissist person, they will just hit you back hard (emotionally) with rudeness & abuse by thinking they are not receiving the support you are giving them. This has to be done by showing compassion & understanding. What I mean, is by not comparing yourself to other people. No judgement, just be there to show support to.

Conclusion: I would say the one thing that really spoke out to me while reading this article, was that narcissism goes way deeper than just its name. Meaning, there are so many psychological factors of how narcissism is made up of by discovering the roots of the trait.

As always, if anyone is interested to see where I got my research from, the source link is here: https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/narcissism-symptoms-signs        

Inside the mind of a sociologist (Perspective post)

First things first, I'm so glad to have the time to be back at what I'm doing again! Realistically, this has been my first day of R&R since the 5th of June.

As I've now become hooked onto how sociology works, I thought about sharing an insight as to how a sociologist visions the world through their inquisitive eyes... (Or you could say my eyes!)

A sociologist will happen to be in a place full of people who tend to hang out in their own groups. Within those groups, the sociologist takes it upon themselves to interestingly identify how these groups tend to behave in the way that they do, in a bid to create social attraction.

This is where the sociologist does their detective work, as they figure out what makes those groups influence other people to join in with them. But the sociologist is foremost fascinated by the way these people in their groups already endure their influential behaviour, as the sociologist can easily work out that it must be to do with how they socialize in their family that makes them influential in the way that they are today.  

Of course, this will only spur the sociologist to look into these people's social medias to find the link which causes online social interaction between one another or a group of people. This is where the sociologist discovers that their way of thinking is infinite, as they figure out that there are a never-ending amount of answers in relations to investigating social behaviour/interaction.