VIP Syndrome: A Prescription For Poor Health

It's been awhile since I posted here. I've been trying to figure out what role this blog should play compared to my MySpace blog. I still don't have that sorted out, but for now I think that more diary-like posts and personal observations will go on MySpace, while links to interesting stuff I find on the web, and more academic content will go here. We'll see if that's how it really shakes out, but for now, that's the plan.

So, today's link is to an excellent essay from LeftBrainBlog, VIP Syndrome: A Prescription For Poor Health, on how routine hospital care is superior to the care so-called VIPs receive. I'll try to remember all this the next time I have to sit in the ER for six hours, but I do believe it's true. Hospital routines may seem bureaucratic, cold, impersonal, and sometimes downright cruel, but there are often good reasons for them that we laypeople--especially when we're sick or injured enough to be in the ER--may not always understand. I believe in advocating for yourself or your loved ones in medical settings (boy, do I!), but I also believe we need to recognize and respect the expertise of our health care teams. After all, you don't want special treatment at the expense of excellent care, right?

More on private information and social networking

More concern about private information and social networking: KATU - Portland, Oregon - Technology - Some rethink posting of private info

It's fascinating to watch as people learn to integrate new technology into their lives. As one of the interviewees said:

"Just like everything else that we've seen develop socially on the Internet, the
social norms are the last thing to develop," he says. "It's what I refer to as
the 'Wild West Syndrome.' It first gets settled and the laws and the norms get
established."

We're all trying to find the balance between privacy and social space. While some interviewees made their Facebook profiles private and/or removed most personal information, another one noted how annoying it is to look for people and not be able to find them.

As for me, I prefer to be found, so I use my real name, schools, biographical info, etc. But I do try to be careful about what I post publicly. I suspect eventually all this will be a non-issue. People (including employers) will get used to the idea that people have information about their personal lives publicly available, users will get wise to the habits of predators (I think teens are actually ahead of their parents on that score much of the time), and we'll develop some sense of boundaries about what we post publicly. Time will tell.

Friends and Identity on Social Networking Sites

I just finished reading a fascinating paper in First Monday called Friends, Friendsters, and Top 8: Writing Community Into Being on Social Network Sites. It's an academic piece, so not necessarily light reading. It analyzes the dynamics of friend spaces on social networking sites like MySpace and Friendster. I've wrestled with some of the issues the author raises as I've built my MySpace presence, so I was intrigued with some of her conclusions.

One of her major points is that social networking sites make your friends public, so we choose our friends in part for what those friends say about us: "When people articulate their relations on social network sites, they are not simply projecting their internal model of tie strength. The public nature of these sites requires participants to perform their relationship to others, not unlike the examples given above. Based on an internal understanding of the audience, participants override the term 'Friend' to make room for a variety of different relationships so that they may properly show face." The author later adds, "The actual collection of Friends and the display of Top Friends provides space for people to engage in identity performance." In other words, our friends lists are a part of how we define ourselves on social networking sites. Friends can be friends or acquaintances in the traditional sense of those words, or they can serve a similar purpose as posters or bumper stickers in physical space--a way to help define who we are, what we believe, what our interests are, and what our status is within a particular group.

The author continues by pointing out that our friends lists define the audience for our participation in the site. Our profile designs, bulletins, blog posts, etc., are usually targeted toward those on our friends list--or at least a subset of them. And it's this point that I find most frustrating about using sites like MySpace. I operate in different circles, and in each of those I behave a bit differently and have a slightly different identity. But MySpace doesn't allow me to do that. I can't group my friends into categories like work, church, old classmates, close friends, and family, the way most of us group our friends in real life. Instead, I have three choices:

1. Choose the audience I wish to have, and exclude from my friends list those who don't fit in with that audience
2. Include everyone, regardless of where they fit, and make my profile, bulletins, etc., sufficiently generic that they won't shock or offend any of my friends.
   
3. Include everyone and post whatever I want, regardless of the consequences.
   

In reality I do a little of all three. I avoid posting information that's too personal or specific to a single context, because I have MySpace friends from lots of different parts of my life. But I include a wide variety of stuff in my profile (religion, gardening, and Def Leppard, for example), and I sometimes post bulletins that may surprise a few of my friends. Finally, I don't actively encourage my co-workers to join MySpace and send me friend requests. I wouldn't turn down their requests, but I don't actively solicit them, because I want the freedom to post things on MySpace that aren't necessarily appropriate in the workplace.

In a way, operating within a social network like MySpace is more complicated than dealing with friendships in other arenas, because you have to display the same self to everyone with whom you interact. That can make the experience more interesting, for ourselves and our friends, because we can be who we are and let all our friends see all sides of us. But sometimes there are negative consequences for doing that, to which any teenager punished by parents for his MySpace behavior can attest. What do you do when co-workers want to be your friends? Or family members? Teens in your church's youth group? How do you retain your ability to express yourself freely--one of the most fun aspects of social networking--when you have friends with very different world views and different views of you? In the physical world, we present different faces to different groups of people. Some, especially teenagers, call that hypocrisy, but it's really a social necessity. We behave differently at work than we do with our college buddies and differently at church than we do at someone's bachelor party. Even those rare few who can maintain complete personal integrity, never violating the values of one space while in another, will still behave differently in different contexts. But with MySpace and similar social networks, there's only one context--your entire friend space.

This piece presents a good example of this problem. It's mostly written in my academic voice, which I usually reserve for my long-suffering co-workers. But I'd like to include it in my MySpace blog, because it relates to my behavior there, and I'd really like to hear what other MySpace users think about this issue. But if I post it there, my friends will find out just how nerdy I really am (yeah, like they don't already know). What to do? I'm going with option 3, above: post it wherever I want!

I suppose it would be easier if social networks could let us categorize our friends and direct certain information to specific groups rather than to everyone. That would more closely model the physical world, but it would also make using these networks more complicated. And it would rob us of the chance to see different sides of our online buddies. So after all this long-winded prose, I don't have any good answers. But I do enjoy contemplating the questions, and I wonder if the dynamics of friendships in social networks will spill over into the physical world--or if they already have, and to what extent. But that's a topic for a different long-winded essay.

DareToScare Blog - A Halloween Blog

Yeah, I know - Halloween is over, and we're all supposed to be dashing through the snow in our SUVs to the mall for some commercial Christmas cheer. Personally, I find the thought of a mall at Christmastime more terrifying than most Halloween horror, and not nearly as much fun. So, for some fun stuff more suitable for Halloween than Happy Holidays, check out the DareToScare blog. It hasn't been updated since October, but what's there is worth a read. It includes posts on famous horror movies, supposedly-haunted locations, famous criminals, monsters, etc. Be brave and take a look.

The Future of Work

Interesting piece on how work may change in response to globalization, demographics, and technology:
The Future of Work. The author proposes that left-brain activities like data analysis will either be outsourced or automated, leaving right-brain creative types with a big advantage in the job market. He also notes that work could become more playful as a result, because playful people who love what they do are more innovative. And finally, he provides the perfect explanation for all of us who refuse to grow up: "the increased level of immaturity among adults is an evolutionary response to increased change and uncertainty. "

See? I'm not just immature. I'm responding to increasing change and uncertainty. So there!

Seed: When Two Minds Think Alike

From Seed Magazine comes a fascinating theory that autism may be related to human mating habits, specifically the tendency for people with similar traits to be attracted to one another. See Seed: When Two Minds Think Alike for details.

Neanderthal DNA Shows No Interbreeding With Humans

According to an article in the latest issue of Science, it appears that modern humans don't share any DNA with Neandertals. Forbes.com has the details: Neanderthal DNA Shows No Interbreeding With Humans

So now I have to find another explanation for my husband :-)

My puking pumpkin

OK, one more Halloween thing. After admiring them for years (yeah, I'm weird), I finally made a puking pumpkin. Here it is, in all its glory, a cautionary tale for any squash that decides to wash down Halloween candy with tequila ;-)

Murder and dismemberment in New Orleans

Just in time for Halloween - a grotesque story of murder and dismemberment in New Orleans. See Michael C. Hebert, MD - Journal - The Strangest

Don't worry - this isn't a tabloid piece but a funny and thoughtful commentary on a case that's truly stranger than fiction. And New Orleans is the perfect setting for it.

Happy Halloween y'all!

Extreme Pumpkin Contest Winners 2005

Wanna get creative with your Jack o' Lantern this year? For inspiration, check out the Extreme Pumpkin Contest Winners 2005
I love the pumpkin giving birth, the moldy skull, and the flash o' lantern. I have about 5 pumpkins sitting at home; I think I'll get to work on 'em.

Boy, 6, chosen as library's volunteer of the year - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

I rarely post library news here, but this one is too good to keep to myself. A 6-year-old boy has been named Volunteer of the Year by the Allegheny County Library Association in Pennsylvania. His reason for volunteering at the library? "I just like to help." More details available in an article from this article:
Boy, 6, chosen as library's volunteer of the year - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

LILEKS (James) Interior Desecrators

Did you grow up in a house with orange furniture and green shag carpet? Or green furniture and orange shag carpet? Then you too must be a child of the 70's! For a nostalgic, snarky look at America's ugliest decade, visit LILEKS (James) Interior Desecrators

Next to pictures of the worst the 70's had to offer the world of interior design, the author makes the hilariously snarky comments we wish we'd been witty enough to come up with back in '77.

Solutions from PC Magazine: Save the World with Your Screensaver

Remember the SETI@Home project, which lets users install a screensaver that searches for extraterrestrial life while you aren't using your computer? Now there are more projects that use this model, called grid computing. While it's otherwise idle, your computer can search for cancer treatments, help find a cure for Parkinson's Disease... or help SETI find extraterrestrials. PC Magazine provides a nice overview of some grid computing projects and how you can participate. See Solutions from PC Magazine: Save the World with Your Screensaver

Polyamorous cows, Paris Hilton, and the OED

Now that I have your attention... check out the latest additions to the OED:
http://dictionary.oed.com/help/updates/pleb-Pomak.html

Some of these terms have been around awhile (like polyamorous and cow-tipping) but are just now being added, while others are fairly recent (e.g. celebutante -- thanks, Paris Hilton). I'd love to know how they decide when a word is sufficiently ingrained in the language to warrant an entry.

Survival of the Harmonious: Why do we respond to music?

In Survival of the Harmonious, the Boston Globe reports on recent research into the origins of music and what, if any, evolutionary advantage it provided to early humans.

According to the article, neuroscientists "have scanned musicians' brains and found that the 'chills' that they feel when they hear stirring passages of music result from activity in the same parts of the brain stimulated by food and sex." No comment :-)

Apparently researchers have four competing theories for the origin of music:

• "Music originated as a way for males to impress and attract females" - we'll call that the rock star theory
• "Others see its roots in the relationship between mother and child" - the lullaby theory
• "Music was a social adhesive, helping to forge common identity in early human communities" - maybe the national anthem theory?
• "And a few leading evolutionary psychologists argue that music has no adaptive purpose at all, but simply manages, as the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker has written, to `tickle the sensitive spots' in areas of the brain that evolved for other purposes." - the not-everything-that-feels-good-has-to-have-a-purpose theory

Since I'm not an evolutionary psychologist, I don't have a theory of my own, but all of these make some sense to me, as does a fifth: Music fills a spiritual need in humans. Yeah, I know -- that opens a whole new, not-necessarily-scientific can of worms, but there you are.

I'm off to tickle my brain's sensitive spots with a little Def Leppard ;-)

In Search of Courage

I just stumbled across an essay by John McCain called In Search of Courage. Interestingly, it was written in September, 2004, just prior to the 2004 elections, when McCain was campaigning for Bush. Here are a few nuggets:

Courage is like a muscle. The more we exercise it, the stronger it gets. I sometimes worry that our collective courage is growing weaker from disuse. We don't demand it from our leaders, and our leaders don't demand it from us.

We may have learned important lessons from the intelligence failures that preceded the terrorist attacks of September 11 and the fruitless search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But I'm not sure we set a reassuring example to the rest of the country by declining to punish anyone involved in those failures. Not one person was fired or was moved by his or her conscience to resign.

When there's an absence of courage, greed and selfishness take over.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the capacity to act despite our fears.

Even dyed-in-the-wool Democrats like me can find value in this piece. If, as I suspect, McCain turns out to be our next president, I hope he practices what he so wisely preaches in this essay.

How To Make Your Work Easy

And one more thing from Guideposts -- Norman Vincent Peale's advice on how to make work easy. It's a cool combination of the practical ("Plan your work") and the spiritual ("At the start of each day pray about your work").

If I Were Starting My Life Again

The Guideposts site has reprinted a wonderful essay from 1979, in which a father describes what he would do differently if he had his life to live over again. His words are wise, a wonderful reminder to harried parents like me to cherish the joy of our children instead of correcting or ignoring them. He ends with an image I hope to carry with me as a parent -- to be "God's love with skin on."

"Why Conservatives Can't Govern" by Alan Wolfe

Check out this article from Washington Monthly: "Why Conservatives Can't Govern" by Alan Wolfe. This quote summarizes the key idea: "Conservatives cannot govern well for the same reason that vegetarians cannot prepare a world-class boeuf bourguignon: If you believe that what you are called upon to do is wrong, you are not likely to do it very well." So Bush et al. have created bigger -- yet more incompetent -- government. That explains a lot.

Librarians, Almost Live, and the Joys of YouTube

I discovered YouTube (http://youtube.com) a couple of months ago -- kind of like the old Napster but for video. There's everything from some dude in his underwear doing bad karaoke to music videos, bootleg concert videos, old TV shows, and lots more. What's especially cool are clips of old local TV shows that will likely never be released on DVD but which bring back lots of fond memories. Which brings me to Almost Live, Seattle's sketch comedy show from the 80's and 90's. When I was a starving grad student, hubby and I would go to tapings on Saturday night because a) it was fun, and b) it was free. So I have a soft spot for the show. There are a bunch of Almost Live clips on YouTube, including one I never saw back in the day: a parody of Cops called Librarians. Check it out (no pun intended) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIUC9NPo3W4.