This approach to note-taking was inspired by the 20th-century German sociologist Niklas Luhmann who was a prolific note-taker, writer, and academic. He developed a simple system based on paper index cards, which he called his “slip-box”, designed to connect any given note to as many different potentially relevant contexts as possible. It enables the note-taker to break down their notes into smaller, manageable chunks and organize them into a cohesive whole. This process allows the note-taker to gain a better understanding of their notes and to utilize them in further research and writing.

8 Steps to taking smart notes

Fleeting notes are quick, informal notes on any thought or idea that pops into your mind meant to be a reminder of what’s in your head.

1.Fleeting Notes.

Literature Notes are meant to be incorporated in one’s own writing.Guidelines in creating literature notes:<ul><li>Be extremely selective in what you decide to keep</li><li>Keep the overall note as short as possible</li><li>Use your own words, instead of copying quotes verbatim</li><li>Write down the bibliographic details on the source</li></ul>

2. Make Literature notes.

These notes are based on reviewing the fleeting notes and literature notes and relates to your current work on or interests. The purpose is not just to collect ideas, but to develop arguments and discussions over time.Questions to ask yourself to create them: <ul><li>How does the new information contradict, correct, support, or add to what I already know?</li><li>How can I combine ideas to generate something new?</li><li>What questions are triggered by these new ideas?</li></ul>Once done, throw away the fleeting notes from step one and file the literature notes from step two into your bibliographic slip-box.

3. Make permanent notes.

Add the permanent notes you’ve created to your slip-box. Do this by filing each note behind a related note (if it doesn’t relate to any existing notes, add it to the very end).

4. Addition your new permanent notes to the slip-box. 

With so many standardized notes organized in a consistent format, you are now free to develop ideas in a “bottom up” way. See what is there, what is missing, and which questions arise. Look for gaps that you can fill through further reading.

5. Develop your topics, questions and research projects bottom up from within the slip-box.

Instead of coming up with a topic upfront, you can just look into your slip-box and look for what is most interesting. Your writing will be based on what you already have, not on an unfounded guess about what the literature you are about to read might contain. Follow the connections between notes and collect all the relevant notes on the topic you’ve found.

6. Decide on a topic to write about from within the slip-box.

Instead of copying your notes into a manuscript, translate them into something coherent and embed them into the context of your argument. As you detect holes in your argument, fill them or change the argument.

7. Turn your notes into a rough draft. 

From this point forward, all you have to do is refine your rough draft until it’s ready to be published.

8. Edit and proofread your manuscript. 

Note-taking is like time travel—you are sending packets of knowledge through time to your future self.

I long ago stopped reading books on note-taking. They were always too vague and boring, full of platitudes that had little to do with the world outside

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How To Take Smart Notes: 8 Steps to taking smart notes.

Typically, stars are not visible in photographs of astronauts on spacewalks because the light reflected off astronaut suits, the International Space Station, and even the Earth is so bright that it drowns out the dimmer light of the background stars. This is similar to trying to see the night sky stars from the middle of a city on Earth - the brighter lights from the buildings drown out the stars. But don't worry; the stars are still there!Astronauts often photograph the night sky away from the Sun's glare, and with the right exposure settings on their camera, and gets some stunning images.

Where Are The Stars?

#shorts #space #didyouknowWhy aren't the stars visible in the pictures of astronauts on spacewalks? Typically, stars are not visible in photographs of astron...

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Why aren't the stars visible in the pictures of astronauts? #shorts

Projection is a <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/defense-mechanisms-2795960">defense mechanism</a> in which an individual recognizes their unacceptable traits or impulses in someone else to avoid recognizing those traits or impulses in themselves subconsciously.People protect their self-esteem by denying characteristics, impulses, or feelings they find threatening while seeing those same characteristics in someone else.

Projection as a Defense Mechanism

<ul><li>A wife is attracted to a male co-worker but can't admit her feelings, so when her husband talks about a female co-worker, she becomes jealous and accuses him of being attracted to the other woman.</li><li>A man who feels insecure about his masculinity mocks other men for acting like women.</li><li>Someone feels guilty for feeling the urge to steal, leading them to suspect that others are planning to take their wallet or other valuables.</li><li>A young man ignores his own aggressive impulses and instead inaccurately believes his friend has aggressive tendencies.</li></ul>

Examples of Projection

We always see our own unavowed mistakes in our opponent.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

In the short term, projection can be helpful. By denying uncomfortable truths about themselves, people can better cope with their anxieties and maintain their self-esteem.However, projection can ultimately become harmful because it can disrupt interpersonal relationships and lead to issues like bullying, jealousy, and victim-blaming.

Impact of Defensive Projection

<ul><li>The first step is self-reflection. Try to be honest with yourself about what makes you insecure and anxious, and examine the traits and impulses you have that you may least like about yourself.</li><li>Then, attempt to view your behavior objectively to see if you may be projecting any of the anxieties you have about yourself onto someone else. Try not to judge yourself during this exploration; observe and honestly assess without dwelling on anything you uncover.</li></ul>

How to Recognize and Overcome Projection

Don't Take Anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

Projection is when one sees the traits that they find unacceptable in themselves in others. Learn about the origin and impact of the defense mechanism projection.

Understand yourself and those around you.

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What Is a Projection Defense Mechanism?

<ul><li>Many people who are drawn to psychology are also drawn to psychological-sounding woo. </li><li>Astrology, homeopathy, the Myers-Briggs, & the ideas in The Secret all lack evidentiary support -- and can be harmful. </li><li>If you're interested in psychology, you should know why these ideas are bunk. </li> </ul>

Key points

‘“You needn’t go on making remarks like that,” Humpty Dumpty said: “they’re not sensible, and they put me out.”’ – Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Quote 

Psychology is the science of mind and behavior. It has nothing to do with astrology, The Secret , or other New Age twaddle. But many smart people who are drawn to psychology are sometimes also drawn to psychological-sounding woo. Should we be concerned?

Maybe it doesn’t matter. Some people think these beliefs are fringe and mostly harmless – and besides, most people don’t believe this stuff anyway. But polls suggest the opposite: most of us aren’t completely tethered to reality. <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/16915/three-four-americans-believe-paranormal.aspx">73% of Americans have at least one paranormal belief </a>. A variety of pseudosciences enjoy <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130131050627/http:/www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind06/c7/c7s2.htm#c7s2l3">wide appeal </a>in public society. Woo literally <a href="http://whatstheharm.net/">kills people </a>. Carl Sagan’s <a href="https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1069554">famous foreboding </a>? Gone and boded already, damn it. The point of this post is to offer readers some information about five attractive-but-empty ideas and have a bit of fun in the process.

So What?

Penny : “I’m a Sagittarius, which probably tells you way more than you need to know.” Sheldon : “Yes, it tells us that you participate in the mass cultural delusion that the sun’s apparent position relative to arbitrarily defined constellations at the time of your birth somehow affects your <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/personality">personality </a>.” – The Big Bang Theory

1. Astrology

Astrology is the belief that the position of celestial bodies at the time of your birth influences your personality and life course.Here’s why this is nonsense.First, empirical tests of astrological predictions show that they don’t work. <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/imp/jcs/2003/00000010/F0020006/art00010?crawler=true&mimetype=application/pdf&casa_token=-nXLyQBUeM4AAAAA:IuotCr7MNS2EfvHrfYkpKKNmK5rNY1NUXI3dk3C6Smj3qHb22_N_o99dMEKIBYilYOA1w__azUvh4an24Ac">A meta-analysis of more than 40 controlled studies shows that expert astrologers perform no better than chance </a>, even at predicting basic personality traits such as <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/extroversion">extraversion </a>. <a href="https://muller.lbl.gov/papers/Astrology-Carlson.pdf">Double-blind tests show that astrological predictions are not supported by the evidence </a>. Second, there is no known mechanism by which the planets could influence your personality.

Third, in case you’re thinking it has to do with gravity, it doesn’t – the gravitational pull of the doctor in the room at the time of your birth was stronger than the gravitational pull exerted on you by the planets in our solar system at that same moment. Fourth, for astrology to be correct, it would have to negate pretty much everything we know about physics and psychology. Fifth and finally, there are good reasons to think that belief in astrology is driven by a combination of cognitive biases (such as <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258127972_Myside_Bias_Rational_Thinking_and_Intelligence">myside bias </a>) and ambiguous writing (such as <a href="https://nesslabs.com/barnum-effect#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Encyclopedia%20Britannica,information%20that%20applies%20to%20everyone.%E2%80%9D">Barnum statements </a>).

There’s no bona fide connection between the planets and our personality – there’s just no <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXIWyYtq85E">special Szechuan sauce </a>there.

On a more serious note: it’s helpful to keep in mind that as humans, we have a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4141622/">tendency to see patterns </a>even where there aren’t any. This can be understood through mathematical insights from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88_C-fogY40">Ramsey Theory </a>combined with evidence that our minds are <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/patternicity-finding-meaningful-patterns/">promiscuous pattern detectors </a>.

By the way, these cognitive biases are a <a href="https://areomagazine.com/2021/09/15/a-multicultural-psychologists-take-on-free-speech/">human universal </a>, and we all struggle with them. Nobody is immune! So don’t feel bad if you, like the rest of us, sometimes fall prey to these human foibles. The hope is that learning how these cognitive biases lead us astray will help us become more vigilant when we hear claims about how the world works.

For a dystopian take on the dangers of taking astrology too seriously, check out Season 2 Episode 5 of science fiction series <a href="https://www.hulu.com/series/the-orville-21e70fbf-6a51-41b3-88e9-f111830b046c">The Orville </a>.

The <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/myers-briggs">Myers-Briggs Type Indicator </a> is the most popular personality test in the world – but alas, it’s mostly bullshit. It offers inconsistent results, doesn’t predict life outcomes, ignores key personality variables, and is based on empirically unsubstantiated ideas. The Myers-Briggs Company contends that "the MBTI assessment is designed to be descriptive, not predictive," but it is widely used to predict workplace behavior.. Check out <a href="https://areomagazine.com/2021/03/09/should-you-trust-the-myers-briggs-personality-test/">this essay </a>for a deeper look at the Myers-Briggs.

2. The Myers-Briggs Personality Test

As the famous quip goes, it’s good to have an open mind, but <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFO6ZhUW38w">if you open your mind too much, your brain might fall out </a>[1].

Homeopathy is a form of <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/integrative-medicine">alternative medicine </a>based on the idea that “like cures like” and that diluting substances increases their potency. (Yep, this one’s pungent).

3. Homeopathy

A good way to know that this is bullshit is 1) controlled <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1800-studies-later-scientists-conclude-homeopathy-doesnt-work-180954534/">studies </a>show that homeopathy <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/homeopathy/#when-used">fails to outperform placebo </a>, 2) it <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2016/02/26/reject-pseudoscience-homeopathy/">contradicts vast swaths </a>of physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine (and you know those sciences work because they cure our infections and give us computers), and 3) <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2291211/">evidence clearly shows </a>that the central tenets of homeopathy – for example, that like cures like and dilution increases potency – are just plain <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.2042-7166.2012.01162.x?casa_token=583NLOgPaR4AAAAA:D0GKzXtg2aiay00ytWlJQtpoyhN-lvWxCDaRR_7ouDg-arrwqPuYGZXmy6snp4RT1WEWMJ8vJ5deer0">wrong </a>. Belief in homeopathy appears to be driven by expectancy effects and the <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/placebo">placebo effect </a>.

Or as Tim Minchin puts it more eloquently in this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U">animated beat poem </a>: “Alternative medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that’s been proved to work?... Medicine !”

Have you ever wondered what a homeopathic emergency room would look like? Comedy duo Mitchell & Webb give us an idea in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0&t=3s">this brilliant sketch </a>. And in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Xvqv6RZV0&t=1s">this </a>video, we learn how “double-blind” studies work in homeopathy: you do the study, and then you don’t look at the results…. twice!

Progress was slow for a long time, but many people now recognize that homeopathy is not innocuous nonsense; it’s <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11673-015-9682-0.pdf">dangerous </a>nonsense that <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/fullarticle/2687972">kills </a>people every year by steering them away from real treatments. This has led to positive developments like the <a href="https://pseudoscience-manifesto.apetp.com/">European Manifesto against Pseudo-Therapies </a>, which is worth clicking on and reading.

“This was… the usual New Age nonsense… a mush of psychobabble, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/self-help">self-help </a>tips, pseudo-scripture, and Chicken Soup for the Soul.” – Connie Willis, Inside Job

4. The Secret

Ah, The Secret : a bowl-you-over-with-bullshit kind of book. It’s founded on the idea that positive <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/fantasies">visualization </a>will make good things appear in your life, and it repeatedly implies that if your life is beset by misfortune and misery, you’re bringing it on yourself by not thinking positively. Like many other brands of woo, it <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-other-secret/">misuses quantum physics </a>to advance its claims (<a href="https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/pp">classic </a>, I tell you!), and has an <a href="https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/secrets-and-lies/">ugly flipside </a>.

In <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/books/review/Chabris-t.html">this piece </a>, two prominent psychologists analyze the dreck peddled in the book, paying special <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/attention">attention </a>to why people are drawn to it. And in a no-holds-barred analysis, <a href="https://markmanson.net/the-secret">this piece </a>explains how the doctrine is founded on a core delusion.

This, ladies and gents and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/gender">non-binary </a>folks, is the NBA All-Star team of bullshit. Bilking people out of their money in exchange for false hope is nothing new, of course. Debunkers like Harry Houdini and <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/james-randi-obituary-1079316/">The Amazing Randi </a>did an excellent job of unmasking con artists in their day. If you’re a student of psychology, make sure you get to know <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi">The Amazing Randi </a>. You can start with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk_NAUdVpko&list=PL_krQYPPG4VWJu19BM1j54r3H4bwo2j8U&index=8&t=1s">this great introduction </a>. You should also check out <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Honest-Liar-James-Amazing-Randi/dp/B00Z9QEVVE">this documentary </a>about his stellar <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/career">career </a>and riveting personal life. You can find his books <a href="https://www.amazon.com/James-Randi/e/B000AQ26MO?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1613265738&sr=8-1">here </a>.

( these are a few of my least favorite things  )

– ­Connie Willis, Inside Job If you want a bit of a mind-bender, try <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Job-Connie-Willis-ebook/dp/B004Q9TFP2">this brilliant Hugo award-winning novella by Connie Willis </a>, the most decorated science fiction author of all time. Willis weaves seances, skepticism, and romance into a superbly crafted, tightly structured tale that revolves around a central paradox and finishes with a satisfying ending. “Spreading her pernicious astral-plane-Higher-<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/wisdom">Wisdom </a>hokum and bilking her benighted audiences out of their cash.”

Are you a psychology student who believes in some of this woo-woo? If so, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/forgiveness">forgive </a>me, but there is a sense in which you’re missing the animating spirit and methodological backbone of your discipline. The progress of psychology – or, one might argue, the point of psychology – is to explain the human mind in a natural way, one that does not rely on entities or forms of causation for which we have no evidence. Psychology succeeds precisely to the extent that it’s able to naturalize the mind and bring it under the purview of science.

Psychology Students: Could You Be Missing the Point of Psychology?

The goal is a grand one: to understand the mind in all of its beautiful weirdness – déjà vu, the placebo effect, nervousness-induced itch, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/false-memories">false memories </a>, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/synesthesia">synesthesia </a>, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/dreaming">lucid dreaming </a>, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/near-death-experiences">near-death experiences </a>– in a fully natural way that doesn’t violate any known laws of the universe, doesn’t rely on miracles, and doesn’t postulate entities that aren’t needed to explain the phenomena at hand. If you let in spirits or divination or personalities forged by planetary pulls, you’ve given up before the game really got started.

The good news is that it’s never too late to begin thinking of the mind this way. Your brain is a squishy, wet computer that obeys the laws of physics and was shaped by the blind algorithmic process of evolution. Come on over to the dark side! You won’t miss the woo-woo that much, I promise. There’s awe and grandeur in this naturalistic view of the mind. Plus we have <a href="https://theoldvillage.wordpress.com/2004/01/28/douglas-adams-shares-a-true-story/">cookies </a>.

Carl Sagan, who was too much of a gentleman and a scholar to call it “bullshit”, penned <a href="http://hermiene.net/essays-trans/fine_art_of_baloney_detection.html">this well-known essay </a>on how to detect baloney. It is timeless reading for anybody figuring out how to think about the world. Also helpful are Sagan’s book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Dark/dp/0345409469/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=demon+haunted+world&qid=1603954244&sr=8-1">The Demon-Haunted World </a>and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Reality-Know-Whats-Really/dp/1451675046/ref=sxts_sxwds-bia-wc-p13n1_0?cv_ct_cx=magic+of+reality&dchild=1&keywords=magic+of+reality&pd_rd_i=1451675046&pd_rd_r=bc48d44f-9d16-4f46-9155-a0d982dd9f8b&pd_rd_w=afppV&pd_rd_wg=bNhEb&pf_rd_p=5be4970c-0256-4afe-9550-68021bd84e5b&pf_rd_r=K63MGS1Y2F9J1BWSH9S3&psc=1&qid=1603954234&sr=1-1-791c2399-d602-4248-afbb-8a79de2d236f">this young adult book </a>about how we know what’s true.

Sources for Detecting Bovine Stercus

[1] Lewis Carroll’s version was: “If you set to work to believe everything, you will tire out the believing-muscles of your mind, and then you’ll be so weak you won’t be able to believe the simplest true things.” (Letters , vol 1, p. 64)

Quotes

If you're interested in psychology, don't fall for psychology-adjacent woo.

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Detecting Bull**it

It wakes us up and motivates our workouts to keep us company on our commutes.
Doesn't matter what kind of music it is the music itself has the ability to affect our moods and our bodies in all sorts of ways.
Music activates every area of the brain that we have so far mapped in fact there's no area of the brain that we know about that music doesn't touch in some way, but what's behind all that what exactly does music do to us?

These days we hear music all the time.

25 years ago, the idea was that language is on the left side of the brain and music is on the right side of the brain but now that we've got better quality tools higher resolution neuroimaging, and better experimental methods, it is found that music is going on in both halves of the brain the left and the right, the front in the back the inside and the outside.

Music in the brain.

The multitasking areas of their brain are understandably lit up. Not only that, they had had benefits in cognitive skills and decision-making, & also for social behavior.Kids who have studied music have stronger connections between the right and the left hemisphere and that can make them better problem-solvers.

How does music affect the kid's development?

Whether you find listening to music so pleasurable that you get chills or you absolutely despise a song it can produce absolutely fascinating effects in the brain.According to Levian, musical enjoyment triggers the brain's internal opioid system & just like the opioid system that comes in pill form these chemicals make you feel good and help you paint, and music you don't like releases cortisol the notorious stress.

What happens when you enjoy and when you despise music?

What we know about the brain is that the left hemisphere controls language and there are many other parts of the brain that have music access. Music Therapist, Meghan Morrow says sometimes she compares it to being in traffic and one can't move any further but one might need to exit so they can take a feeder road to get to their destination so music is basically like that feeder road to the new destination like a detour.Therefore, music can help to relearn things like a speech by accessing alternative pathways in the brain, and learning to play music can help strengthen brain connections.

Music Strengthens brain connections.

A musician, Fantastic Negrito was made to play one of his songs while going through fMRI; the result was the areas that process sensory and motor skills along sounds lit up.
But when he was asked to create something original, the areas that were active before, the ones that deal with motor skills and sounds are even more active.

Music under fMRI.

As we could see more of the area of the prefrontal cortex which is associated with effortful planning and conscious self-monitoring is less active, it appears to be really shut down in these moments of high creativity like letting go of this conscious self-censoring or self-monitoring area that are normally there to help control that output.

continued.

Music is so much more than notes on a page. It can change the way we think and speak and feel.
It's not the thing that happens in clubs and jazz bars, it's actually maybe the most fundamental form of what it means to be human to come up with a new idea.
It's about more than just letting go. One can view it from the perspective of survival if human beings only could memorize rote responses we'd be long gone.

What is music exactly?

Life without music is inconceivable for me. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. I get the most joy in life out of music. ~ EisteinDrop your favorite musician's name and tell us how they helped you and what position they hold in your heart.You can find me at <a href="https://twitter.com/saoirseblr?t=fplf8Ltp57OB1lms-7xbbw&s=09">@saoirseblr.</a>TAP for finding out - <a href="https://dsta.sh/NTy9VGgZAkRGGwPw5">Are you productive or are you busy?</a>

Hope these Stashes inspire you to listen to more pieces of music.

Music activates every area of the brain that we have so far mapped in fact there's no area of the brain that we know about that music doesn't touch in some way.

In this episode of Tech Effects, we explore the impact of music on the brain and body. From listening to music to performing it, WIRED's Peter Rubin looks at how music can change our moods, why we get the chills, and how it can actually change pathways in our brains. 
 
 Follow the links below to read more about the research we used in this video:
 
 
 Matthew Sachs’ research on music and frisson: 
 https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/11/6/884/2223400 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079612318300098?via%3Dihub
 
 Assal Habibi - “Music training and child development: a review of recent findings from a longitudinal study.”
 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29508399
 
 Daniel Levitin’s research on music and the brain’s internal opioid system: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep41952
 
 Daniel Levitin’s research on music and stress: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23541122
 
 Daniel Levitin - “This is Your Brain on Music” https://www.amazon.com/This-Your-Brain-Music-Obsession/dp/0452288525
 
 Charles Limb - “Your Brain on Improv” https://www.ted.com/talks/charles_limb_your_brain_on_improv
 
 Charles Limb - “Neural Substrates of Spontaneous Musical Performance: An fMRI Study of Jazz Improvisation”
 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0001679
 
 ABC News, “Gabby Giffords: Finding Words Through Song”
 https://abcnews.go.com/Health/w_MindBodyNews/gabby-giffords-finding-voice-music-therapy/story?id=14903987
 Still haven’t subscribed to WIRED on YouTube? ►► http://wrd.cm/15fP7B7 
 Listen to the Get WIRED podcast ►► https://link.chtbl.com/wired-ytc-desc
 
 Get more incredible stories on science and tech with our daily newsletter: https://wrd.cm/DailyYT
 
 Also, check out the free WIRED channel on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Android TV. Here you can find your favorite WIRED shows and new episodes of our latest hit series Tradecraft.
 
 ABOUT WIRED
 WIRED is where tomorrow is realized. Through thought-provoking stories and videos, WIRED explores the future of business, innovation, and culture. How Does Music Affect Your Brain? | Tech Effects | WIRED

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In this episode of Tech Effects, we explore the impact of music on the brain and body. From listening to music to performing it, WIRED's Peter Rubin looks at how music can change our moods, why we get the chills, and how it can actually change pathways in our brains. 

Follow the links below to read more about the research we used in this video:


Matthew Sachs’ research on music and frisson: 
https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/11/6/884/2223400 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079612318300098?via%3Dihub

Assal Habibi - “Music training and child development: a review of recent findings from a longitudinal study.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29508399

Daniel Levitin’s research on music and the brain’s internal opioid system: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep41952

Daniel Levitin’s research on music and stress: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23541122

Daniel Levitin - “This is Your Brain on Music” https://www.amazon.com/This-Your-Brain-Music-Obsession/dp/0452288525

Charles Limb - “Your Brain on Improv” https://www.ted.com/talks/charles_limb_your_brain_on_improv

Charles Limb - “Neural Substrates of Spontaneous Musical Performance: An fMRI Study of Jazz Improvisation”
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0001679

ABC News, “Gabby Giffords: Finding Words Through Song”
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/w_MindBodyNews/gabby-giffords-finding-voice-music-therapy/story?id=14903987


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How Does Music Affect Your Brain? | Tech Effects | WIRED

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How Does Music Affect Your Brain? | Tech Effects | WIRED

How Does Music Affect Your Brain?

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57933306-stolen-focus">Stolen Focus </a> explains why our attention spans have been dwindling for decades, how technology accelerates this worrying trend, and what we can do to reclaim our focus and thus our capacity to live meaningful lives.

Stolen Focus - Book Summary 

"When you are unable to pay sustained attention, you can't achieve the things you want to achieve."-Johann Hari

Author Quote 

According to Johann Hari in his book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57933306-stolen-focus">Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention </a>, he explains patterns like the fact that <a href="https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/texting-and-driving-statistics/">half of all young people are texting while driving </a>. The book also sheds a light on why doing so <a href="https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/texting-and-driving-statistics/">reduces our attention by as much as 37% </a>. Of course, Hari provides some solutions too.

<ol><li>Our dwindling attention spans predate the internet, but their decline is accelerating at an alarming rate. </li><li>Current social media platforms are designed to make you addicted so they can make a profit. </li><li>If you want to get back your ability to focus, stop celebrating multitasking and practice being in a flow state. </li> </ol>

Top 3 Lessons From The Book 

Out of personal dissatisfaction with his ability to focus, Danish professor Sune Lehmann conducted a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09311-w">study </a>about attention. He concluded that, even before the internet, the rise and fall of popular books in the last 200 years indicates that trend cycles are getting shorter. The internet compounds this problem. Between 2013 and 2016, the average duration for which topics trend on Twitter reduced by over 30%, from over 17 to just over 11 hours.

Lesson 1: The internet isn’t the only thing eroding our focus, but it’s declining ever-faster, and that’s a problem.

The culprit is the increasing rate at which we can spread information. From letters to the radio to telephones and live TV — the internet is just the tip of the iceberg. This “<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29848682-the-great-acceleration">great acceleration </a>,” as Robert Colvile calls it, lies at the heart of the problem. Where we used to consume the equivalent of about 40 newspapers each day in the 80s, it was about 174 newspapers in 2004, and it’s bound to be a lot more now.

The faster we can spread information, the more information we distribute, and the more rains down on every single one of us on any given day . Unlike the latest hot topic on Twitter, this trend isn’t going to go away any time soon, and <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/the-organized-mind-summary/">our brains simply aren’t evolving fast enough to cope with it </a>.

We have a saying in Germany: “The only thing that’s free in life is death — and even for that, you’ll have to pay with your life.” It means that everything comes at a price, even if the price is hidden at first.

Lesson 2: Most of today’s big social media platforms exploit your attention on purpose so they can make money.

Social media is a great example. We don’t pay with cash to use services like Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, but in that word, “using,” already lies their true cost: our time and attention. Infinitely scrolling feeds, vain buttons that issue <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/how-to-break-up-with-your-phone-summary/">dopamine at a tap </a>via likes, shares, and comments, and algorithms feeding you outrageous stories to keep you “using” — it’s all designed to make you addicted on purpose.

To the giants of Silicon Valley, your time is their money, and they’re doing everything they can to keep you “engaged,” even if it’s to the detriment of your time management, wellbeing, and focus . In 2020, the Wall Street Journal even <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-it-encourages-division-top-executives-nixed-solutions-11590507499">broke a story </a>showing Facebook knew full well what it was doing. Quoting an internal presentation, they showed that “[their] algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness.” Since it’s so profitable, however, they’ve done little to change anything, so it’s up to us to take back what’s ours.

More information than we can handle, addictive technology, and an entire industry incentivized to keep you doomscrolling for as long as possible: It’s easy to put on your victim hat when it comes to your loss of <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/deep-work-summary/">deep focus </a>. But we too carry some of the blame.

Lesson 3: The first step to regaining your focus is to stop celebrating multitasking and begin practicing the state of flow.

For one, we’ve developed a culture of celebrating multitasking. Since our society is now always chasing the next thing, we’ve adopted that same <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/mindset-summary/">mindset </a>at work. The more boxes we can check off, the better, or so we think. Ultimately, we just end up doing “performative multitasking” — we’re more concerned with looking and feeling busy than actually creating something meaningful .

Of course, <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/the-myth-of-multitasking-summary/">multitasking is a myth </a>, a term reserved for computers with multiple processors, not humans with just one brain. So, what can you do? Reject multitasking. Stop celebrating your coworkers for bouncing around between Slack, email, and PowerPoint. Set boundaries by tuning your notifications, and aim to <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/singletasking-summary/">singletask </a>.

A good way to practice this is to get in <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/flow-summary/">the state of flow </a>that researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described. Lose yourself in a task, and lose track of time. That’s how you know you’re in flow, and any challenge that is not too difficult but also not too boring and feels intrinsically rewarding can trigger it. Start small. Put the brakes on multitasking, go down fewer social media rabbit holes, and remind yourself that it’s okay to not know everything. Find some time to get into flow, and your power to focus will be back in no time!

Hari packages the topic well. In outlining the situation as a global attention crisis, he conveys to us the gravity of the situation. He deftly compiles the history, latest developments, and up-to-date research on the subject, and he still manages to sneak in some personal recommendations as to how we can improve. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57933306-stolen-focus">Stolen Focus </a>is a great read for learning to better manage your attention in the 21st century.

Stolen Focus - Book Review

The 14-year-old high school student who’s so busy maintaining all her social media profiles that she barely has time to pay attention in class, the 27-year-old young professional who feels totally overwhelmed at a new job two weeks in, and anyone who feels like they just can’t focus the way they used to.

Who would I recommend the Stolen Focus to?

Read our summary of Stolen Focus by Johann Hari to discover why your attention is waning, and what you can do to get it back, in 3 lessons.

productivity

Productivity

mindfulness

Mindfulness

Stolen Focus Summary

The abiogenesis theory is a widely accepted theory for the origin of life on Earth. This theory proposes that life emerged from non-living matter through a series of natural chemical reactions, starting with the formation of the building blocks of life, such as amino acids and nucleotides, and culminating in the formation of the first living cells. The experiments and research conducted so far have provided strong evidence for this theory, and scientists continue to make progress in understanding the processes that may have led to the formation of life on Earth.

Decoding The Origins Of Life: Understanding The Abiogenesis Theory

The abiogenesis theory, also known as spontaneous generation, is one of the most widely accepted theories for the origin of life on Earth. This theory proposes that life emerged from non-living matter through a series of natural chemical reactions. The basic idea of abiogenesis is that the building blocks of life, such as amino acids and nucleotides, could have been formed on the early Earth through natural processes, and then came together to form more complex molecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids, which eventually gave rise to living cells.

Understanding Abiogenesis

One of the most important hypothesis for the origin of the first living cell is the “RNA world” hypothesis, which proposes that RNA was the first genetic material and the first self-replicating molecule. RNA is a molecule that can act as an enzyme, a genetic material and can store information. According to this hypothesis, the first living cells would have been made up of RNA molecules, which would have been able to carry out all the functions of a living organism, such as metabolism and replication.

The RNA World Hypothesis

One of the key pieces of evidence for the abiogenesis theory is the Miller-Urey experiment, conducted in 1953 by Stanley Miller and Harold Urey. They attempted to simulate the conditions of the early Earth and showed that by sparking an electric discharge through a mixture of gases that resemble the primitive Earth’s atmosphere (methane, ammonia, and water vapor) it was possible to produce some of the building blocks of life, such as amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, and nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA and RNA.

Evidence: The Miller-Urey Experiment

Decoding The Origins Of Life – Big History

Work relationships are specific expectations for the interactions among people in various positions in an organization or company. These relationships can be personal, professional, or a combination of both. Here are the seven types of work relationships with some tips on improving them:

7 Types Of Work Relationships And How To Improve Them. 

Co-worker relationships can be neither personal nor professional but simply circumstantial. Co-workers are your acquaintances through your organization or company. However, aside from belonging to one organization, your interaction with them is very minimal.

1. Co-workers

The most intimate type of work relationship you can ever have is something that is not considered specific to work alone. They are your friends in real life who will continue to be so even after you leave the company.

2. Life Friends

Your manager assigns your work, impacts the work you do and don’t do, and ultimately helps you succeed. Your direct report includes people who report to you, which means you are their manager. Direct reports also determine if you will succeed or not.

3. Manager and Direct Report

Mentor and mentee is the highest form of work relationship that you can ever have. A mentor is the one you go to for guidance regarding your career. They help you during your most difficult problems. On the other hand, your mentee is someone who seeks advice from you.

4. Mentor and Mentee

An office spouse is someone you spend a lot of time with. Office spouses are the ones you go to for advice and venting out. There might even be rumors at one point or another about the two of you even if it is only platonic.

5. Office Spouse

Your team members are employees just like yourself who belong to the same team as you. It can be the team you are working with every day, a committee that you joined, or a group that works together for one activity.

6. Team Members

Your work friends are people whom you socially interact with at work. You eat lunch together, sit beside them during meetings, converse with them at happy hours and work events, and even see them now and then outside work.

7. Work Friends

While it doesn’t mean that you should be best friends with all the people in your company or organization, good work relationships can be improved through the following: Be inclusive:Always welcome new ideas, including those that contract yours. Encourage healthy dialogues and take their perspective into account when making decisions. Establish trustBeing trustworthy and trusting your colleagues means you can be sure that everyone pulls in just one direction. No one will try to undermine others or hurt the career of another person behind his or her back.

Tips to Improve Work Relationships

Communicate:Clearly communicate anything you need from others. Ask questions when confused but set boundaries if needed. You will form stronger work relationships if you communicate with integrity and honesty.

These tips are really important when it comes to maintain work life balance. 

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7 Types of work relationships and How to improve them. 

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22822903-the-blue-zones-solution">The Blue Zones Solution </a>shows you how to adopt the lifestyle and mindset practices of the healthiest, longest-living people on the planet from the five locations with the highest population of centenarians.

Book Summary 

The Blue Zones Solution summary explains not just where and how the healthiest people in the world live, but what you can do to live longer too.

The Blue Zones Solution Summary

Find 100+ Facts about Science - Curated by others from trusted sources like Books, Podcasts & Articles - Genuine Insights from like-minded Users like You!

How To Take Smart Notes: 8 Steps to taking smart notes.

Why aren't the stars visible in the pictures of astronauts? #shorts

What Is a Projection Defense Mechanism?

Detecting Bull**it

How Does Music Affect Your Brain?

Stolen Focus Summary

Decoding The Origins Of Life – Big History

7 Types of work relationships and How to improve them.

The Blue Zones Solution Summary

The 2 Spiritual Paths On Earth

It's time to
Read like a Pro.

How To Take Smart Notes: 8 Steps to taking smart notes.

Why aren't the stars visible in the pictures of astronauts? #shorts

What Is a Projection Defense Mechanism?

Detecting Bull**it

How Does Music Affect Your Brain?

Stolen Focus Summary

Decoding The Origins Of Life – Big History

7 Types of work relationships and How to improve them.

The Blue Zones Solution Summary

The 2 Spiritual Paths On Earth

It's time to Read like a Pro.

It's time to
Read like a Pro.