Our Minds Have Been Hijacked by Our Phones – WIRED

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Source: Our Minds Have Been Hijacked by Our Phones. Tristan Harris Wants to Rescue Them | WIRED

Technology steers what 2 billion people are thinking and believing every day. It’s possibly the largest source of influence over 2 billion people’s thoughts that has ever been created. Religions and governments don’t have that much influence over people’s daily thoughts. But we have three technology companies who have this system that frankly they don’t even have control over—with newsfeeds and recommended videos and whatever they put in front of you—which is governing what people do with their time and what they’re looking at.

I’ll be the first to admit I spend a lot of time online.  But I pretty much avoid most social media sites.  Stopped using FaceBorg.  Instagram to catch the occasional post from one of the kids.  A little Twitter for news.  LinkedIn rarely.  It wasn’t hard for me to recognize mass brainwashing.  Not to mention addiction.

One of my more popular posts was a link to this Atlantic article.

But many of you never clicked through to read the article.  I do hope you take the time to read this Wired article.  It will make you think long and hard about your use of technology.

Think about what would happen if you shut off some of these apps that keep dinging you for attention?  This happens.

Change in Diet Can Lower Mortality Risk

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A worsening diet over the course of 12 years was associated with an increased mortality of 6% to 12%, the researchers found.  Those who stayed consistently on a healthy diet starting at baseline had a 9% to 14% lower risk for death than those who stayed consistently on a poor diet.

Source: Change in Diet Can Lower Mortality Risk

Source: Association of Changes in Diet Quality with Total and Cause-Specific Mortality — NEJM

 

Mammoth and Plenty of Raw Vegetables – ScienceDaily

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Senckenberg scientists have studied the diet of anatomically modern humans. With their recent study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, they were able to refute the theory that the diet of early representatives of Homo sapiens was more flexible than that of Neanderthals. Just like the Neanderthals, our ancestors had mainly mammoth and plants on their plates — the researchers were unable to document fish as part of their diet. Therefore, the international team assumes that the displacement of the Neanderthals was the result of direct competition.

And yet another result came as a surprise for the scientists: The proportion of plants in the diet of the anatomically modern humans was significantly higher than in comparable Neanderthal finds — mammoths, on the other hand, appear to have been one of the primary sources of meat in both species.

Source: On the early human’s menu: Mammoth and plenty of raw vegetables: Early modern humans consumed more plants than Neanderthals but ate very little fish — ScienceDaily

Take home lesson:

Eat more plants and less mammoth.

Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? – The Atlantic

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Source: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? – The Atlantic

Step away from the phone slowly and keep your hands where I can see them.

Check out the following quote from a celebrity interview.

I heard you deleted the Internet from your phone. And that you deleted Twitter and Instagram and e-mail. No way that’s true, right?
It is! Whenever you check for a new post on Instagram or whenever you go on The New York Times to see if there’s a new thing, it’s not even about the content. It’s just about seeing a new thing. You get addicted to that feeling. You’re not going to be able to control yourself. So the only way to fight that is to take yourself out of the equation and remove all these things. What happens is, eventually you forget about it. You don’t care anymore. When I first took the browser off my phone, I’m like, [gasp] How am I gonna look stuff up? But most of the shit you look up, it’s not stuff you need to know. All those websites you read while you’re in a cab, you don’t need to look at any of that stuff. It’s better to just sit and be in your own head for a minute. I wanted to stop that thing where I get home and look at websites for an hour and a half, checking to see if there’s a new thing. And read a book instead. I’ve been doing it for a couple months, and it’s worked. I’m reading, like, three books right now. I’m putting something in my mind. It feels so much better than just reading the Internet and not remembering anything.

More Earthquakes – 08.03.17

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Source: Earthquakes | tulsaworld.com

Source: Latest Earthquakes

The first link has a filter to see Oklahoma quakes only.

The second link is the USGS site of all earthquakes worldwide greater than 2.5.

It’s hard to sleep after a 4.2 rumbles through the house.

But this link to a local news station is the best.  

The following link is for the science geeks.

Source: Similar characteristics found in human-induced and natural earthquakes — ScienceDaily

 

Trends in Prescription Opioids Detected in Fatally Injured Drivers in 6 US States: 1995–2015 | AJPH | Ahead of Print

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Results. The prevalence of prescription opioids detected in fatally injured drivers increased from 1.0% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.5, 1.4) in 1995 to 7.2% (95% CI = 5.7, 8.8) in 2015 (Z = −9.04; P < .001). Prescription opioid prevalence was higher in female than in male drivers (4.4% vs 2.9%; P < .001). Of the drivers testing positive for prescription opioids, 30.0% had elevated blood alcohol concentrations (≥ 0.01 g/dL), and 66.9% tested positive for other drugs.

Source: Trends in Prescription Opioids Detected in Fatally Injured Drivers in 6 US States: 1995–2015 | AJPH | Ahead of Print

Houston…we have a problem.