Thursday, April 9

LIFESTYLE

Building Work Relationships While Staying Professional
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RELATIONSHIPS

Building Work Relationships While Staying Professional

Workplace besties: How to build relationships at work while staying professional. Having meaningful connections in the workplace is essential for personal and organizational success. Most of us form these bonds naturally, as we spend a significant amount of our lifetimes at work. After leaving college, many people in their 20s move to new cities for career opportunities, where they face the task of creating a brand new social circle from scratch. The workplace becomes an ideal place for people to connect. Activities like grabbing drinks after work, playing team sports or just sharing meals serve as opportunities to form connections with co-workers. These interactions not only help combat feelings of isolation, but also add a sense of camaraderie and support to the daily work routine...
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Teens See Selected Content As Not Just “For Them” But Also “About Them”
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PARENTING, VIDEO REELS

Teens See Selected Content As Not Just “For Them” But Also “About Them”

Teens see social media algorithms as accurate reflections of themselves, study finds. Social media apps regularly present teens with algorithmically selected content often described as “for you,” suggesting, by implication, that the curated content is not just “for you” but also “about you” – a mirror reflecting important signals about the person you are. All users of social media are exposed to these signals, but researchers understand that teens are at an especially malleable stage in the formation of personal identity. Scholars have begun to demonstrate that technology is having generation-shaping effects, not merely in the way it influences cultural outlook, behavior and privacy, but also in the way it can shape personality among those brought up on social media. The prevalenc...
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Let That Zero Be Your Hero
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DATING

Let That Zero Be Your Hero

There is this guy that you think is attractive. You see him all the time at school, work or maybe at your favorite coffee shop. When you know there is a likelihood that you may run into him, you find yourself spending a little more time perfecting your look that morning. It's working because there is no doubt he notices. He's always looking, smiling or showing some kind of interest from afar. You echo his sentiments by speaking, smiling and making eye contact, letting him know it's OK for him to approach because you ARE indeed interested. So why doesn't he come talk to you? What's it going to take to get this guy to make a real move? What typically happens is we women start making excuses for him. "Well, maybe he's just shy" or "Maybe I haven't given him enough signs letting him know that ...
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Could Human-Machine Relationships Go Mainstream? — Sex, Love And Companionship With AI
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RELATIONSHIPS

Could Human-Machine Relationships Go Mainstream? — Sex, Love And Companionship With AI

Sex, love and companionship … with AI? Why human-machine relationships could go mainstream. There was once a stigma attached to online dating: Less than a decade ago, many couples who had met online would make up stories for how they met rather than admit that they had done so via an app. Not so anymore. Online dating is so mainstream that you’re an outlier if you haven’t met your partner on Tinder, Grindr or Hinge. We bring up online dating to show just how quickly conventions around romance can change. With rapid advances in AI technology over the past few years, these norms may well evolve to include sex, love and friendships with AI-equipped machines. In our research, we look at how people use technology to form and maintain relationships. But we also look at how people bond with machi...
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How to Detach and Let Go With Love
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BREAK UP

How to Detach and Let Go With Love

Although it's painful to see our loved ones be self-destructive, detaching allows us to enjoy our life despite another person's problems and behavior. Attachment and caring are normal. It's healthy to get attached to people we love and care about, but codependent attachment causes us pain and problems in relationships. We become overly attached-not because we love so much but because we need so much. We need someone to be and act a certain way so that you can feel okay. Managing and controlling, reacting and worrying, and obsessing are counterproductive codependent patterns. We can become over-involved. The antidote is to detach and let go. What is Detaching? Detachment implies neutrality. Detaching is a way of separating the unhealthy emotional glue that keeps us fused in a codependent...
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Why Is It Always Women Who Must Improve, When It Comes To Dating Advice?
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DATING

Why Is It Always Women Who Must Improve, When It Comes To Dating Advice?

“Therapy-speak” advice on relationships and dating is widely available outside of the psychotherapist’s office. Much of this advice places responsibility on women for managing their emotional reactions to problematic dating and relationship experiences. The advice women are given about dating, relationships, and finding love largely falls into three categories. 1. How to not attract emotionally unavailable men Instagram is full of relationship advice that tells women to take responsibility for their “healing”. It advises them on attachment styles, co-dependency, and emotional wounds, as well as how to deal with avoidant and narcissistic partners. Such advice varies in quality from patronising and exploitative, to nuanced and compassionate. Some of this advice is helpful, much of it is not...
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The ‘Talking Stage’ Between The Introduction And Officially Dating
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DATING

The ‘Talking Stage’ Between The Introduction And Officially Dating

Stuck in a ‘talking stage’ or ‘situation-ship’? How young people can get more out of modern love. “Going together” sounds like a romantic term from yesteryear. Today’s young people have a newer label: the “talking stage”. It happens between being introduced to someone and officially dating, and it can involve talking or texting for days – even months. Unsplash, CC BY The purpose of this stage is to have the opportunity to get to know someone before committing to a relationship with them. But judging by their posts on social media, young people all over the world are struggling with this modern-day dating phase. They can find it drawn-out, repetitive and emotionally draining. Is it a new thing? And how can potential couples partners make the most of it? New label, old practice The ta...
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Replika The AI companion Users Are Falling Hard For
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ATTRACTION

Replika The AI companion Users Are Falling Hard For

I tried the Replika AI companion and can see why users are falling hard. The app raises serious ethical questions. The warm light of friendship, intimacy and romantic love illuminates the best aspects of being human – while also casting a deep shadow of possible heartbreak. But what happens when it’s not a human bringing on the heartache, but an AI-powered app? That’s a question a great many users of the Replika AI are crying about this month. Like many an inconstant human lover, users witnessed their Replika companions turn cold as ice overnight. A few hasty changes by the app makers inadvertently showed the world that the feelings people have for their virtual friends can prove overwhelmingly real. If these technologies can cause such pain, perhaps it’s time we stopped viewing them as ...
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How to listen to your loved ones with empathy when you yourself are feeling the strain of social distancing
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RELATIONSHIPS

How to listen to your loved ones with empathy when you yourself are feeling the strain of social distancing

COVID-19 has revealed a great many things about our world, including the vulnerabilities inherent in our economic, health care and educational institutions. The pandemic and the resulting orders to shelter in place have also uncovered vulnerabilities in our relationships with others. Many of us are not just dealing with our own feelings of anxiety, anger and sadness; we are dealing with the anxiety, anger and sadness expressed by the people with whom we live and other loved ones with whom we’ve maintained virtual connections. How do we respond with empathy when we are feeling a host of emotions ourselves? Is it even possible? As a clinical psychologist, I have spent the last two decades studying how couples facing chronic stressors can be there for each other in the midst of their own pe...
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To Find Love – The Lies We Tell On Dating Apps
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DATING

To Find Love – The Lies We Tell On Dating Apps

Nearly one-fourth of young adults are looking for love through dating websites or apps. This relatively new form of courtship can give you access to a large pool of potential partners. It also presents a unique set of challenges. For example, you’ve probably heard about – or have personally experienced – a date that was planned online but didn’t go well for one of the following reasons: He was shorter than his profile said he was, she looked different in person than she did in her photos, or he was talkative over text but it was like pulling teeth at dinner. In other words, a person’s profile – and the messages sent before a date – might not capture who a person really is. In a 2018 paper, my colleague Jeff Hancock and I wondered: How often do people who use dating apps lie? What sort of t...
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