I don't place much stock in "studies" and "findings" normally -- anyone who actually gets paid to do some of the shit these people do should instantly be suspect. Seriously, if your "job" involves keeping people awake and letting them shock themselves instead of sitting quietly and thinking, something's hinky. We all know how scientific method and testable hypotheses work, but a lot of this stuff is just make-work for grant funding.
And yet, there is something that resonates with this study, something we can quite clearly observe by going to just about any public place -- real or virtual, Costco or Facebook -- and just watching people, how they act and react. It's not a value judgment to postulate that people in general, and perhaps Americans in particular, are tethered -- addicted, even -- to external stimuli. It's tough for many people to just shut it off.
It's like that person in your office or family that is hooked on interpersonal drama, to the extent that they'll go out of their way to create said drama, if there's none to be found. They get some sort of adrenaline rush, something like that. I've never understood it, but we all know it's there.
It doesn't seem unreasonable to presume the same sort of thing going on here, that the more you force people to slave away just to get by, the more they start to live and perceive through their work families. Which is the other thing about all these studies -- what do you actually propose to do about your findings?
And yet, there is something that resonates with this study, something we can quite clearly observe by going to just about any public place -- real or virtual, Costco or Facebook -- and just watching people, how they act and react. It's not a value judgment to postulate that people in general, and perhaps Americans in particular, are tethered -- addicted, even -- to external stimuli. It's tough for many people to just shut it off.
It's like that person in your office or family that is hooked on interpersonal drama, to the extent that they'll go out of their way to create said drama, if there's none to be found. They get some sort of adrenaline rush, something like that. I've never understood it, but we all know it's there.
It doesn't seem unreasonable to presume the same sort of thing going on here, that the more you force people to slave away just to get by, the more they start to live and perceive through their work families. Which is the other thing about all these studies -- what do you actually propose to do about your findings?
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