Disconnecting completely isn't a realistic option, so here's how to trim back on the daily deluge.

We live in a world of unlimited information. The internet produces 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every single day. Keeping up everything is impossible when we only have 24 hours in a day, and can stand in the way of getting things done and focusing on what really matters.

Anita Williams Woolley, associate professor of organizational behavior and theory at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business, says the biggest problem with information overload is the constant stream of interruptions. "Doing something such as writing an email while being constantly interrupted can lead you to spend at least twice as long writing it, and the quality of the final product will be significantly lower than if it was written without interruptions," she says.

In a recent column, Jack Thompson argues that mass shootings might be deterred by enacting government regulation of violent video games. Thompson argues this would be "simple, constitutional and effective."

I am one of the leading researchers on the effects of violent games and testified before the School Safety Commission Thompson mentions. The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled any government regulation of violent video games to be unconstitutional. Furthermore, evidence is now clear any regulation would be entirely ineffective at reducing criminal violence.

During my testimony before the School Safety Commission, I noted that research evidence has not, in fact, supported links between violent video games and mass shootings or any other criminal violence. Even for minor acts of aggression, such as putting spicy sauce in someone's food as a prank, the evidence is inconsistent. For actual acts of violence, long-term studies of youth have not provided evidence that playing violent video games is a meaningful predictor of youth violence, bullying or conduct disorder.

The APA's Division 51 (Men and Masculinities) recently released their guidelines for working with men and boys. While guidelines on this topic are much needed, the APA's contribution leaves room for improvement. In this article I will outline issues with two of their 10 guidelines:

Guideline 1 of the APA guidelines suggests that "masculinities are constructed based on social, cultural and contextual norms". However although it is true that masculinity is, in part, constructed, it is also partly innate.

What is the evidence that masculinity is, in part, innate? Well, sex differences in cognition and behaviour are found worldwide, and their universality suggests something that transcends culture. Moreover, most of these clearly map onto masculinity. For example, the tendency to being more competitive, aggressive (physically), and interested in sports than women maps onto the male gender script of being a fighter and winner. The tendency to working longer hours, working in male-typical occupations, exploring the environment, more willing to take risks, maps onto the male gender script of being provider and protector. The tendency to show less fear, less crying, more inclined to substance abuse (self-medication) maps onto the male gender script of having mastery &control of one's emotions.

The crucial point for therapy is that because some aspects of masculinity are innate, changing them is not a simple case of cognitive restructuring or behaviour change, any more than changing other deeply-held aspects of gender identity or sexual identity is straightforward or even desirable.

Just because plants do not have brains it doesn't mean they cannot have feelings. Plants can feel distressed as in a way they have a type of nervous system.

Plants Warn Each Other If They Are Attacked

Biologists have found out that if the leaf of a plant starts to get eaten it is able to give off a warning to other leaves. They do this by using similar signals to animals in distress. Biologists are continuing to study the mystery of how plants are able to take to each other.

"Look. You can't plan out your life. What you have to do is first discover your passion-what you really care about." Barack Obama, as quoted by David Gergen (cited in Jachimowicz et al, 2018).

Last Saturday, the first of two BPS career events took place - "perfect for anyone looking to discover where psychology can take them in their chosen career." A second follows in London on Dec 4. If, like many, you are searching for your calling in life - perhaps you are still unsure whether psychology is for you, or which area of the profession aligns with what you most care about - here are five digested research findings worth taking into consideration:

There's a difference between having a harmonious passion and an obsessive passion

If you can find a career path or occupational goal that fires you up, you are more likely to succeed and find happiness through your work - that much we know from a deep research literature. But beware - since a seminal paper published in 2003 by the Canadian psychologist Robert Vallerand and his colleagues, researchers have made an important distinction between having a harmonious passion and an obsessive one. If you feel that your passion or calling is out of control, and that your mood and self-esteem depend on it, then this is the obsessive variety, and such passions, while they are energising, are also associated with negative outcomes like burnout and anxiety. In contrast, if your passion feels in control, reflects qualities that you like about yourself, and complements other important activities in your life, then this is the harmonious version, which is associated with positive outcomes, such as vitality, better work performance, experiencing flow, and positive mood.

A new study between published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience demonstrates that avoidant grievers unconsciously monitor and block the contents of their mind-wandering, constantly protecting themselves from thinking about their loss.

People who are grieving a major loss, such as the death of a spouse or a child, use different coping mechanisms to carry on with their lives. Psychologists have been able to track different approaches, which can reflect different clinical outcomes. One approach that is not usually successful is avoidant grief, a state in which people suffering from grief show marked, effortful, repeated, and often unsuccessful attempts to stop themselves from thinking about their loss. While researchers have shown that avoidant grievers consciously monitor their external environment in order to avoid reminders of their loss, no one has yet been able to show whether these grievers also monitor their mental state unconsciously, trying to block any thoughts of loss from rising to their conscious state.

A new collaborative study between Columbia Engineering and Columbia University Irving Medical Center published in SCAN: Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience demonstrates that avoidant grievers do unconsciously monitor and block the contents of their mind-wandering, a discovery that could lead to more effective psychiatric treatment for bereaved people suffering from impairing or pathological grief. The researchers, who studied 29 bereaved subjects, are the first to show how this unconscious thought suppression occurs. They tracked ongoing processes of mental control as loss-related thoughts came in and out of conscious awareness during a 10-minute period of mind-wandering.

Will Storr is an award-winning journalist and novelist. His work has appeared in outlets such as the Guardian, the Sunday Times, the New Yorker, and Esquire. His latest book is Selfie: How We Became so Self-Obsessed and What it's Doing to Us. As a psychologist who studies the self and related topics, I was excited to read the book and was not disappointed. I highly recommend it. Below is an interview I conducted with Mr. Storr about Selfie.

Clay Routledge: What made you interested in researching and writing a book focused on the self?

Will Storr: My previous book, The Unpersaudables, was an investigation into how intelligent people come to believe crazy things. It focused on the ways we become intellectually stuck. I concluded that we don't really choose the things we believe-at least not those things that are core to our worldview. What we believe is just part of the accident of who we are. In an important way, our core beliefs and our self are indivisible.

But this was also a slightly unsatisfying answer, because clearly people do change. I became curious about how this happens and began focusing, in my journalism, on people who'd changed their minds. One of these people was the eminent psychologist Professor Roy Baumeister who used to be a believer in the self-esteem myth. Not only did he change his mind, he was an important figure in proving to the world that the idea, which was dominant at the time, was wrong.

CR: What is the self-esteem movement and how did it come about?

WS: Its proponents believed self-esteem was a "social vaccine" that could cure us of a vast array of problems, and to make us more successful and competitive in our working lives. At its simplest, it said that in order to become amazing we must believe we're amazing. It helped change the way we raised and taught our children.

At the heart of Selfie is a deep investigation into one of its main proponents, a politician named John Vasconcellos, and his government mandated task force to look into self-esteem. He told the world that the scientific part of his investigation confirmed that high self-esteem was, indeed, a social vaccine. I tracked down former members and spent weeks pouring through their archives and found that he'd deliberately lied and attempted to cover up about what the science really showed-which was no causative link between self-esteem and good outcomes.

For many people the term mental health is synonymous with the absence of symptoms. With this outlook our mental health rests in positive emotion, our ability to cope, maintain emotional balance, and adjust to the world and society. Viewing mental health in such a way leaves little room for good or evil, high or low, or better or worse ways of adjusting, or of experiencing certain symptoms. So what would a psychology of value look like, and how mentally healthy are we when viewed through that psychology? These questions were the subject of Kazimierz Dabrowski's formidable intellect over the course of his entire career.

So join us today, on the Truth Perspective, as we use Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration to explore and add real depth to the concept of mental health, also utilizing insights gained from our discussions on the hypnotic power of the crowd, Paul and the Stoics, and experiments into the nature of consciousness, today we're taking a new look at what mental health really is for us in this crazy, upside-down world.

Running Time: 01:22:36

Download: MP3

A new UC Berkeley study shows those prickly disagreements that can mark the early and middle years of marriage mellow with age as conflicts give way to humor and acceptance.

When it comes to several health indicators and risks, marriages have been proven to offer considerable benefits according to a large population-based studies. Married individuals usually have lower levels of the stress hormones than those who never married or were previously married. Exactly how marriage works its magic remains mysterious. Perhaps a strong personal relationship improves mental health and helps the individual to ward off physical illness.

Married couples who have well over a decade together typically become more tolerant and compassionate towards the needs of each other. Although this may not be directly evident to casual observers, researchers have found the behavior consistent at levels revealed after investigation.

Researchers analyzed videotaped conversations between 87 middle-aged and older husbands and wives who had been married for 15 to 35 years, and tracked their emotional interactions over the course of 13 years. They found that as couples aged, they showed more humor and tenderness towards one another.

British international tells Euan Crumley about why he had to take a break from athletics and how a change in mindset has been crucial to rediscovering his love of the sport.

Nick Goolab was no longer enjoying his running. Even though he won the Ipswich 5k in May, he spent the entire race inwardly berating and criticising himself. The Belgrave Harrier knew his mindset was not doing him any favours at all and that something had to change.

He took a two-month break from the sport and during that time began to work with Wendy Hilton, a life coach who is also a masseuse with British Athletics.