Has Posing, Pouting and Posting turned us all into Narcissists?

SobiUziPsychology

Being the start of the new year we thought we would take this opportunity to have a phone clean up and delete all the unwanted files and downloads that are just taking up valuable phone space. Or should we say valuable selfie phone space.

We both think we may have gone a little selfie crazy over the past year. We have lost count of the number of pictures we have taken in the same pose, in a slightly different angle with a slight difference in pout with and without the help of our beloved selfie stick . So what is it about selfies that has got the young the old, the celebrities and the guy next door hooked, regardless of colour and creed.

According to Walker (2013) to date over 31 million selfies have been taken and posted on Instragram with the tag #selfie. The question is why have become so obsessed about selfies and posting…

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To lose weight or to NOT lose weight..

Choosing to kick start a diet is as much about timing as it is about motivation. Starting a diet at the wrong time can affect your level of motivation or make it easier for you to get distracted from your ultimate goal.

What is it about the new year that gets people on a mad health kick. New years resolutions or new gym memberships to lose them extra pounds or stones a promise to yourself that you can do it. But why is it that you often find that the first few weeks are going well and by the time you get half way through January you start falling back into old eating habits.

So every day i go into uni i make a promise to myself “I shall not stuff my face all day long”. And what have i done by home time.. eaten a big hash brown butty followed by a hot chocolate an hour or so later probably had the chunkiest sweetest chocolate bar followed by another cup of hot chocolate. At lunch times doesn’t matter what i have to eat, i have to end with some sort of cream bun or muffin. It doesn’t end there the last break of the day will end with another chocolate bar. I just cant seem to stop eating. I’ve already been banned by the tutor to stop eating iced buns in class, but that doesn’t seem to stop me trying to eat a rolo out of my pencil case on the sly

Set Out Running: Academic Bodies, After Labour

This is a very interesting read

Rachel E. Moss

“Slow down,” my mother said, watching me gobble down my lunch. “You don’t have to hurry.” But in these handful of weeks – eight tomorrow since my daughter entered the world – I’ve learned to do most things at a run. My daughter Grace is very rarely at rest; right now she’s napping, but that never lasts for long, and even in her sleep she thrashes, purses her lips, stretches her small fat arms above her head. So although my dad had Grace on his knee, letting me for once have the use of both hands to eat, I swallowed down the meal as if poised once again for flight.

What turned out to be only a week before I gave birth, I wrote a blog post on the transitional time of late pregnancy. I wrote then, in reference to medieval texts of pregnant or recently postpartum women set…

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facebook addiction

“Having lunch with bae at best restaurant in town”, “Watching the new Star Wars…”, “Going on road trip with family”.

How many times do we read such posts on Facebook time and time again. And what is it about reading about the lives of others that is making us addicted to Facebook.

What’s the first thing you do when you wake up.. How many of you turn the alarm off and sign into Facebook? Are you addicted to this behavior?

How addicted are we to Facebook is the question?

Social experience’s  are filled within Facebook, we believe we need interaction, ask yourself why are we compelled to check Facebook?  if we look back at the olden days parents socialized outside in gardens or having tea and cake whilst children played outside, now we are replacing this with social sites such as Facebook. What does this suggest to you? What does this tell you? Has Facebook taken over our life’s? Has it changed social interaction?

Social psychologists deal with the factors that lead us to behave in a given way in the presence of others, and look at the conditions under which certain behavior/actions and feelings occur. Are we looking for acceptance from others to feel and be part of a virtual group to feel belonged and to boost out self-esteem. Self esteem can be linked to Facebook addiction through the lines and comments we receive on our posts and pages, for someone with low self esteem the positive and the more likes and comments they receive is making them wanted and part of an in-group.

A recent study found that giving up Facebook could be more difficult then giving smoking and alcohol up. The study found that there was more people who felt the need to stay on top of online social networks.

A recent study linked “Facebook users with more friends have bigger sections of brains,” An association was found between having more Facebook contacts, a higher number of real world social contacts and the amount of grey matter in areas of the brain associated with social perception and memory. When we get positive feedback on Facebook, the feeling lights up this part of our brain. The greater the intensity of our Facebook use, the greater the reward.

People may feel socially obligated to like or comment on certain types of social milestones or achievements. If someone posts that they just got engaged or received a promotion, friends may feel the need to like the post, as an acknowledgment. Your friends are more likely to feel obligated to say “Your new baby is so cute” than to say “that’s an interesting news story you posted about the presidential race”.

Facebook itself pushes certain types of posts to the top of people’s news feeds, so such posts will get even more likes. Also the intellectual posts may attract less attention because they can’t be absorbed quickly – I can easily appreciate the adorable photo of my friend’s cat and click “like” as I scroll down my newsfeed, but I don’t have time to click on and read the potentially fascinating post,

We personally feel we have to be checking Facebook on a daily basis maybe every few hours or not. I suppose this could be down to how were feeling on the day, where we are, who we are with and basically what is happening with others around the world. whether that be family and friends or total strangers to celebrities.

In 2012 research carried out in Norway published a psychological scale to measure Facebook addiction. Facebook addiction is quite possible. As with any type of technology, the compulsive use of social networks can affect our offline social life and have serious social, physical and psychological consequences. Some of the top signs of Facebook addiction includes,

1. Initial feelings of satisfaction or pleasure after a Facebook login session.

2. Staying logged into a Facebook session longer than planned

3. Giving up important social or occupational activities in order to spend time on Facebook.

4. Continued use of Facebook despite negative consequences related to Facebook use, including physical symptoms of fatigue, marital or social problems, and/or problems at work.

Going forward now we have Facebook as part of our lives what would life be like without it? How many of us would crave for what we had by being part of this Virtual Groups.

Please leave a comment and share and thank you for reading our blog.

Reference

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/9054243/Facebook-and-Twitter-more-addictive-than-tobacco-and-alcohol.html

http://allpsych.com/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ethics-everyone/201202/facebook-addiction

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/info/addiction/

http://www.york.ac.uk/psychology/research/areas/s-i-f/

http://www.succeedsocially.com/socialnetworking

 

 

 

 

 

The Holidays Have Started..

So the school holidays have started and I guess you could say this is when parents get into mother/father mode.

Oh how much I hate the dreaded school run in the morning or should I say the fact that I have to even drag my girls out of bed is a total nightmare.  You would think they would be used to it by now wake up and get ready for school. But oh no there has to be tears and tantrums every morning.

So one would think the start of the Christmas holidays could only mean no school run which means lie ins … WRONG..

For some unknown reason my girls will be wide awake at 8am in the holidays with a list of things to do as long as my arm.

Question is how do you keep 3 young girls entertained in the holidays? I can’t send them to play on the trampoline because of the on of rain and windy weather. As much as they would love to visit Trafford center once a week or the odd trip to Preston shopping to be honest the weather is a little of putting.

I’m thinking for these holidays what indoor activities could I do with them to keep them stimulated and busy enough so there not tearing each others hairs out. They would love to be sat  in front of the television for hours on end watching back to back movies but I’m thinking they need to be doing something different.

The question what is that something different?

What are you doing to keep your children entertained and happy over the holidays?

Would love to hear your comments and advice …

 

#NOTINMYNAME #YOUAINTNOMUSLIMBRUV

Following on from last weeks blog this week we are going to discuss as how both being Muslim British women we DO NOT promote nor do we tolerate terrorism in the name of Islam and Most importantly we do not support ISIS.

Since last weeks blog there has been so much that has happened in terms of attacks that have been carried out in the name of Islam. Today we feel just as strong as we did before. “Islam teaches us to respect, mercy, peace and kindness, a faith we strongly believe in and one we want to protect from radicals and fanatics whose very existence threatens our religion”.

Muslims around the world have taken to Twitter and other social media sites to condemn the recent Paris attacks in which seven co-ordinated terrorist attacks took place in the French capital for which ISIS have take responsibility for. #youaintnomuslimbruv

On Saturday 5th December at 7pm 2 British men were stabbed by a Muslim in Leytonstone, London, who shouted “this is for Syria”as he was being led away by the police. As can be seen in the video below a man can be heard shouting back “you aint no Muslim bruv” and within hours the phrase was trending twitter. #youaintnomuslimbruv

From Leytonstone to Paris, such hashtags trending on Twitter give comfort to peace-loving Muslims, creating a global alliance of coexistence and solidarity.

In the last few days Donald Trump in his campaign statement said, “total and complete shut down should remain until the US authorities can figure out Muslim attitudes to the US”. Overall 57% of Americans disagreed with Trump’s proposal as it was articulated by the pollster. Only a quarter viewed it favourably. Donald Trump comment

It is comments like these that aggravate hate against Muslims and Islam and since his comments celebrities such as Mohammed Ali and Will Smith have come forward to express their opinions.

“We as Muslims have to stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda,” Ali said in the statement. “Mohammed Ali / Will Smith

But what is truly driving our fear of ISIS? If we are, as many supporters of intervention contend, a world power, what limits our immediate, and absolute destruction of this virulent force? Some believe we are not only justified in destroying ISIS; we’re also imminently capable. Yet somewhere in this belief, we’re also inherently threatened. How can both be true?

Along psychological lines, this could be called cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance frequently refers to the mental state when one holds two contradictory beliefs, or is confronted by a something that immediately contradicts a belief. Our hegemony (or political power), for much of the last a hundred years, has been predicated on the United State’s ability to sway world events in our favour. Many people have postulated it’s ISIS’s religiosity that makes it so frightening; fighting in the name of God, these people will do anything to ensure their success. There probably is a psychological principle we can apply to zealotry.

The Muslim Council Of Great Britain: “Violence Has No Place In Religion.” The Muslim Council of Great Britain condemned the Islamic State’s actions and expressed that they do not represent Sunni Muslims, according to The Independent. Shuja Shafi, a member of the council also said: “Violence has no place in religion, violence has no religion. It is prohibited for people to present themselves for destruction.” [The Independent, 7/11/14]

The message that we want to spread is that the very small percentage of extremist committing these murders do not represent the rest of the 1.6 billion Muslims who absolutely condemn killing and violence.This is the Muslims standing up in unity for what they believe in. And this is something we both strongly believe in. We should not be held accountable for the actions of those who carry out such atrocious acts in the name of Islam. We feel we are all being labelled under the same umbrella and to be quite honest we are sick of apologising and feeling like we need to justify being Muslims and believing in Islam.

THE GOAL; IS TO ERASE ISLAMOPHOBIA AND DEMONSTRATE HOW A SIMPLE MESSAGE CAN BE SHARED, TO SHOW THAT ISIS MISINTERPRETS ISLAM.

We want this message to be viral and to reach all corners of the world. We stand united against terrorism.

We do not promote terrorism and any attacks that have been carried out they are #notinmyname and certainly #youaintnomuslimbruv. This is our message to everyone let’s promote peace and harmony between everyone regardless of colour or creed.

We hope our blog has given you some positive insight to the thoughts of Muslims in Britain and around the world. Can you imagine what it feels to be a Muslim in this day and age? We are open and welcoming you all to comment and like our blog.

 

 

Reference

http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/commonwordcommonlord/2014/08/think-muslims-havent-condemned-isis-think-again.html

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/isis-the-politics-surprise-11403

WHAT IS ISLAMOPHOBIA

Hi this is our blog and we are Sobia & Uzma, we are British Pakistani Muslim women who are  wanting to blog about something that is important to us.

“WHAT IS ISLAMOPHOBIA?”

The definition – Dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force (oxford dictionary).

“Offline and Online anti-Muslim hate crime experiences increase feelings of vulnerability, fear and insecurity between actual and potential victims”. (Dr Irene Zempi, Nottingham Trent University) .

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_1T8PO1dEf8?feature=player_detailpage“>http://

A Racist attack on a Muslim pregnant woman who does not speak English who is Moroccan and has only been in London for 6 months was subjected to a racially abused attack whilst travelling on public transport.

“f****** ISIS b******”, “go back to your country where there bombing everyday”. These are just some of the words of vile abuse of an islamophobic rant by one woman against two other women on a bus in Brent, North London. The Jamaican woman shouts at Muslim passengers “talk your f****** language, keep laughing ha ha ha with your bombs hiding underneath your clothes. I don’t f****** like you people because you are rude… go back to your f****** country where there are bombings everyday and don’t come here where we are free” (Tran &Sherwood)

We are both British Muslim women who were born and brought up in the United Kingdom. One of us wears hijab for her own personal reasons whilst the other one doesn’t. As a hijab wearer I definatly feel that since the attacks in and around the world that have been linked to Syria and Islam I feel more threatened that I must be condoning these attroscities because I’m a Muslim and I wear a hijab. The one of us who does not wear the hijab doesn’t feel threatened in the same way and has never come across any incident which has made her feel vulnerable at all. So what is it about the hijab that is coming across to non muslims that we support ISIS or are even “terrorist sympathisers”?

WHAT IS AGGRESSION?

Any form of behaviour directed towards the goal of harming or injuring another living being who is motivated to avoid such treatment  (Baron & Richardson, 1994)

We can see from the video that the jamaican woman showed traits of negative and hostility towards the victims, the victim was in a vulnerable position as she could not answer back as they did not speak the language. She later told an interperator that she was scared and anxious and with being heavily pregnant and having to stand throughout the ordeal she was upset as she could not understand what was being said (Dieseldorff). The abusers hostile aggression was motivated by her emotions to be hurtful towards the Muslim’s. She has shown instrumental aggression because her aggression was goal driven.

WHAT IS STEROTYPING?

“…a fixed, over generalized belief about a particular group or class of people.” (Cardwell, 1996). 

By using the words “ISIS” she was stereotyping all Muslims as ISIS and most likely because of the fact that she was wearing a hijab.

This is just one of many incidents that have occurred within the last year. it is known by the Metropolitan police, who have been recording hate crime data since 2013, there has been a 70% increase in attacks on Muslims in the past year. Latest figures from on Islamaphobia hate crimes from the MET police indicate the in 2014 the figure rose from 5395 to 5723 in 2014/15 (Harding, HuffPost). A report carried out by Harris for the Huffpost found that discrimination against the Muslim community in Britain has become so bad that it is now creating an environment of hate (Harris, Huffpost)

This subject is something that is very important to both of us. Islamophobia does exist not only in Britan but around the world.  Its a subject that is discussed in media every day. As individuals we are all entitled to our own personal opinion and views. Being Muslim we do NOT support that Islam is ISIS and that all Muslim’s around the world should not be labelled under the ISIS umbrella. There is laws and legislation that are in place to deal with such acts as you can see she was charged with the offence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QqT1Q4_hGc</a

No one should have to feel scared to travel in public or to to be out in public with non Muslims without having to fear from such racially attacked abuse. Just the same way no non-Muslims should feel that a Muslim will terrorise them in the name of Islam.

The question we ask is “can you imagine what it is like to be a Muslim women amongst non Muslims?” who can honestly say that they do not see Muslims any different to what they saw them before ISIS, before Al-Qaida and any group who is killing in the name of Islam.
Let’s wipe out islamophobia and work together to radicalise those who condemn such violent attacks.

Reference

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/nick-harding/islamophobia_b_8629418.html

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/16/video-shout-abuse-muslims-women-bus-london

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/islamophobia

http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2015/10/170588/london-bus-woman-launches-racist-rant-on-moroccan-women-for-their-veil/

http://www.simplypsychology.org/katz-braly.html

Our World.

1st year psychology students. Yummy mummy’s to our beautiful terror’s.

In the day time you will us in the studying hard in the seminars with the odd giggle and joke. And by the evening dedicated mothers tending to our children’s everlasting needs.

Patient loving wives to our ever moaning but SUPPORTIVE husbands.

Come and see the world through our eyes. You will be mesmerized.