Blogorama

Hello

Hi! I am a student at USC and I am majoring in Psychology. As an aspiring psychologist, I am naturally inclined to the field of psychology, especially social psychology. I am interested in people’s thoughts and behaviors and why they think and behave the way they do. My blogs might not be as bizarre and absurd as some of Sigmund Freud’s theories (although I must say that his theories, no matter how bizarre and absurd they seem, are highly valid). Do not worry; I will not be blogging about how your behaviors are driven by your libido (your sexual impulses), nor will I be blogging about how you are unconsciously jealous of your same-sexed parent because he/she is taking away the attention of your opposite-sexed parent that would have otherwise been given to you.

I will be blogging about society’s pressures on people and how those pressures affect the way people think and behave. I will be blogging about the different pressures that society puts on an individual: the pressure to be good-looking, the pressure to be successful, the pressure to get married, etc. It interests me how society’s pressures affect us: the way we think, the way we behave, the way we live. Society’s pressures are highly influential in our lives. We judge what we should be and what our lives should be like based on what society thinks. As much as we would like to think otherwise, we, in a way, conform to society’s pressures. Ironically, though, we do not realize that we individually make up this society. So, in a way, it is not only society’s pressures on us but it is also the pressures we put on ourselves based on what we think other people in our society thinks.

I am interested in this topic because I feel like everyone, including myself, gets overwhelmed with society’s pressures from time to time. As a young adult, I have been faced with many societal pressures such as the pressure to obtain higher education, the pressure to dress well, and the pressure to know what I want to do with my life, to name a few. Sometimes we do not realize that everyone else faces the same societal pressures as we do. We are all affected by societal pressures. These societal pressures cause us to think and behave a certain way, whether we realize it or not. I, for instance, might not be studying as hard in school, go shopping as often, or fixating on my future as much if it were not for the pressures I felt from society.

For the next couple weeks, I will be blogging about how societal pressures affect the way we think and behave. I will be trying to decode the reasons why we think and behave the way we do in response to a societal pressure. I am hoping this will help me, and you guys, to understand the role of societal pressures in our lives, and how influential it is.

Daddy Dialectic

Daddy Dialectic is a blog about parents of the 21^st Century America. Although the blog consists of six contributors, the blog starter and the main contributor is Jeremy Adam Smith. Smith is the senior editor of Greater Good magazine, the author of The Daddy Shift, and the co-editor of The Compassionate Instinct. His essays, articles, and short stories are also in many books and periodicals. He has a son and he used to be a stay-at-home father. Smith has two other blogs that he has worked on: his own blog, Jeremy’s Journal on Media and Democracy and another blog with other team members, Science of the Greater Good. His most recent posts are from Daddy Dialectic, where he blogs every couple days. Some of his interesting posts from Daddy Dialectic include: The Failure of Success, about how different parenting styles have different influences on children’s success, and The Way We Were vs. The Way We Are, about how marriage has transformed from business-based to love-based. Based on the number of comments the blog receives, Daddy Dialectic is not a very popular blog.

Daddy Dialectic does not relate to my topic as much as I would like it to be. It consists of a lot of other subjects that are unrelated to my topic. Also, the subjects that do relate to my topic tend to be more focused on society’s expectations of people rather than society’s pressures on people. However, although it does not completely relate to my topic, it still relates to my topic enough to be helpful. For instance, in the post The Failure of Success, Smith talks about how middle-class and upper-class parents are more concerned about their children’s success than working-class parents are. Smith points out that the reason for this is because middle-class and upper-class parents live a lifestyle where success is expected of them and their children. Simply put, we feel pressured to live up to expectations because

“[w]e feel intense pressure to follow the norm around us.”

Daddy Dialectic could be considered a scholarly and academic post. Smith often makes references to books and journal and magazine articles. He also often includes studies and research that have been conducted on the topic he is writing about. In The Failure of Success, Smith made references from Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers: the Story of Success and included a study conducted by sociologist Annette Lareau. Smith’s posts are detailed enough to give his audience an understanding of what he is talking about and what he is trying to prove. Daddy Dialectic’s intended audience is "twenty-first-century parents,” although not all of its topics are limited to parents or parenting. Parents are relevant to Daddy Dialectic because the blog was written by, about, and for them. Daddy Dialectic will give me topics about the different types of societal pressures that parents, wives/husbands, and families face. However, my blog is not going to be limited to only parents, wives/husbands, and families; it will reach out to a greater and a more general audience.

Voice Critique

Eating Disorder Hope is a blog concerning the health of girls and women, particularly their weight. It is written by Jacquelyn Ekern, the founder of Eating Disorder Hope website. Eating Disorder Hope seeks to help girls and women with eating disorders to recover and to adopt healthy eating habits. It encourages eating-disorder victims to seek help and promotes eating-disorder survivors to guide them and to share stories with them. It explains to family and friends of eating-disorder victims how they can help them, such as how to listen to them and how to approach them about the disorder. It also advertises ways that other people can help victims with eating disorders, such as attending fundraising events like benefit concerts and fashion shows.

In Eating Disorder Hope, not only does Ekern seek to help girls and women who have eating disorders, she also seeks to prevent girls and women from getting them. She discusses the causes for eating disorders and their effects on girls and women’s thoughts and behaviors. She blames society’s pressure to be thin for the increasing eating disorder amongst girls and women. She exclaims that girls and women who have eating disorders are misunderstood by society because society blames them for having the disorder when in fact it is society’s fault for putting pressure on them to look a certain way. Due to this misunderstanding, eating-disorder victims lack help and support from society. In Fight Back Against Eating Disorders, Ekern points out that

“shame, stigma, and lack of awareness lead to eating disorders being largely misunderstood.”

For this reason, she felt the need to create the Eating Disorder Hope site to help victims with eating disorders. At times, she is a bit too harsh on society; she completely blames society for the eating disorders amongst girls and women and she accuses society of not being concerned with eating-disorder victims.

Ekern shows a lot of passion for her cause. She has been blogging in Eating Disorder Hope since May 2005 and blogs about once a month. Most of her blog posts are of resources for eating-disorder victims, their family and friends, and potential helpers. She offers resources to give them access to help and knowledge about the disorder, such as websites for information and places for treatment. She also promotes and advertises resources where other people can help eating-disorders victims, such as applying for a job that specializes in treating victims with eating disorders. Ekern shows a great deal of sympathy and compassion for eating-disorder victims, particularly because she had an eating disorder herself. In Hungry For Hope - Restoring Identity: 2009 Remuda Ranch Christian Conference on Eating Disorders, she related herself to other victims of eating disorders, explaining that

“[t]heir identity can feel lost in calories, numbers on the scale and habitual behaviors.”

Through her use of language such as this, she attempts to gain her readers’ sympathy and compassion for eating-disorder victims, which can be a bit overwhelming at times.

Ekern’s goal in Eating Disorder Hope is to gain support for victims with eating disorders. Because she mainly posts resources, her use of language tends to be simple and straightforward and she makes her points obvious. Her posts are really more like announcements rather than typical blog posts. Her post titles are usually the announcements (such as programs and events that are going on) and then her actual posts usually contain descriptions of the announcements (such as when and where the programs and events are being held). She sometimes uses banners as links to her resources. Through her advertisements of programs, events, etc. on her blog, Ekern has maintained enthusiastically supportive of eating-disorder victims by promoting eating disorder awareness for almost four years.