Malls and Retail Stores a No-Go for Depressed Shoppers

Student Loan Girl — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 06:33:00 GMT

Signs of depression:

Loss of appetite
Loss of interest in daily activities
Loss of energy
Hopelessness
Self-loathing

Recommendations for treatment:

Don’t go shopping.

Primed for Sadness, People Spend More

A recent research experiment shows that people who exhibit signs of depression tend to be more willing to cough up the dough, according to a TIME Magazine article by Barbara Kiviat (“Depressed? Don’t Go to the Mall,” Feb. 8, 2008).

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Pittsburgh split up their experiment participants into two groups: one that watched a sad video clip involving the death of a boy’s mentor and one that watched an emotionally-neutral video clip about the Great Barrier Reef.

The two groups were then asked how much of the $10 they were getting paid for the experiment they would be willing to pay for a water bottle. Participants in the sad video group were willing to spend about four times more than those in the Great Barrier Reef video group ($2 on average, compared to 50 cents).

Researchers say the results from their experiment indicate that people who are unhappy tend to overcompensate by buying new things.

“Feeling blue causes people to have a devalued sense of self, so spending more money on a new object — which people may identify, in a way, as an extension of themselves — starts to undo that deflation,” Kiviat writes.

This “emotional hunger,” as the researchers call it, may also contribute to other acquisitive behaviors, like looking for a new relationship or trading big on the stock market.

Shift Gears and Step Outside Yourself

The study’s findings, the researchers say, hinge on self-focus: When researchers looked at how much the participants were dwelling on themselves, they found that those who were sad but not self-focused didn’t spend as much.

Cynthia Cryder, a Carnegie Mellon doctoral candidate and co-author of the study, says that spending is a common way for people to try to breathe value into their lives, but that there are alternatives for cheering yourself up besides doling out cash.

“If you’re sad, maybe you should seek out something other than shopping. A new book to read, a new friendship. Something that’s novel and attractive to fill the need you’re seeking to fill,” Cryder told TIME.

Or, she added, break the cycle of self-focus by shifting your mindset outward and thinking about other people.

“You could try to think about others by rehearsing a series of sentences that involve others as the subject,” she said.

Or try calling a friend, Kiviat offers, “and instead of suggesting a trip to the mall, ask how her day is.”

5 Ways to Get Happy Without Spending

Next time you come down with a case of the blues, instead of throwing the credit cards in your wallet and speeding off to the mall, try some of these activities instead, that cost nothing and feel great.

Go for a walk. Sometimes just getting some fresh air and experiencing a natural environment can boost your mood. And exercise produces endorphins, which serve as natural uppers. Plan your route to go through your neighborhood or a nearby park to reduce your chances of coming across a spending opportunity.

Volunteer. As Cryder points out, shifting your thoughts from yourself to someone else can do wonders for your mood and self-esteem. Instead of buying another pair of shoes you don’t need, more downloads for your iPod, or the latest Xbox game, donate your time to someone really in need.

Get rid of clutter. Sifting through old belongings you’ve outgrown or no longer need can help you appreciate all the things you have in your life. You might even discover items you forgot you had, turning a tedious task into a home shopping spree.

Trade with friends. Gather up a group of friends and swap your give-away clothing, CDs, or anything else. You’re killing three birds with one stone: socializing, shopping, and saving.

Plant a garden. Taking responsibility for something living can feel extremely rewarding and uplifting. Gardening not only provides you with a daily activity to keep your hands — and mind — busy, but it’s good for you. The American Horticultural Therapy Association says gardens have healing capabilities, improving health and well-being.

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Happy Birthday to :-)

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 01:13:00 GMT

To send e-mails or chat online without emoticons would be like listening to your computer’s artificial voice read an excerpt from the Harry Potter books—you may get the plot, but Harry’s spells are no longer frantic and Voldemort’s hissed threats no longer ooze evil.

This month, we celebrate September 19,1982, the birth date of the “smiley” emoticon, and all you chatting kings and queens out there may want to pay your respects to a man who revolutionized the way we communicate online with three simple keystrokes.

Scott E. Fahlman, a computer science research professor at Carnegie Mellon University, first introduced :-), or “the smiley,” on a departmental electronic bulletin 25 years ago. Fahlman considers his post to be the foundation of emoticons, otherwise known as emotional icons.

Scott Fahlman.

“I’ve never seen any hard evidence that the :-) sequence was in use before my original post, and I’ve never run into anyone who actually claims to have invented it before I did,” Fahlman writes on Smiley Lore :-), the university Web page he’s dedicated to the origins of the electronic smiley face. “But it’s always possible that someone else had the same idea—it’s a simple and obvious idea, after all.”

Following the Smiley Craze

Fahlman could never have imagined what would follow after his quick, impulsive post. As use of the smiley spread throughout his department, then from college to college, and finally across the country to the global e-space, writing in online formats changed forever.

“It has been fascinating to watch this phenomenon grow from a little message I tossed off in 10 minutes to something that has spread all around the world,” Fahlman says in an Associated Press article (“:-) Turns 25,” Sep. 18, 2007). “I sometimes wonder how many millions of people have typed these characters, and how many have turned their heads to one side to view a smiley, in the 25 years since this started.”

The online bulletin with Fahlman’s post wasn’t saved and remained lost for years following the smiley explosion, Fahlman says on Smiley Lore. Neither Fahlman nor anyone else had any idea how popular that little sideways face made up entirely of punctuation would become, or that a two-sentence message would eventually be archived as a piece of communications history.

With the help of Mike Jones from Microsoft, an exhaustive search of Carnegie Mellon’s backup tapes uncovered Fahlman’s original post, which reads, “I propose the following character sequence for joke matters: :-). Read it sideways.”

Today, 25 years later, Internet users have thousands of emoticon options to choose from. Emoticons help to convey tone of voice or shades of meaning in online conversations that could otherwise be easily misconstrued without hearing a speaker’s intonation or seeing a facial expression to differentiate the excited from the angry, the serious from the sarcastic.

For example,

See you later ; )

means something completely different than

See you later

Smiling Strong for 25 Years

For some language purists, the use of emoticons cheapens the written word. They point to masters like Shakespeare and Faulkner, who crafted exquisitely descriptive phrases to paint vivid images and convey undertows of emotion, all without the use of emoticons.

But it’s hard to compare chat-speak to literature when online chatting and e-mail act more as stand-ins for speech than as writing.

“What emoticons do is essentially provide a mechanism to transmit emotion when you don’t have the voice,” says Clifford Nass, a Stanford University communications professor, in a quote in the AP article.

Whichever way you view it, the online world, from teen chatterboxes to forty-something CEOs, has embraced the smiley and other emoticons to such an extent that our words would now be lost in translation without them.

So the next time you stick out your virtual tongue or send a cyber wink, give a small thanks to the emoticon father himself, Steve E. Fahlman, for giving you the tools to do so.

Still a little lost when it comes to figuring out what that B-) and :--} in your e-mail mean? Check out this emoticon dictionary from Nerd Times.

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Student Loan Blog : Carnegie Mellon

Malls and Retail Stores a No-Go for Depressed Shoppers

Happy Birthday to :-)