Good Reads
For Knowledge, Fun & to Learn Objective Thinking
Reading literature that teaches us about social and behavioral patterns gives us foundations of knowledge. Without some solid foundation of knowledge, we can not use additional knowledge to gain insight as we have nothing for it to settle or be compared against. You can add to or expand the foundations of knowledge by reading more across disciplines and ideas but try and find voices that belong to logical, fair, and coherent writers/thinkers/idea makers.
Here are some important articles and reports about mental health and mental ill health across communities in our Western spaces. These readings give us important information about how humans deal with the rising use of technology for communication and information in our daily lives and a growing lack of historically and biologically necessary social connections. Reading this will provide a broad conceptual understanding of the patterns of problems humans are facing as a collective.
Mental Health and Western Societies
Murthy, V. H. (2023). Our epidemic of loneliness and isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory on the healing effects of social connection and community. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved from https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf
Twenge, J. M., & Campbell, W. K. (2022). Does contemporary Western culture play a role in mental disorders? Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9489857/
Objective versus subjective mind: Can humans think objectively, deliberately, and scientifically?
Philosophical Reference
Nagel, T. (1986). The view from nowhere. Oxford University Press.
https://personal.lse.ac.uk/ROBERT49/teaching/ph103/pdf/nagel1986.pdf
Psychological Reference
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow.
Biological Reference:
Hsu, M., & Hsu, C. (2018). The neural basis of human decision-making: A review of the role of the prefrontal cortex in social and economic decisions. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 12, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2018.00123