Hi, and welcome back to Keep Your Mind Healthy! In case you are new here, make sure you check out my previous blog posts. In my blog post, Mind Matters I explain how people hear the word “health,” and automatically think about illness or the physical aspect and completely leave out mental health. As I mentioned before, mental and physical health are equally important components of overall health. I wrote Let’s Be Mindful of Our Sources to give you a better idea of what sources should give you peace of mind due to their trustworthy and credible information when it comes to mental health and what sources you should never mind because what you read on those sources may or may not be credible. Remember to always be mindful of the sites you visit and the information you are given in order to achieve good mental health. This post aims to serve you by giving you some key internet safety tips to follow.
Who Else Is Tracking Your Mental Health
Now keeping all of that in mind, have you ever noticed that when you look something up on your phone, there will be an ad for it on your phone within the minutes? I know I have! Recently, I watched a Ted Talk by Jennifer Golbeck who talks about this phenomenon. Our electronic devices, especially our phones, have a way to track our information and study the things we look up. Ultimately, helping companies track our patterns and helping them with advertising.
This can be very creepy, especially when it comes to mental health searches. If someone who’s extremely vulnerable, is looking up their symptoms or medications in private, I’m sure the last thing they want is someone on the other side tracking their information to be able to advertise it to them later. I want you to remember that you have privacy settings that can allow you to control whether you want to see more or less content regarding mental health, regardless of the social media you use. However, if it puts your mind at ease you can also call a clinic or use a helpline as opposed to using the internet.
Social Media Accounts
Speaking of social media and the internet, I have some new social media accounts you should follow regarding mental health. I have a Vimeo account that focuses on mental health. So go check out that account to see how different aspects of life affect our mental health and what one can do to make sure they are mental healthy! I also have a Twitter account that I’m starting up called ClearMindz that will be a safe space to find aid and inspirational quotes. Follow me at @ClearMi43585646
Copyright
On the topic of social media, I recently watched a TED Talk by Lawrence Lessig named, The Laws that Choke Creativity. Lessig discusses laws that have been put in place to attempt to stop people from using another person’s work to be transformed into something else and the impact they can have on creators. There’s always going to be concerns regarding copyright and fair use of others’ ideas, art, and work posted online. After watching this video, I want to make sure my work is available to others to build on and learn from. Keeping that in mind, in order to protect my accounts, I will not use any material that is copyrighted nor will I plagiarize. Whenever I use other sources to reference data, I make sure to always link the website to the original creators and quote them in my blogs as well. And I encourage you to do the same. See you next time!
Keep Your Mind Healthy 