Good morning!
In the
course of an email exchange on another topic, a friend wrote to me with an
insightful observation. "I am torn
over the black face fiasco in Virginia - the 80s were a time of not much
sensitivity. It was a poor choice, to be sure, but to blow up the careers of
anybody who did something like that seems over the top too. It makes me think
that 15-20 years from now as this current generation of people that have
thousands more photos and videos of themselves move into adult and high powered
jobs - how are they ever going to get past something they did in their youth? Aren't
we potentially limiting the available pool of decent public figures if you have
to have people that were so socially recluse they never left their house, thus
never offended anybody - or were rich and powerful enough to figure out how to
delete all electronic images of themselves?"
Setting aside the case of the
accusations against the Lt. Governor, which are different and may involve
criminal actions, it does seem to me that people can grow in their views and
attitudes over 35 years. I certainly
have.
As for what
Millennials will face, the Washington
Post had an article a couple of days after my friend sent the message. Maya Kosoff, the author, argues that her
generation "grew up with the expectation of constant surveillance." Her parents were like me: "Soon after I joined Facebook as a high
school freshman in 2006, I received a stern warning from my parents and my
school's guidance counselors: Everything
you post on the Internet is there forever.
If you want to eventually get into college and have a job, you should be
careful what you put online." Some
say that millennials, having recorded much of their life, will surely encounter
difficulties when an unsavory or unwise event surfaces.
Kosoff
thinks not.
Our parents needn't have worried.
We've always known more about managing appearances than older generations ever
will. Having grown up with the Internet,
we knew that the things we put online were potentially permanent and that,
inevitably, someone was watching. We internalized its omnipresent logic of
surveillance, crafting our behavior and our virtual selves in accordance with
the knowledge that someone, somewhere might one day judge us. Far from dooming
us, our comfort with social media might make us better political candidates.
She, however, was and is highly savvy about the implications
of what is posted online. I doubt that
all or even most millennials are that perceptive.
She even goes one step
further. "Millennials are mocked
for taking selfies or posting pictures of our meals, but those habits speak to
our interest in crafting an image of our lives for the people who are already
watching — and sometimes waiting to pounce." To what extent, do you imagine, we all "craft
an image," even if subconsciously or unintentionally, when we use social
media? Kosoff also points out that some
recent social media are built to disappear; after 24 hours, posts on Snapchat
and Instagram vanish. There is also
widespread understanding that certain social media companies misuse or abuse
personal data drawn from posts, so people are wary about posting much substance
and deleting what went before.
She
concludes: "the common wisdom that
constant digital surveillance will make it harder for us to run for office
looks dubious. Instead, growing up with an understanding of the Internet's
immutability may make us more scandal-proof than our predecessors."
I guess we'll
see.
* * *
In the "love of words"
category, here are two that are timely for many. Technically they apply to birds, but as in
the evolution of all language, their use has spread. One is "nidifugous" (ny-DIF-yuh-guhs),
which is "well-developed and able to leave the nest soon after hatching." Its opposite is "nidicolous"
(remaining with parents for a long time after birth). So, as the author of A.Word.A.Day points out,
"if your adult child suggests living in your basement, you could simply
say, 'Don't be nidicolous!"
* * *
A brief
return to genetics and personality traits.
My good friend (and Professor of Biology at the University of Oregon)
Nathan Tublitz wrote to me in response to my short disquisition on personality
and genetics. He offered three
amplifications that help to understand the phenomena.
1) THE GENETIC
COMPONENT OF HUMAN TRAITS IS VARIABLE DEPENDING ON THE SPECIFIC TRAIT. All
human traits, including components of personality, appear to have a genetic
component. What is important to note here is that the relative impact of genetics
on specific traits is highly variable, ranging from very minor to 100% (the
latter in the case of eye color). Because of this variability and because we
have not yet identified the genes involved in individual personality traits, it
is not yet possible to draw firm conclusions about the impact of genetics on
specific traits. Research that purports to draw such conclusions has to be
viewed as highly speculative.
2) A 50% GENETIC
COMPONENT OF A TRAIT MEANS THERE IS A 50% ENVIRONMENTAL COMPONENT TOO. A 50% genetic contribution to an individual
personality trait implies that 50% of that trait is shaped by environmental
factors (which to us biologists, also means the internal environment including
hormones). It is worth noting the obvious but not often stated point that the
environmental 50% will also have a substantial impact on a trait.
3) GENES ARE NOT STATIC. The effects of individual
genes are neither binary nor static throughout the lifespan of an individual.
Some genes only turn on once (for a specific period of time). However many
genes turn on and off multiple times during the lifetime of an individual, and
the downstream effects of an individual gene is not always the same each time
it is activated. Moreover, the triggers for gene activation/inhibition are
often environmental and may be different each time a gene is
activated/inhibited. Thus the genetic contribution to specific personality
traits (and behavior) is almost certainly variable throughout our lifetimes and
not fixed as is often assumed.
Those who want simple
answers to questions of human personality and behavior will undoubtedly be
disappointed by these points. However those of us who study these issues
continue to be fascinated and indeed awed by the enormously complex
interactions between genetic, neural and environmental mechanisms that underlie
behavior of all organisms including humans.
Thank you,
Nathan. I learned from this!
* * *
Because,
for obvious reasons, bereavement has been on my mind in recent months, I found
this pertinent (and troubling)—and it is or will be an issue for all of us at
some point in our lives, especially as those of us in the Baby Boomer cohort
reach old age. There was recently an
interview in nextavenue with Professor
(and M.D.) Toni Miles, director of the Institute of Gerontology at the
University of Georgia. On reflection, I
realized the evidence she presented is not surprising, but it is nonetheless a
cause for concern.
The gist of
the research findings is that "a significant loss is deadly serious,
putting the grieving at higher risk for serious health problems, and even their
own premature death." Miles said
that "critical losses are destabilizing and accumulate over time. The
death of a significant loved one — by that I mean a parent, spouse, sibling or
child — increases your own risk of dying."
She reported that she was not referring to an elderly couple where one
dies shortly after the other (aka, in some cases, takotsubo cardiomyopathy or "broken
heart" syndrome); she used data from those 50 years old or older who "lost
someone close in the last twenty-four months. At a population level, those people
are two times more likely to die over the course of a lifetime than someone
without that loss." (Either she
spoke loosely or the person recording the interview was careless with
language. Everyone is likely to die over the course of a lifetime! To put it correctly, presumably she meant "
. . . two times more likely to die early
or prematurely over the course of a
lifetime. . . .")
The
greatest impact on life expectancy is within the first two years after the
death of someone close. More frightening,
"the research also shows that the younger you are when you lose someone
important to you, the worse it is for your health. The elevated mortality risk
for children who lose a parent goes up fivefold." Niles also reports that "in our models,
losing a child, even an adult child, statistically carries a high risk of
morbidity." So far I'm still here, but
given these findings, I do wonder if Krystin's death will have a long-term
effect on the length of my life.
Unfortunately, it probably will:
[Interviewer] It sounds like time, in fact, does not heal
these wounds.
[Niles] That's true. The risk never goes away; it
does not return to the expected level of the general population that has not
experienced such a loss. Even when you adjust for age, the risk stays higher.
When we measure this at a population level, we believe that five percent of the
deaths that happen in a year are attributable to a loss; by that I mean, they
might not have died if they didn't have this loss in their background.
Yikes. But I do have a question about the data Dr. Niles
presents. In the normal course of
events, parents die before their children, and statistically when the children
are adults. *All* of us lose parents (unless
we predecease them, but set that case aside).
So that's one major loss we all face.
Many lose a spouse; many lose siblings.
Some lose children. Are not the
effects of those losses on the survivors already built into life-expectancy statistics? If so, how does the effect of one such loss
in one person's life mesh with the fact that life expectancy is already
affected by these losses? I can't quite get
my head around how those two facts interact.
(I know, it's population statistics versus the experience of an
individual. Even so. . . .)
Needless to
say, if my life expectancy was 85 (a number I made up) before Krystin died, and
it's now lower, I am not thrilled.
In a book review of Advice for the Dying (and Those Who Love
Them): A Practical Perspective on Death, by Sallie Tisdale, the reviewer
quotes Tisdale to the same effect that Niles did:
After the death . . . there are the
survivors and their grief. Writes Tisdale:
"Grief lives in the body. MRI
studies show that a grieving brain has a pattern unlike other emotions. Most of
the time, an emotion lights up parts of the brain, but grief is distributed
everywhere, into areas associated with memory, metabolism, visual imagery, and
more. Grief can make you sick; it can be brutal, even deadly."
This has been shown by studies into
the effects of bereavement on physical and mental well-being. Research done in
the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden has shown that bereavement is correlated
with adverse health outcomes like self-harm, hip fracture and unplanned
hospitalisation. Similarly, results from the latest wave of the Irish
Longitudinal Study on Ageing, run out of Trinity College, showed widowhood a
greater predictor of frailty in older adults than being single or separated.
Niles
argues this is a public health issue that should receive attention, with a focus
on ways to mitigate the impact of loss. I
suppose, but I'm not sure what anyone could do or say that would lessen the impact
of Krystin's death on me (or her mother or brother or Kathy).
I have
another reservation—and this reflects a personal view rather than any data—is that
(for me) the age and medical condition of the person who died affects the
extent and duration of grief. My cousin
Mae lived to 94, had a full and active life, was ailing and unhappy the last
year or so and was ready to go. I don't
know that my dad at 83 was ready to go but he'd had a full and active life and
got to see all seven of his grandchildren at least reach their teenage years
(and was headed for a decline from Parkinson's that he would not have liked). My mother at age 62 was definitely *not*
ready to go, and certainly Krystin was not.
In the latter two cases I grieve deeply; in the former two, less so. It would be enlightening to parse Dr. Niles's
data to learn if the impact of the loss varies with the age and condition of
the decedent. It may be that there is
wide variation in effect, moderated by age and medical status.
* * *
I sometimes
wonder if I am guilty of omphaloskepsis when I write these emails. I hope not.
On that
amusing lexicographical note, I wish you well for the week.
-- Gary
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