For Huff Post
You no longer exist separate from your devices. Whether it’s the weather, texts for business or personal schedules and updates, there are many things you can’t do unless you have a digital connection.
RCL Media
Why do We Like to Watch Our Heroes Fall?
Nancy Mramor, Ph.D. Author of Get Reel: Produce Your Own Life
For MTV News
In the media, there is a need for material on celebrities all of the time, both good and bad. It’s all news to those who read the publications, listen to the news broadcasts and get the Google alerts with updates on their favorite celebs. We want more and more and so we are driving the publications to give us what we tell them we want. So why would we idolize celebrities and then enjoy watching them fail, as if they aren’t real people with feelings? Lindsay Lohan is moving to London where she can grow up and mature in private, and is even seeking citizenship. The handwriting is on the wall. She may be tired of the ways that we create heroes and then enjoy watching them fall.
Is TV Helping or Hurting Your Child?
Article was from Western PA Guide to Good Health.
TV and movie viewing as well as video-game activities are fun, educational and social ways for kids to grow and learn. But some guidelines will make the experience more beneficial for you and your family.
RxTV Prescriptions for Healthy Kids
Does Watching TV Make You Lose Weight? A Guide For TV Watchers
RxTV Prescriptions for Healthy Eating and TV Viewing
TV viewing is a source of great enjoyment, education and social activity. But it may influence your health habits in ways that you need to know.
David Letterman
As David Letterman’s legacy of entertainment is in review, I found myself reviewing the interview that I did for Better TV in New York City. It was one of those windy days in the big city that chilled your bones and kicked up just enough dust to cause a look-away while walking the long blocks to the television studio. But my fate was not on the line, it was David Letterman’s, so the weather was a minor inconvenience compared to what he was facing.
HAVE A REAL HOLIDAY NOT A REEL ONE WITH DR. NANCY AND KDKA-TV
Join Dr. Nancy on KDKA-TV Pittsburgh Today Show on CBS December 23, 2014 at 9 AM to learn more about having a Real Conscious Holiday!
The reel holiday is the one you see on TV, and in the movies. When you see the perfect dinner, decorations, gifts and family gatherings, you may feel that yours doesn’t measure up. You may start to feel that what you have is not enough and that you must do, bake, buy and be more to have the perfect holiday. But you can manage all of it and even resist the ads, and have a r-e-a-l holiday instead of a r-e-e-l one.
USA TODAY: Psychology Behind Hacking
“If someone has technical skills, they like to be able to show them off and say, ‘Hey look what I did,'” she said. Mramor likened this kind of hacking to the paparazzi who follow celebrities on the street taking photos of their every move.
“This is just a new level of privacy invasion,” she said. The idea that “the public has a right to know” and the belief that celebrities should not expect privacy might be a motivation for that as well, she said. Read More
Are You Missing a Favorite TV Show or Character?
Dr. Nancy Joins The Today Show on NBC to Tell You Why!
Psychologist Nancy Mramor says we sometimes feel intense grief because we allow ourselves to become so invested.
“Once you connect with characters and let them into your living room they become, in your mind, like a part of your family, and you begin to develop the kinds of emotions you would have toward a family member,” said Mramor, who studies the impact of media and film and is in private practice in Pittsburgh. “So when they do something you don’t like, you are more forgiving. They can act badly and you let them off the hook. Once you start making excuses for a character on screen, you know you’ve identified with them.” READ MORE
Are You Addicted to the Internet?
Do Facebook and Twitter help or hurt our happiness? It depends on how you use them. If the person has a certain inner strength, a certain confidence, then it is no problem. But if an individual’s mind is weak, then there is more confusion. You can’t blame technology. It depends on the user of the technology.
The Dalai Lama, Time Magazine, March 2014
Turn off your iphones, TV’s and other devices now and focus on this message. Is it hard for you to do? Can you log off after reading this post and shut down for a while? Or will you experience nervousness, distractibility and even anxiety of you put all of your technology aside?
Is social networking worth it?
Originally appeared in Community Health Magazine February 2014.
Virtual Satisfaction, Real Dilemma
In a published study in the Journal of Consumer Research, researchers from Columbia University and the University of Pittsburgh tracked the behavior of women who connect with close friends on Facebook… They found that momentary self-esteem boost that comes from social networking