Swiper, Stop Swiping: Recognizing the Tinder Effect

Written by Justine Galvan

I told her I was scared. My friend insisted I make a Tinder account because it was fun looking and talking to “hot college guys” online, but advised to not take it too seriously and meet up with someone.  I was 16, sitting on a kitchen stool almost having a panic attack as I came up with ways on how to sneak out at 2 AM to hook up with a 19-year-old who lived at Park Avenue and wanted to send me an uber from Queens, doing exactly what my friend had told me not to. It wasn’t love per se, but I felt some type of way for someone who cared well enough to not let me go through the MTA in the middle of the night.

Tinder, established in 2012, has forever changed the world of romance. Designed for their users to anonymously swipe left (if they don’t like them) or right (if they do like them), dating turns into a game. Now with a whopping 57 million people signed up on the dating-app worldwide, almost two billion swipes are being made each day. People create and brand their best selves with calculated profiles, such as putting their best pictures, quirky bios, and Spotify anthems. With 26 million matches made each day, hook up culture – the quick and uncommitted sexual bonding between two or more people – is romanticized. As a result, this glorification of the new technosexual era has completely strayed us away from the traditions of conventional romance. Whether that is good or bad is subjective. What’s truly concerning is the way Tinder affects the brains of those using it.

Psychologists explain the term instant gratification to be the seeking of pleasure or quick contentment without any delays and interruption. Getting matches on Tinder serves as instant gratification. Living in the most advanced technological era, we are raised to be impatient. A lot of people, unfortunately, and subconsciously, rely on social media platforms, such as Instagram for instance, to evaluate their worth, based on the number of likes or followers they have. It becomes a jungle of comparison and competition with each other’s lives. The more likes or matches they get, the more their egos and acquired narcissism are fed. Consequently, a study conducted by the American Psychological Association (APA) conveyed that Millennials and Gen Z members are most likely to have poor mental health, with social media being a major responsible cause. Talking to a friend of mine about being on Tinder, she says:

“When I get a match – not gonna lie – I feel happy because I have very low self-esteem and I’m like ‘Oh my, God. This hot ass boy actually thinks I’m cute enough for them to swipe right,’ but when I don’t I’m like, ‘Holy shit, I’m really that ugly… they didn’t even try to actually get to know me before disregarding me.’”

As human beings, we seek pleasure and avoid pain. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is released when human beings feel pleasure such as eating food, having sex, or taking drugs. In comparison, dopamine is also released when one gets a match on Tinder. So Tinder users take part in this obsessive ritual of swiping more and more until they get their next reward, which in this case is another match, to get instant gratification. This whole process is subconsciously addictive, as compared by psychologists to drug-addicts, feeding onto an array of mental health issues. Contradictory to matching, not getting as many matches as one hoped for accounts to a feeling of rejection, which affects one’s mental health negatively if they don’t know how to deal with it. Another study also pointed out that “Tinder users, regardless of gender, reported significantly lower levels of satisfaction with face and body and higher levels of internalization, appearance comparisons, and body shame and surveillance than non-users.” Tinder becomes a swiping game based on superficiality and instant gratification is the temporary fix to deeper mental health issues.

This is not to say that everyone should immediately delete the app and be conscious about participating. Tinder, as with other dating apps, is majorly responsible for diversifying humanity. It’s fun and thrilling talking and meeting new people. There is definitely an adrenaline rush connecting with someone you get to pick. So go talk, flirt, have as much sex as you want, or fall in love – but know yourself, what is best for you, and keep in mind that in every good thing comes a consequence.

The School to Prison Pipeline: Tackling Unjust Disciplinary Action in Schools

Written by: Kendra Shiloh

There is an alarming disproportionate tendency for students of color and students with disabilities to become incarcerated—known as the school-to-prison pipeline. The combination of zero-tolerance policies along with a strong police presence in public schools has facilitated the pipeline, normalizing the idea that even the slightest misstep is worthy of negative disciplinary action.

Police presence in public schools has increased dramatically over recent years, which may be attributed to the influx of school shootings. After the Parkland shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, every public school in Florida must have at least one armed guard, in compliance with the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Act. Although this piece of legislation is meant to be a solution, it has had disproportionately negative effects on minority students. The line between “teachable moments” and  punishable crimes has become blurred, and students from disadvantaged backgrounds are suffering at the hands of a system that does not work in their favor. According to a nationwide study by the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, black children are three and a half times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white counterparts. 

In my personal experience, during my years of high school, the in-school suspension room was always occupied. Students were suspended for a variety of trivial reasons, ranging from talking excessively in class to dress code violations. This method of punishment meant students were lose vital class time, a possible cause for falling behind in class or ultimately failing. As the years passed, it appeared as though a specific group was being targeted in my school: black and latino students. As our grade moved onto our junior and senior years, a large percentage of this group dropped out. And while I cannot account for the path each student chose to take after high school, the ones whose paths I am aware of are less than favorable. Several fell down the path of substance abuse and the sale of illicit drugs, leading to arrests and for a select few, time in jail. This could have been avoided, had there been positive disciplinary action procedures in place. 

By taking students out of class, they are set further behind in their coursework. As students advance to junior and senior year, each class session is vital to their success in the world after graduation, especially if the student plans on attending college. Students can miss out on information that may be useful for standardized testing such as the SAT and ACT, impacting chances for higher education and a better future.

When a child faces extreme disciplinary action at school (such as one that involves interaction with the police), they are often labeled as a “bad kid” no matter how juvenile the incident was. In turn, this leads to the student being isolated from the class, which in turn can affect their emotional and mental health.  And due to the disparities in minority mental health care, these students may not receive the help that they need to cope with these feelings. If the student reaches a point where they lash out as a result of the isolation and internalized feelings, more often than not the student will receive yet another irrational disciplinary action. These feelings can be extremely discouraging for students, and a lack of resources can lead to a vicious cycle that further facilitates the pipeline.

It is not enough to just simply attempt to improve the school-to-prison pipeline when dealing with the future of our children. Eliminating the pipeline is a collective effort, and it starts with training teachers, especially in regards to positive disciplinary action, such as counseling. Students of color and students with disabilities enter school with a disadvantage from the very first day, due to a complex structural system that has never worked for them. They shouldn’t have to climb another barrier in order to receive a fair education.

What’s Drugs Got to Do with It?

WRITTEN BY Kyrah Brown

4/20 – An informal, annual “holiday,” acknowledged by non-smokers, but beloved by weed heads, blunt rollers, and junkies alike – waiting anxiously for their next high. Yet, for some, the day is a painful reminder of the raging drug epidemics which have killed off so many of our loved ones.         

A term coined so frequently, yet, the story of its beginnings often go untold; how did the date, 4/20, originate? Over the years, rumors have spiraled in regards to how 4/20 was recognized as the yearly celebration of cannabis culture as we know it. One, possibly a code among police officers for marijuana smoking. Another, slightly more comical and ironic, theory attributed they day with Nazi leader and war criminal Adolf Hitler’s birthday, April 20th. However, Time reports that the most plausible and credited story for the origination of the day begins with a group of five teenagers at a high school in California – San Rafael High School.

Each day, at 4:20 PM, this group of five would meet at the campus’ statue of Luis Pasteur, a famous chemist, for their daily round of passing the joint. Thus, 420 became the new code word for one their favorite after school pastimes. This group of teens, later known as the “Waldos” because they met near a wall, included Steve Capper, Dave Reddix, Jeffrey Noel, Larry Schwartz, and Mark Gravich. How did the phrase spread? Reddix connected with a popular band, Grateful Dead, through his brother, and the band began to call out 420 in reference to their cannabis breaks. Used more frequently and on a wider platform, the phrase launched globally and has been used ever since.

Mary Jane, the Waldos, and the fight for decriminalization of marijuana lives on, but the new drug epidemic that is heavily circulating around America is the use and abuse of opioids. According to CNN, more than two million people in the United States alone have a dependence on these drugs. Opioids are dispensed to patients with acute, chronic pain, due to their ability to replicate the pain-reducing properties of opium. Legal forms of the painkillers comprise morphine, oxycodone, and hydrocodone. Those which are illegal include heroin, banned in 1924 in the U.S., and synthetically-made fentanyl. The statistics are astonishing; opioid prescriptions were 122 million in 1992, and the number increased to a peak of 282 million in 2012 – just a 20-year difference. The number of prescriptions administered has declined, but opioid-related deaths that occurred between 2002 to 2016 have increased to a dumbfounding rate of 533 percent. Painkillers, however, are expensive. Many who become dependent on painkillers turn to the street drug, heroin, which is cheaper. Opioids may pose a more lethal effect on society due to the ease of attainability – they’re legally prescribed drugs, but can doubly be retrieved on the streets. The concern, therefore, falls on who is accessing the drug, and at what dosages.

Amidst the opioid crisis, the abuse of the pharmaceutical industry and physicians should not go amiss in this situation. In 2007, criminal charges were brought by the federal government against manufacturer Purdue Pharma who mislead doctors and consumers that their pill, OxyContin, was a safer and less addictive version than other opioids. Eight years later, in 2015, 280 people consisting of numerous doctors and pharmacists were arrested for fraudulently over dispensing large sums of opioids. The prescription drug bust, deemed Operation Pilluted, is the largest in the history of the DEA. In 2016, the CDC published guidelines for properly administering opioids to patients, but several “pill mills” still exist in the shadows.

These are just a few highlights of the abuses of drug-makers and distributors across the country, but with opioid addiction and fraud on the rise, what has the government accomplished in improving our health care system? In 2016, legislators passed the 21st Century Cures Act, which allotted $1 billion in opioid crisis grants. This funding allows for addiction treatment and prevention programs to expand nationwide. Additionally, the launch of an Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit within the DOJ was announced in 2017.

The death and destruction opioids have imploded upon families across America cannot be undone. Nevertheless, hope for future generations lay within increased transparency, accountability, and a dose of compassion.

Sources:

http://time.com/4292844/420-april-20-marijuana-pot-holiday-history/

https://www-m.cnn.com/2017/09/18/health/opioid-crisis-fast-facts/index.html

Political art must be better scrutinized for cultural nuances

WRITTEN BY KENNY FREMER

Tamil artist M.I.A. continuously faces critic backlash for misconstrued elements in her music. Marred by slanted writing, her affluent lifestyle is often misinterpreted as a gap in her art’s authenticity.           

There is no better example of how political work in music can be misinterpreted than the discourse surrounding M.I.A. Her music is often written from the perspective of minority groups in third-world countries, and she herself has had to flee her home country to avoid political warfare. At her most contentious, she has written from the perspective of a man driven to war to provide for and protect his family, in the song “Sunshowers.” Perspectives like this make her extremely divisive and a scrutinized performer.

             M.I.A. is no stranger to the problem of struggling to control her public reputation. As a Tamil individual, she has had direct experience with the civil war in Sri Lanka. The war centered around efforts by the majority Sinhalese government to contain a Tamil revolution sparked due to a lack of representation for the Tamil people. In a 2005 interview with EGO Magazine, her perceived association with the Tamil Tigers, a controversial group considered a terrorist organization by the Sri Lankan government, is mentioned. Because she had used tiger-related imagery in some promotional images, many linked M.I.A. to the group. She said “I’m not some manufactured propaganda machine by the Tamil Tigers, but I think people assume that I am. I’m like, hell no! Tamil Tigers f—ed my life up and so did the Sinhalese government. They both f—ed my life up.” Although M.I.A.’s decision to use tiger imagery in promotional pieces was clarified, her reputation as being sympathetic to the Tamil Tigers has not gone away.

             A half-decade later, in a lengthy New York Times Magazine cover profile published in 2010, Lynn Hirschberg paints a distinctly unflattering portrait of M.I.A. as a contradictorily bourgeois outsider to the people she sings about.  Hirschberg writes, “Unity holds no allure for Maya — she thrives on conflict, real or imagined. ‘I kind of want to be an outsider,’ she said, eating a truffle-flavored French fry.” As it turns out, however, that moment in the interview was actually prompted by Lynn, who was recorded pressuring M.I.A. into ordering the expensive fries, guaranteeing that the New York Times would pay the bill. Throughout the interview, Hirschberg takes further issue with M.I.A.’s rich lifestyle, including her relationship with the wealthy Benjamin Bronfman and her purchasing of multiple homes in an affluent, mostly white Los Angeles neighborhood. In this 8,500-word profile, only two lines of music are quoted; the conversation has become no longer about the message, but the artist’s flaws and associations.

             In the interview, Hirschberg even writes that M.I.A. “allied herself” with the Tamil Tigers. Once an artist chooses to take a political stance, their character becomes more open to scrutiny, criticism and discourse – especially when the view they espouse is controversial or easy to take out of context. And especially when the artist is a race other than white, or a gender other than male. We need to be more critical of our own biases when evaluating the political statements of others. Instead of dismissing radical ideas as impossible, or reactionary, we should try to understand where that other person is coming from so that we can better understand everyone around us, absorb other perspectives, and make better art ourselves.