Just another lil thing. 🥳 #Books #WritingCommunity

Anyone have recommendations for a learning program that has physical workbooks my daughter can use to practice math? Age 7, first grader. She enjoys learning math and I want to encourage that, but I'd like to go beyond the materials her school provides. I have some ideas, just fishing for more.

I think it's disturbing we have journalists arguing social media is actually good for teens. We can be against a social media demographic ban without making false claims. The consensus in psychology is that social media use is linked to higher rates of anxiety, depression, and body image problems.

Friends, acquaintances, strangers, I have grave news: I have developed edititis. I am gonna have to stop editing these novels after this next round of editing and review with my editor. I've been editing for about two years. 😩

I can't support creators and communities that use mental illness, hallucinations, schizophrenia as an insult. Doesn't matter if I agree with them on certain social and political topics. The mentally ill are some of the most vulnerable and maligned people in society. Ableism is a pervasive problem.

Just a small reminder: mental illness doesn't inherently make someone a bad person. It doesn't excuse all bad behavior, but mental illness shouldn't be used as an insult. Most "bad" people are not mentally ill. It's okay to disagree with someone without calling them delusional, schizophrenic, etc.

How corporate PR has flipped the internet's opinion of Trisha Paytas, a sexual and domestic abuser (long list of problematic behaviors), makes me want to vomit. Why was she on Broadway? Why is she going to be on Euphoria? The woman who cosplayed as JonBenét Ramsey being SAd by her own dad? Please!

I don't trust people whose opinions seem to change based on whatever is popular to support or be against online. It is good for opinions to evolve based on new evidence, but I think it's suspicious if your entire worldview is shifting every two or three years. This is a big problem with influencers.

People are talking about Mamdani's plan to have social workers attend non-violent emergency calls. Conservatives claim it can't work. Just wanted to say, my MS Psy. partner did that job before she got her LPC. Crisis intervention teams DO work, and cops trained in crisis intervention should attend.

Just watched Die, My Love, and enjoyed it a lot. I've watched probably dozens or maybe even a couple hundred films this year, mostly horror and thrillers. It was easily one of my favorites. Very impactful.

I only have Master's degrees in psychology and criminal justice, but this seems like an irresponsible post by Taylor. At the least, unserious. (Not the substack.) Teens using social media for 3+ hours daily show double the risk of depression, anxiety, and self-harm compared to those with less usage.

Using "schizo" or "schizophrenic" as an insult dehumanizes people with a serious mental illness. It turns their suffering into a shorthand for social failure. It's unequivocally cruel.

I can't stress this enough, but if I see someone use the slur "schizo" or say "schizoposting" even once, I have to block them. It's disgusting ableism. People with schizophrenia are some of the most vulnerable individuals in any society, wrongly blamed for all kinds of violence. It's unacceptable.

I’m sharing a Palestinian account every day and today is Mohamed. Mohamed was studying to be a software engineer before this. He’s now trying to take care of his whole family including his siblings Farah, 23, Fatena, 22, Aseel, 19, Hala, 18, Lama, 15, Leen, 13 and Karem, 7 and his niece Ghazal, 3.

Some people have been calling out Hasan's misogyny and racism for years, only to be harassed into silence by his cultish community of mostly White men. It's sad it took a viral clip about how he treats his dog to finally make talking about how much of an intolerable asshole he is possible.

True: Hasan Piker won't denounce a four-tour veteran and Blackwater merc. who still brags about being a "combat veteran" and wants to rebuild the US military, but he'd never extend this grace to an IOF soldier. As always, his class position limits his politics. Material analysis applies to everyone.

It's frustrating watching rich influencers and others argue that Democrats are as bad as Republicans. Are Democrats corporatists and too conservative for my liking? Yes, generally. But if you work in education, are gay or trans, are not Christian, how much worse the GOP is becomes readily apparent.

People who call peaceful protest a waste of time don't understand protest. Of course a No Kings protest alone won't change the world. Protest is meant to be part of a larger movement. It shows solidarity and helps folk feel more confident doing the community work that actually makes change happen.

It's interesting how many dissertations I read using APA 7th Ed. contain a lot of overcitation. Narrative citations followed by parenthetical citations every sentence from the same source when no other source interrupted. Surely weeding this out should be part of the dissertation-writing process?

Arthur Schlesinger warned in his book, The Imperial Presidency, that unchecked presidential power could turn America into an elected monarchy. The No Kings protests matter because they stand against the harmful creep of executive power. A president should lead within limits, not rule without them.

I haven't had the capacity to keep up with moderation lists for a bit, but this one is really obvious, so I'm stealing some energy from Future Me: a list for the extremely obvious wave of inauthentic accounts following today's newly-created US gov accounts bsky.app/profile/did:...

We don't need to defend an online creator just for the sake of defending them as a person. It's okay to criticize them sometimes and defend them sometimes. What should matter is caring about ideas and behavior. Good ideas don't excuse bad behavior, bad behavior doesn't invalidate every good idea.

I feel like there's no normal, level-headed community online for regular people. So many times we take sides about events or topics before even looking at the evidence. Or we are afraid to endorse for what seems true because we are scared to make certain folk mad. Online polarization is so harmful.

It's such a social shock to be in, for example, a doctoral program where you have to be so careful, thorough, adhere strictly to evidence. Then coming online and seeing the way people who talk about politics argue, essentially gossiping based on whatever they feel and think others will approve of.

Anyone else think it seems like a lot of influencers who talk about politics just agree with whatever is generally popular at a given time and then change their minds and interests whenever that stops being popular? No lasting core convictions. I yearn for honesty and evidence-based initiatives.

I think we should try to stop using schizophrenia as an insult. It's almost worse than using the r-slur as an insult. My partner works in mental health and it's just sad to see. Nothing to do really with being overly dedicated to a topic or wrong in the opinion of someone else on a subject.

Educator Company Identifies Hasan Piker’s Collar Receiver as Likely to Be Rx-090 Shock-capable Model medium.com/@PlanarLo... I decided to write on this because this story even has my offline "normie" friend group in its clutches. Anyway, I think this is fair and okay for a Hasan-disliker like me.

Curious about Hasan Piker's “collargate,” I asked the collar maker to identify the collar he held up in the attached picture. They said it looks like an RX-090 receiver with the contact points cut off and taped over, likely to cover rough edges instead of adding a comfort pad. So, shock-capable.

I do think people are blowing Hasan Piker's treatment of his dog out of proportion. His haters go too far. On the other hand, the way people have this cultish devotion to him and will tell you to disbelieve what you can see with your own eyes creeps me out. We need better creators and communities.

I had a friend defending Hasan Piker over the shock collar. I decided to try to be fair and keep looking. It seems to me Hasan's videos and collar listings show conclusively he has the shock model rather than the vibration model and removed/taped the prongs. Genuinely, show me how Hasan isn't lying?

I don't get the adoration for Hasan Piker, outside of his coverage of Gaza, which is good. He has pictures on Facebook of him using pronged collars, told a dog he had he'd "fucking kill" it and yanked it by its tail. I've always thought he seemed like a brogressive creep and has a toxic community.

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What is your % unsubscribed each time you send a newsletter? Mine is about 0.4%. Apparently, that is considered "excellent." #WritingCommunity

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My hope is that in 10 or 20 years, we will look back on social media today, as it is and how we use it, with horror. The same horror many young people have now when they discover Reddit used to have a "jailbait" subreddit or there were popular websites dedicated to gore and self-harm.

Switching to EmailOctopus for newsletter. My newsletter just topped 1K. They seem to be the most affordable and have a simple layout with the features I need. Automations, campaigns, landing page. It's a shame as I just switched to MailerLite. Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! #WritingCommunity

I just switched to Mailerlite from MailChimp to save money, and now they're changing their plans, lol. All of these services are so pricey. I'm thinking of using the newsletter features of Wix, where I host my author site. I don't need much. Anyone have other suggestions? #WritingCommunity

Taylor Lorenz is an odd case. On one hand, she tries to be a serious journalist. On the other, she acts like a compulsively online dramaslop poster who sometimes perpetuates things taken from dubious sources like snark subreddits. Even if she was right about something, I wouldn't want to follow her.

On the Alleged Link Between SSRIs and Mass Shootings medium.com/@PlanarLo... Resharing this post I wrote in light of RFK Jr. suggesting there is a link between SSRIs and mass shootings. Conservatives should perhaps look instead at access to and proliferation of guns in the US since the 1960s.

There's a professor outside my office eating a burrito. He's smacking his lips so hard that I feel like it must be on purpose. I've never heard anyone eat this way. 😭 Drives me up the wall.

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Serious question: have you ever read a book and thought, this book would be fantastic if it had fewer adjectives? They are great when used sparingly, but too many can bog down writing! #Books

Every month, I gain a ton of newsletter subscribers, which I love. And then when I send a newsletter, I lose about 10 to 12 people. Anyone have a similar experience? Better? Worse? I find it interesting. #WritingCommunity

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