Jessy Lau's Progress book

Befriending all of
yourself:
your antisocial behavior
your anxiety your everything
By: Jessy Lau Wan

TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................ 2
PROBLEM STATEMENT ........................................................................................ 4
GOALS ......................................................................................................................... 5
PERSUASIVE ESSAY ............................................................................................... 6
UNEDITED RESEARCH ......................................................................................... 8
RAW DATA .................................................................................................................. 9
COLOPHON ............................................................................................................ 10
PLACEHOLDER ..................................................................................................... 11
BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Antisocial behaviors and social anxiety are very
prevalent in our era today; especially for this
generation of people who are raised with
modern technology, people are given a choice
of communicating through faster and more
efficient ways. We no longer need to do thing
in real life which can create an antisocial
environment that allows kids and teenagers to
be more prone to antisocial behavior patterns. If
there is a way we can identify kids with the signs
of antisocial behavior, social anxiety disorder, or
avoidant personality disorder early on, we can
think of a temporary remedy that might be able
to help ease their disorders. But before we can
find a solution, we must recognize the negative
effects technology has on our character development
and human communication progression.

PROBLEM STATEMENT: Between 4 and 6
million American children have been identified
with antisocial behavior problems due in part to
the fact that technology inhibits physical human
interation at a young age.

MAIN GOALS:
“Mental illnesses are health
conditions that involves
changes in one’s emotions,
thinking or behavior. Mental
illnesses are often associated
with distress and/or problems
functioning in social, work or
family activities.”
Create a fun method/game that encourages
physical human interactions between kids and
raise awareness of these disorders (their symptoms
and their causes) among parents/adults.

UNDERSTANDING
THE DISORDERS AND
THEIR SYMTOMS
Antisocial behaviors are disruptive acts characterized by covert and
overt hostility and intentional aggression toward others. Between 4 and 6
million American children have been identified with antisocial behavior problems
and gender differences in antisocial behavior patterns are evident as
early as age three or four. What makes it worse is that touchscreen phones,
tablets, and laptops are introduced so early on in our generation, that before
we have enough time to discover certain disorders a child might have,
we have already placed them in an unhealthy setting. According to a recent
study by International Center for Media & the Public Agenda (ICMPA), 75
percent of children and teens spent their waking hours fixed on a screen.
Studies have also shown that students who are left without their devices for
24 hours, feel helpless and do not know how to feel up their time properly.
Generation Z has not learned how to develop our minds without relying on
technology and social media. The prominent role of social media is very
complex because it both increased and decreased the progress in human
communications according to The Daily Universe article.
Because technology makes everything happen immediately, we start
to develop a sense of anxiety when we cannot make something happen
right then and there. We have an expectation that everything must occur
whenever we shall desire, which promotes stress when it does not happen.
These problems are making a way into society, and social media is no longer
just a social activity, but is a way of life.
Technology is all about nonverbal communication, instead of verbal
communications. I believe verbal communications are crucial to human
development, especially face-to-face communication. Although nonverbal
communication can reveal more about a human’s emotions, it can only be
done so in person instead of online. These nonverbal cues that we are not
developing properly can seriously skew a child’s relationship with others as
he or she grows up in a technology-inclusive setting. Relationships are so
crucial as humans are social creatures. It is in our nature to crave human
interaction, which technology cannot replace. Children these days may
be more reliant on their electronics and less reliant on human interactions
based on my own experience. They turn to social media as a source of social
interactions, but they may still feel like they do not have anyone to talk
to or rely on. An example of these occurrences may be Instagram-famous
teenager Nate Garner who has millions of followers, yet has stated that he
does not have friends. Garner stated, “Social media has [made] me become
a loner [in the real world]. It got so bad, being so lonely, I would just go to
my guidance counselor during lunch.”
According to Larry Rosen, a psychology professor at California
State University, one out of every five children feel the need to use technology
and that for every minute they are on electronics, an equivalent of five
minutes can be spended on other interactive activities such as playing with
toys that promote creativity and calming activities that can soothe an overactive
brain.

Social Anxiety disorder (SAD) is a common type of anxiety disorder
where a person feels symptoms of anxiety or fear in certain or all social
situations. Research suggests that about 7 percent of Americans are affected,
but no one knows for sure why some people have it while others don’t.
Social anxiety disorder may run in families and researchers have found that
several parts of the brain are involved in the fear and anxiety of this disorder.
Without treatment, SAD can last for many years or a lifetime in turn preventing
a person from reaching his or her full potential. Social anxiety disorder
is generally treated with psychotherapy, medication, or both. Technology
can play a huge part in social anxiety as well as promoting low self-esteem
because of society’s reliance on social media for confidence which can lead
to feeling targeted or empty-handed. Nate Garner specifically stated to The
Post, “My social media [presence made me] an easy target.” Many people
try to determine their self-worth through social media, and oftentimes can
feel that they fell short of what they “ought” to be. People are so used to
portraying an “ideal” lifestyle and version of themselves, that when they
meet others in real life, these people can feel anxious as they begin to wonder
whether people will judge how they are actually like in real life. These
new found problems in our generation can add fuel to the existing problems
(like these disorders) some people may already be having.
Avoidant Personality Disorder (AvPD) is a chronic personality disorder
that makes a person avoid any and all things that causes them social
anxiety. People with AvPD usually have poor self-esteem and an intense fear
of rejection. For people with this disorder, the fear of rejection is so strong
that they choose isolation rather than risk being rejected in a relationship.
The exact cause of avoidant personality disorder is not known however it is
most likely triggered by environmental influences such as parental or peer
rejection, which can impact a person’s self-esteem and sense. Parents usually
play a role in the development of AvPD as children may feel rejected and
judged by their parents. In order to avoid facing the judgement of parents
if not other friends, kids can turn to the internet as a safe haven where no
one has to know who one is (if one chooses to.) Because there is a buffer
between one and everyone else on the internet, one can avoid confrontation
and anything else that might give one social anxiety. Children with AvPD
may learn to rely on technology and social media instead of human relationships
which can be a bigger problem down the road. Technology is an easy
escape for people with AvPD, because it is so efficiently designed so that
one can do literally anything without leaving the house and meeting new
people.

“Medication (antidepressants) makes it somewhat
artificial. It is just like putting your problems
inside a locker and throwing away the key
without doing anything about them. It kind of
works and makes you function. Then, it did not
work, and I just quit because I thought it could
not get any worse.”
-Patients who have taken anitdepressants
as a way of dealing with their disorders

RAW DATA / CHARTS
In order to understand which items of the Avpd Criteria
Scale may have contributed to the differences in results
for AvPD diagnois compared to symptom loading, doctors
and pyschologists have examined the prevalence
of each AvPD scale item (categorized as present based
on a score of 3 and absent based on a score of 1 or 2).
Overall, according to the figure on the left we see that
the most prevalent symptoms in patients with and without
a diagnosis of AvPD were item 4 (i.e., worry about
being criticized/rejected in social situations) and item
5 (i.e., usually quiet when meeting new people). The
greatest difference in symptom prevalence between
patents with and without AvPD was item 2 (i.e., avoid
getting involved with someone unless certain they will
like you). Also item 2 and item 7 (i.e., afraid to try new
things) on the figure were more strongly correlated
with the pyschosocial measures than the other AvPD
items.

Table 2 summarizes the baseline characteristics
of the 326 participants with GSAD. Consistent
with previous studies documenting a high
association between AvPD and GSAD (Chambless,
et al., 2008), two-thirds of our sample also
met criteria for AvPD.

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Tweens (8- to 12-year-olds) use an average of about six hours’ worth of entertainment media daily,” the report reads.

RESPONSES TO PEOPLE WHO RECIEVE
THERAPY OR ANTIDPRESSANTS
Often times, even when you know what disorders you
may have, the available solutions and treatments are
not effective for everyone. Because our society still
does not take these disorders serious enough, we have
limited treatments and solutions. Because mental health
and disorders are often times harder to deal with than
physical problems, there is often times no real cure to
these disorders. The most people can do is lessen the
impact the symptoms of their disorders have on their
lifes. Patients can only try their best to find a good
way to deal with the issues they may encounter due to
their disorders. Even so, often times these treatments
don’t work well and are not suited for some. The most
common treatments for people with these disorders
are talk therapy and medications. I read about some
patients responses to the treatment they are getting
and realized that it is hard to find an universal solution
or even an effective solution in general. On the left are
some responses patients gave to the treatment they
are getting and what they feel.
“My general practitioner sent me here and I did not know why. I
thought this was a place for crazy people. The therapist I got did
not understand me or what I said. It was kind of tiresome. I sat
there, nodded and smiled and she talked and then I talked a bit and
that was it. I had no idea what she talked about most of the time. I
just kept my thoughts inside.”
“My problem is that I always am like: OK, if I am to sit and talk to
someone, then what should I say? What should I talk about and
why?”
“We did an exercise today. Suddenly we were to go out of the
room and just walk through the corridors and observe if anyone
looked at us. I got annoyed at once because it was obviously going
to fail with the two of us wandering about like baboons without
any goal or purpose. I felt like that was completely unnecessary.”
“I would rather manage on my own so I say that I am fine. I may
have difficult days at home, but then when I get to the clinic, I say
that I am ok. I do not want to be that kind of person that does not
dare to do things.”
“It is horrible to be in the group. I just want to cry, my heart beats,
I get a lump in my throat like I am going to throw up. It is like everybody
is looking at me and thinking, but it is interesting to listen
because they are there for a reason too. It is like a wake-up call
that others might be like me.”
“Sometimes my therapist says things that I have already thought
about. Then I think that I am perhaps able to think a bit on my
own? Sometimes she says; oh, I never thought about it like that,
that is a nice way to think. If you have another person that can
confirm or disconfirm that she has thought like that too, then I
may trust my thoughts a bit more.”

SOLUTION
We can try to identify early signs of these different types of disorders,
but it still does not stop or slow down the development of the technology-inclusive
environment we live in today. I believe that technology and
social media could be included in the cause of some of these behaviors
with its many negative effects. Our modern day solution to these disorders
are therapy and medicine, and because we still do not have a method that
would “cure” these diroders, we can only hope to lessen the imapct these
disorders have on patients. We must find a solution that not only helps ease
the symptoms of these disorders in kids, but also a solution that has the
magnetic pull strong enough to intervene with the kids’ screen time.
I have decided to create a mobile game app that can help encourage
human interaction among children. Children usually have an easier time
talking to other people when they are younger before technology is introduced
into their lifes. But because we cannot not stop the introduction of
technology into people’s lifes, we can only do our best to embrace it. Children
usually use technology to play games, so I thought it would be a good
idea to create an app that at first glance looks like your average game, but
more missions will require you to do something in the physical world rather
than digitally in order to earn more points. More details of the solution will
be included in the next part of this series.

COLOPHON
This book is set in Sinhala MN, designed and
written by Jessy Lau Wan in Chicago, IL around
April of 2020. This book was created for a
project at School of the Art Institute. Originally
laser-printed on matte paper.

Befriending All of Yourself: your antisocial
behavior, your anxiety, your everything
Book design by Jessy Lau.
Illustrations and imagery by Jessy Lau.
Excerpts from credited articles in bibliography.
All rights reserved.
Typeface:
Sinhala MN
Times New Roman
©2020 Jessy Lau
All rights reserved
Printed at the School of the Art Institute of
Chicago in the United States of America.