USA Today reported on a
study that examines high-suicide states and their use of Twitter. The
conclusion so far is that Midwestern and Western states – and Alaska – had a
higher proportion of suicide-related tweeters than expected. Southern and
Eastern states experienced the opposite trend.
So
which states have the highest proportion of Twitter users suggesting greater
suicide risk?
1.
Alaska
2.
New
Mexico
3.
Idaho
4.
South
Dakota
5.
Montana
6.
Utah
7.
Texas
8.
Kansas
9.
Arizona
10.
Oklahoma
Suicide
talk on Twitter closely resembles actual suicide rates in many states, so the
question is : Can we prevent suicides by reacting to certain tweets that we
come across?
Maybe
Twitter doesn’t cause suicide, nor can it necessarily prevent suicide, but it’s
interesting to hear how researchers analyzed over 1.7 million tweets to draw
their conclusions. I can’t imagine sifting through that many tweets.
Perhaps
we should analyze a day of tweets from authors and publishers. I suspect we’d
see a lot of tweets begging for attention, asking for people to buy a book. But
in the process of reading these tweets, we may come up with a better way to use
Twitter when hawking a book.
Twitter,
like anything else, is a communications tool that has pros and cons, but if it
can save a life, that would make it seem all the more valuable.
Book Excerpt: The Story of
Your Life: Writing a Spiritual Autobiography- A step-by-Step Approach to
Exploring Your Past and Understanding Your Present
“If
we must fight, then let us fight poverty, disease, oppression, and natural
disasters.
If
we must hate, then let us hate war, violence, injustice, and persecution.
If
we must kill, then let us kill bigotry, famine, pollution, and ignorance.”
Book Excerpt: Heaven on
Earth: 15-Minute Miracles to Change The World
by: Danny Seo
“When
you give a few minutes of your life each day to changing the world, your heart
and soul open up. You find personal fulfillment. You gain self-worth. You learn
valuable lesions that will help you succed in the workplace, with your family,
and in your personal life. You become a compassionate person not because you
aspire to be one, but because your natural capacity to be kind shines through.
And you inspire those around you to make a difference, too.”
Book Excerpt: Ethics for the New Millennium
by: The Dala: Lama
“We
have to live in the world we are helping to create. If we choose not to modify
our behavior out of respect for others’ equal right to happiness and not to
suffer, it will not be long before we begin to notice the negative
consequences. Imagine the pollution of an extra two billion cars, for example.”
“What
we find is that the more we develop concern for others’ well-being, the easier
it becomes to act in others’ interests. As we become habituated to the effort
required, so the struggle to
sustain
it lessens. Eventually, it will become so second nature. But there are no
shortcuts.”
“We
find that when we look at a particular problem from close up, it tends to fill
our whole field of vision and look enormous. If, however, we look at the same
problem from a distance, automatically we will start to see it in relation to
other things. This simple act makes a tremendous difference.”
“Our
own heart, our own mind, is the temple. The doctrine is compassion. Love for
others and respect for their rights and dignity, not matter who or what they
are: ultimately these are all we need. So long as we practice these in our
daily lives, then no matter if we are learned or unlearned, whether we believe
in Buddah or God, or follow some other religion, or none at all, as long as we
have compassion for others and conduct ourselves with restraint out of a sense
of responsibility, there is no doubt we will be happy.”
“It
is also worth remembering that the time of greatest gain in terms of wisdom and
inner strength is often that of greatest difficulty. It is helpful to remember
that nothing within the realm of what we commonly experience is permanent. All
phenomena are subject to change and decay. But what is conceivable that a given
act is ethically sound under one particular set of circumstances the same act
at another time and place and under a different set of circumstances may not
be.”
“What,
though, are we to do when it comes to others? What are we to do when they seem
clearly to be engaging in actions which we consider wrong? The first thing is
to remember that unless we know down to the last detail the full range of
circumstances, both internal and external, we can never be sufficiently clear
enough about individual situations to be able to judge with complete certainty
the moral content of others’ actions. Of course, there will be extreme
situations when the negative character of others’ acts will be self-evident.
But mostly this is not the case. This is why it is far more useful to be aware
of a single shortcoming in ourselves than it is to be aware of a thousand in somebody
else. For when the fault is our own, we are in a position to correct it. It
also becomes apparent that our every action, our every deed, word, and thought,
no matter how slight or inconsequential it may seem, has an implication not
only for ourselves but for all others, too.”
“It
is in everybody’s interest to do what leads to happiness and avoid that which
leads to suffering. But because, as we have seen, our interests are
inextricably linked, we are compelled to accept ethics as the indispensable interface
between my desire to be happy and yours.”
“Because
our negative thoughts and emotions do not exist independently of other
phenomena, the very objects and events we come into contact with play a role in
shaping our responses. There is thus nothing which does not have the potential
to trigger them. The fact that the population of the rest of the world has an
equal right to improve their standard of living is in some ways more important
than the affluent being able to continue their lifestyle. If this is to be
fulfilled without causing irredeemable violence to the natural world-with all
the negative consequences for happiness that his would entail- the richer
countries must set an example. The cost to the planet, and thus the cost to
humanity, of ever-increasing standards of living is simply too great.”
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Brian Feinblum’s
views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of
his employer, the nation’s largest book promoter. You can follow him on Twitter
@theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This
is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2013
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