Chocolate stimulates the same part of the brain that morphine acts on. For all intents and purposes, chocolate is a drug—not necessarily a bad one and not a terribly strong one, but strong enough nonetheless to keep us coming back for more.
“In my 35 years of studying moral psychology, I have come to see this as one of humanity's greatest problems: we are too quick to anger and too slow to forgive. We are also hypocrites who judge others harshly while automatically justifying our own bad behavior.”
― The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
― The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
“So quit looking for 'the one'. You have a better chance of finding an Oompa Loompa riding a unicorn, fighting Bigfoot.”
― The Mingling of Souls: God's Design for Love, Marriage, Sex, and Redemption
― The Mingling of Souls: God's Design for Love, Marriage, Sex, and Redemption
“My central claim in this book is that these two trends—overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world—are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation.”
― The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
― The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
“Neurons that fire together, wire together,’ meaning that activities that repeatedly activate a constellation of neurons cause those neurons to connect more closely, so if a child goes through puberty doing archery, or painting, or video games, or social media. It will cause lasting structural changes in the brain, especially if the activity is rewarding. This is how cultural experience changes the brain, producing a young adult who feels American instead of Japanese, or what is habitually in discover mode as opposed to defend mode.”
― The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
― The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
“Girls in virtual networks are subjected to hundreds of times more social comparison than girls had experienced for all of human evolution. They are exposed to more cruelty and bullying because social media platforms incentivize and facilitate relational aggression. Their openness and willingness to share emotions with other girls espouses them to depression and other disorders. The twisted incentive structures of social media reward the most extreme presentations of symptoms.”
― The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
― The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
Mark’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Mark’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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