Social Wellbeing
Social Wellbeing covers relationships you have with others including family, peers, and friends. Aspects of these relationships that emerge in considering your wellbeing include the positive nature of the relationships and the development and sharing of empathy and sympathy. We have varying levels of these relationships with different individuals and groups which often impacts how we regulate our emotions.
The material provided for this dimension will ask you to consider how others regulate their emotions socially whilst also reflecting on your personal social functioning.
Prompt
View the following TED talk by Jon Ronson before going to the Community Forum to engage in the discussion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAIP6fI0NAI
Jon Ronson's TED talk "How One Tweet Can Ruin Your Life" examines how the active use of Twitter as a pedagogical tool has consequences for social relationships.
Reading
This article is about Emotional Regulation (ER) and is focussed on young adolescents and their social interactions. It has significant implications for how we work with young people. The researchers found that emotional wellbeing and social interactions during adolescence can have major long-term effects on a person’s general psychological and social functioning well into adulthood. For this reason, it is crucial to introduce psychological interventions that target mental health, social functioning, and ER in combination and early, before habitual social and emotional responses are formed.
Activity
Create a concept map of your social communities. Identify who your communities are and how you interact with people within them. Do any of your communities overlap? If so, show the common people to each. Do any of your communities provide full emotional support for you socially? Do any leave you needing more support? Annotate your drawing and give some thought as to how you can engage more fully or satisfactorily in your communities.
Community Forum
Go to the Community Forum and join the discussion. Respond to the following prompts:
- Question #1. Are social media sites just opportunities for people to become, as Ronson says, “Unpaid shaming interns?” Share your thoughts.
- Question #2. What are some of the benefits of social media in terms of providing opportunities for the democratization of justice?
- Question #3. Are there ways of meeting “nice people like us” on social media? Or, is it a place that only offers opportunities for us to mutually approve of each other while demonizing someone else?
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