As soon as I read this week’s blog subject I began racking my brain for ways in which science has played a role in my life, but I was having serious trouble coming up with something blog worthy - something I could relate to the ideas we were studying in class. You see, unlike previous posters I have not had such impacting experiences (at least that I can think of) with science. No heavy medicines, no serious surgeries, etc. Then suddenly it came to me! Of course – Wednesday nights! I had wondered why I hadn't thought of it before.
Very recently actually, science taken a prominent role in my life, monopolizing about an hour of my free time every Wednesday evening. You see, my roommate and I have discovered a new show to become addicted to (ironically). It's a TLC program called My Strange Addiction, and if you are unfamiliar I highly recommend checking it out. Essentially the show follows the story of people addicted to the oddest things. To give you idea just how ridiculous some of these addictions are, a few examples include: a teenager who can’t stop dressing in mascot suits, a woman who spends every night sleeping with a running hair dryer, a man whose significant other is a synthetic doll, and several people who can’t keep themselves from eating items like soap suds, couch cushion, detergent, and toilet paper.
Every Wednesday as I’m enjoying the show my mind always wanders to Science and Culture class. Both ask very similar questions. For instance - what exactly constitutes a disorder? Each episode the addicted subjects visit a psychologist, and often there is a heated debate over whether their addiction is a disorder or not. Sometimes it is obvious that the behaviors are genuine problems, especially the harmful ones. The woman who consumed detergent for example had to have all her upper teeth removed. Both she and her psychologist quickly reached the consensus that her addiction was in fact a disorder.
Not all of the addictions however were considered problems. The psychologists of the mascot suit wearing teen and the man married to a doll concluded that because their behaviors were not harmful, it was fine if they continued.
Other addictions were harder to classify. They woman with the munchies for toilet paper was convinced nothing was wrong with her. After all she had gone 23 years eating the stuff and nothing bad had happened yet. But her psychologist felt otherwise. She explained how large amounts of toilet paper could cause harmful blockages in her lower intestine, but the patient could not be swayed. If toilet paper were harmful, she would have dealt with the consequences by now.
Another issue both My Strange Addiction and class cover is the notion that peculiar behaviors like this might be spreadable. Elliot brought up the idea is his apotemnophilia paper that perhaps if some of the afflicted people had not stumbled across certain websites, that it is possible they never would have developed such a strong desire to amputate a limb. Same goes for many of the addictions in the show. The woman who slept with a hairdryer didn’t come up with that on her own. She saw her sister do it one night. What's more, she has passed the idea on to her daughter who now also needs the hairdryer to sleep.
...And I cannot lie, after watching an intriguing episode of addictions my curiosity is often sparked. How can soap suds be addicting? I think to myself while washing my dishes...Lick. Gross. Well glad that's not for me. But what if it was? This is when I start thinking back to Elliot’s article and the idea of censoring disturbing material that might spark ideas people never would have come up with on their own. After all I can say pretty confidently that without seeing My Strange Addiction I probably never would have tried soap suds. Again gross. Now while eating bubbles isn’t the most serious issue, perhaps censorship would not be the worst idea regarding more serious/disturbing material? I’m not sure.
So that’s science in my life! A fun filled hour of TLC on Wednesday nights. It might not be as serious as aderol or asperger's, but it definitely gets me thinking!
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