Interesting Links for 16-07-2015

[andrewducker]

• No, the UK government is not about to ban Whatsapp
  • (tags: encryption internet UK )
• 95% of women are happier after they get an abortion
  • (tags: abortion psychology )
• 7 activities that will make you happier
  • (tags: happiness )
• Sir Ian McKellen does an AMA!
  • (tags: reddit IanMcKellen )

Original post on Dreamwidth - there are

Comments

[atreic]

I like your juxtaposition, but was then half expecting abortion to be one of the 7!

[atreic]

Gah, that abortion article reaks of bad stats! '95% of women think they made the right choice in their situation' is not the same as '95% of women are happier after their abortion'. And don't even get me started on how _anyone_ with a brain can take a graph that shows 'women are less likely to be depressed/anxious 2 years after having an abortion than 8 days after having an abortion' and try to make a causal narrative that 'abortion precedes an immediate and long-term plunge in feelings of anxiety and depression.' Particularly not when the graph shows _exactly_ the same pattern for women who are _denied_ an abortion - notice they're not so quick to write 'being denied an abortion precedes an immediate and long-term plunge in feelings of anxiety and depression.' but the curves are almost identical

[naath]

I think their data does pretty much show "it is not the case that most people who have abortions will be massively depressed about it for years and years and regret it for ever" and about nothing else.

[atreic]

Not sure what that shows - my gut instinct is that you could get a cohort of people who had survived Very Traumatic Things (like death of a partner, fighting in the gulf war, major surgery etc) and find that their depression and anxiety symptoms decrease over two years too. Without a baseline to compare it to, I think you can't conclude much more than 'things happen, people mostly get over them'. 'People get over this sort of stuff eventually' is a very very weak proof that the original thing isn't a bad thing.

[firecat]

7 activities that will make you happier

If you are a white male, according to the graphic. Well, maybe the white female in the "long-term relationship" graphic is also happy.

Also, perhaps people who have lots of energy are happy, instead of the other way around, given how judgemental society is about not being able to work hard enough.