Suicide on the Rise, Digital Eyestrain, Endangered Languages

Suicide on the Rise Guest: Tom Golightly, PhD, Licensed Therapist, Associate Clinical Director of the Counseling Center at BYU, President of the Association for University and College Counseling Center Outreach New analysis from the National Center for Health Statistics finds suicide in the United States is at the highest level in nearly 30 years. Every age group except older adults is committing suicide at higher rates than in the mid-1980s. Among adolescents and young adults, suicide remains a leading cause of death, but the study also finds it’s now rising among middle-aged Americans, which is a worrisome trend after decades of stable or declining rates for that group. Digital Eyestrain Guest: Adam Gordon, OD, Optometrist and Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham More and more of our lives involve looking at digital screens that flicker ever-so-subtly and emit high-energy blue light. The eye strain that accompanies all this screen time is a real thing doctors are now treating. But some lens manufacturers are also warning that too much blue-light can cause permanent damage to the retina and hasten eye disease. And they’ve got glasses that promise to protect you. Are we really putting ourselves – and our kids – at risk for macular degeneration and other eye disease with all this digital screen time? Endangered Languages Guest: Bonny Sands, PhD, Linguist and Adjunct Professor at Northern Arizona University Here in the United States, we have laws to protect plant and animal species from completely disappearing. We’re maybe a little less concerned about the vestiges of human culture dying out—like language. The United Nations estimates that by the end of this century, half of the world’s six thousand languages will be gone.  And along with them, all of the cultural significance and history embedded in the words people used to express themselves. Apple Seed Guest: Sam Payne, Host of BYU Radio’s The Apple Seed Sam Payne joins us in studio to captivate us with a new story.