Scouting the territory: blog 2

      I will still be using the vampire effect idea for my topic.  However, I am still unsure how to narrow down my topic since there are so many different directions that I could go. At first I was going to deal with the social aspect of the vampire effect, but then perhaps I will mention the economic aspect as well. I also found some movies/articles that would help me compare my ideas to scary movies and themes. 
     Online I was able to search up an article that you (professor) had kindly provided me with.  "Monsters and Mortgages: The Horror Movie as a Prime Economic Indicator" talks about how we are able to feel anxiety during scary movies because we are used to feeling the same anxiety for debt.  It is so interesting how something like money scares so many people.  I looked up the emotional effects of debt, and it didn't surprise me that anger and depression accompanied debt.  There are a lot of discussions online that outline the mental aspect of debt, which perhaps I will use in my paper.  I also looked up social isolation and underachievers in case I want to focus more on the social aspect of the Vampire effect. 
     I found an article called "Psychological factors in consumer debt: Money management, economic socialization, and credit use" that I plan on analyzing more to see if there is any information I can use.  Another article, "Debt and distress: Evaluating the psychological cost of credit" also seems interesting.  I will also use the "Paying for the Party" article in order to get more information about how to narrow down my topic.  
     An issue that seems important about this topic is how much psychological damage debt might do to the human brain. It is interesting seeing the scientific aspect of this research. Perhaps I will take a more medical approach to this topic. I still have yet to narrow my topic. 
     A resource I found was an article called "Student debt and its relation to student mental health."  (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0309877032000161814)
This article talks about how the amount of debt that a student takes correlates with how much he or she worries about it.  This is really interesting because it may mean that students have more control over their debt that they think.  
     Another link I found (https://studentloanhero.com/featured/debt-mental-health-are-student-loans-making-you-depressed/) talks about how debt can cause depression in students.  This is interesting to me because depression is so prevalent in our society, and perhaps if debt could be lessened, so could the depression.   
     There are not many controversies around my topic. However, as of now, I have 2-3 ideas of the direction I want to take my topic. If I focus only on the social aspect of the vampire effect, then perhaps I could argue that it goes both ways.  However, I could also focus on how anxiety from horror movies and debt are similar, or even the medical aspect of debt and how it affects the actual health of people.