The Spiral Notebook Quotes

“Results showed that areas of the brain linked with emotion and empathy (the cingulate cortex and the amygdala) were less active during violent video gaming . . . These areas must be suppressed during violent video gaming, just as they would be in real life, in order to act violently without hesitation.”
― Stephen Singular, The Spiral Notebook: The Aurora Theater Shooter and the Epidemic of Mass Violence Committed by American Youth

“Change the brain’s response to its environment, even without being able to change that environment itself, and you could change behaviors. You did this through repetitive practices, the same way you learned any other skill or trained any other muscle.”
― Stephen Singular, The Spiral Notebook: The Aurora Theater Shooter and the Epidemic of Mass Violence Committed by American Youth

“the four areas where stress most significantly affected the brain: attention control, emotion regulation, healthy coping, and empathy.”
― Stephen Singular, The Spiral Notebook: The Aurora Theater Shooter and the Epidemic of Mass Violence Committed by American Youth

“Change starts when people realize they have choices—when they can say or do or explore what they hadn’t thought about exploring before. Change begins when they can see alternatives that they’d never thought about before.”
― Stephen Singular, The Spiral Notebook: The Aurora Theater Shooter and the Epidemic of Mass Violence Committed by American Youth

“There are two major types of memory and learning,” he says. “One type is Deductive Learning that comes from memory: You learn that Denver is the capital of Colorado by repeating this again and again. The second type is called Procedural Learning and it comes from repetitive actions and practice, like shooting a basketball over and over until you become good at it. One of the problems with video games is that you’re learning to kill repetitively in simulated situations. You get better at it and you get more desensitized to the process.”
― Stephen Singular, The Spiral Notebook: The Aurora Theater Shooter and the Epidemic of Mass Violence Committed by American Youth

“Guns might be called the hardware of this equation of violence. Emotions were the software—and just as important when deciding whether or not to pick up a firearm.”
― Stephen Singular, The Spiral Notebook: The Aurora Theater Shooter and the Epidemic of Mass Violence Committed by American Youth

“a term employed by law enforcement and mental health experts when trying to identify dangerous students or others before they become murderers. The term is “leakage,” which means that signs of trouble or potential violence can leak out of kids as warning signals in advance of bloodshed.”
― Stephen Singular, The Spiral Notebook: The Aurora Theater Shooter and the Epidemic of Mass Violence Committed by American Youth