<p>These days, whenever I’m studying, my mom would tell me not to study. She says there’s no need to study because Ebola probably will kill us all very soon.</p>
<p>It’s very distracting and kinda make me not want to study.
How can I overcome this kind of thinking?</p>
<p>Saying that you don’t care about the future because of Ebola is strange. If you really don’t value your studies, then just admit that; don’t try to place the blame on Ebola even though it has killed a tiny fraction of the number of people who have died from car crashes or the flu.</p>
<p>lol. I didn’t say I don’t value my studies, I said it “kinda” make me not want to study.
Yes, Ebola has only killed a small fraction of people, but it’ll get worse, according to the news.
CDC Predicts As Many As 1.4 Million Ebola Cases by Early 2015</p>
<p>Nice try. Keep studying. </p>
<p>That number is for African nations where healthcare sucks (compared to ours, anyway). Civil war in Liberia has also taken a serious toll on infrastructure. The CDC numbers also do not take into account intervention by nations such as ours; part of the point of making the prediction in the first place was to encourage the US to intervene.</p>
<p>Ebola is actually difficult to spread, and the spread of infection can be minimized simply by washing hands. It is considered a dangerous disease because it is difficult to cure, not because it is especially virulent.</p>
<p>So cheer up and chill out. 
</p>
<p>LOL
Give your mom a hug and tell her your family will be ok.
And keep studying.</p>
<p>According to the American Cancer Society, 1 in 285 US children will be diagnosed with cancer before age 20.</p>
<p>If that hasn’t kept you from studying, then the likelihood of 1.4 million cases next year IN AFRICA (not the US - an important detail of the CDC estimate which you failed to mention) certainly shouldn’t be interrupting your efforts at all.</p>
<p>Tell her you’re studying vaccine possibilities. ;)</p>
<p>So Ebola is not that easy to spread? I blame the news for scaring everyone by saying that a big chunk of population will be wiped out becuase of Ebola.</p>
<p>Thanks guys. </p>
<p>Instead of blaming the news, get even.</p>
<p>Don’t take what you read at face value. Question the motives behind the message. Question the quality of the sources. Do your own research.</p>
<p>Treat the news not as an infallible source of information, but as a stream of currently relevant topics about which you can choose to learn more.</p>
<p>Thinking about the news in this way is not only good for your level of accurate information about the world, it’s good for your college chances and your performance in college. Start cultivating a curious mind now, and it will serve you well in application essays, interviews, and class discussions for years to come. </p>
<p>The world was supposed to end on December 21, 2012. I blame the Mayan calendar for the drop in my grades in Junior year.</p>
<p>In 6th grade, we thought the Russians were going to bomb us out of existence at any time. Unfortunately, my school didn’t excuse me from P.E. for that reason!</p>
<p>If you want to get Ebola, you literally have to bathe in the bodily fluids of someone who has it. As long as you don’t do that, you should be fine.</p>
<p>If you live in the United States, there’s a much larger chance of you getting leprosy.</p>
<p>Or getting struck by lightning.</p>
<p>my mother suffers severe anxiety and depression issues ever since i was seven and says the same things about ebola “its gonna kill us all”. your mother might be joking but if she’s serious she needs help. not only for her but because those kinds of comments hurt you as well. </p>
<p>on a lighter light, in high school my best friend said that he wasn’t going to do a forty percent grade worth project for class because the “the world was going to end the day before it was due” during 2012’s October panic despite me trying to convince him otherwise. We made it through the week and all he could do was say “goddammit silver you scared the end of the world away”. it still cracks me up every time i remind him of that failure. </p>
<p>While the gravity of Ebola has been exaggerated some, I think that the pervasiveness of the topic in the news has helped to heighten concern. It’s a similar phenomena (with less weight - I do not equate these) to what happened in the 9/11 aftermath. The clips of the planes crashing were replayed so much on the news that some people developed post traumatic stress disorder even though they were not present. Media has incredible power to influence opinions and feelings of the general public.</p>
<p>That said, we would do well not to entirely downplay Ebola’s danger. There is a reason that it is an epidemic. This is because it IS fairly contagious. In the US, we do indeed have little chance of catching it, but that’s mostly because the epidemic is not occurring here and proper precautions have been implemented.</p>
<p>I think it is important that everything is taken with a grain of salt, and evaluated systematically if we are to avoid both widespread panic and disproportionate indifference. Ebola is neither something to be entirely discounted, nor a large threat to the United States population at this time. It is also survivable and containable, and we would do well to simply be thankful that none of our loved ones are fighting it.</p>
<p>Keep studying! A vaccine will be discovered soon, yes I believe within 2 years, that will effectively end this hoopla. Malaria, war, famine, and influenza will kill more people than Ebola. I am blown away over the hysteria concerning Ebola. Goes to show how people can be easily influenced when they lack critical thinking and researching skills.</p>
<p>Are you in West Africa?</p>