Effects of Technology

By karina.g, Houston

The majority of people living in America use some sort of technology. Some of the most technological inventions include iPods, computers, and cell phones. This type of technology is said to be resourceful and helpful in meeting new people, and basically in developing social skills. However, I believe it does the opposite of what most technology users think. Although technology is resourceful, it is time consuming and it negatively undermines face-to-face social skills with family and friends.

Non-internet users have been tested to see how using the internet influenced their lives. According to Alfonso,”They also reported spending less time talking with their families, experiencing more daily stress, and feeling more lonely and depressed. These results occurred even though interpersonal communication was their most important reason for using the internet.” This experiment showed how much of a negative impact Internet had on their lives. The excessive usage of the Internet stocked up these people’s lives. Quality time was taken over by typing something to someone instead of talking to the person face-to-face and spending valuable time. According to Nie and Hillygus the difference of the time spent with family and friends between internet users and non-internet users is tremendous. The Internet is resourceful, but the time usage should be limited, because it consumes time that matters, when one should be doing more important things.

Another technological social blocker is the iPod. For example,”Oh, I was listening to my iPod. My bad” (Song 1). The truth is the moment one person places headphones in their ear, it is the moment they create a “don’t talk to me” bubble around themselves. It deteriorates conversation and social interactions that could have caused a good relationship. Instead of creating a relationship one chooses to listen to that special song that could be done on one’s own time.

Those for Internet usage believe,” The Internet can foster openness, and a greater sense of ease and comfort in dealing with others...can even provide opportunities by those who are too depressed to conduct a social life in the real world” (Coget, Yutaka 1). In my response, this isn’t completely true. If someone has low courage and they build this “relationship” on the Internet, when the time comes for in-person interaction, they would be extremely nervous. The reason for this is on the internet you don’t really see how one looks or how one responses to actions. Internet interaction don’t really mean much, those face-to-face interaction are the ones that count for something.

Several people believe that iPods bring people together more than anything. According to Harris,”Once a month, Playlist host iPod Dj nights at a London bar. On these nights, the guests are the entertainment...and make it a social event.” I believe this contains logical fallacies, selective sampling and hasty generalization. Not everyone goes to a bar and gets together jamming to the music from iPods. ONe of the main qualities about an iPod is one can listen to tunes with one’s self. When one does this in public places it limits social interactions, so iPods generally divide people more than bring them together.

In conclusion, although technology is resourceful, it is time consuming and it negatively undermines face-to-face social skills with family and friends. Overall computers and ipods waste valuable time. This is so important because technology detracts from important things in life, like family and friends relations, which are the most important things in a person’s life. 

The family of the future

As part of our Welcome to the Future special report, we recently asked for our readers' thoughts on the future of the family.

This week, we are publishing a selection of their e-mails, which predict a range of changes, from more single men adopting children to a resurgence in traditional family values to declining birthrates to the increased acceptance of gay marriage.

Family life in the coming years will look more like it did in the past. With rising costs of housing, land, and utilities, more extended families will be created. Grandmothers and grandfathers will live with mothers, fathers, and children to help make ends meet. Maleesha, Colorado Springs, Colorado
Unfortunately, I feel that the family of the future will be spinning in their own personal electronic worlds. iPods, gaming, Blackberries, computers, etc. This is sad to me because we will have lost the era of actually sitting down and spending quality time with our family members without the interruption of things that can be plugged in.
April Trice, Albany, Georgia

Today, we see women waiting till their late 30s and 40s to have children. This is going to lead to problems in the teen and college years, when parents begin to feel their age while children need their support the most. This will lead, in turn, to a reverse trend, in which the next generation seeks family first. Younger parents will also foster an increase in the average family size, up from two now to three or more in the future.
Summer Shidler, Madison, Wisconsin

More single guys will become dads by adoption. This is a win-win situation for kids sitting in orphanages or foster care and for the potential dads out there who want to be parents, but don't want to get married. Single women have been doing this for years. This is one of the last ways that the definition of family can change in large numbers. I am a single guy and have two boys I adopted from Vietnam in 1998 and 2001.
Kevin McGarry, Arlington, Virginia

Read more here.

Amazing Concept Cars for 2057

These are some of the most recent concept cars from the last LA auto show.

Manufacturers like Honda, Mazda, Toyota, Volkswagen, General Motors, Nissan and Mercedes Benz have come up with revolutionary designs that are fit fot the probable roads of the future.

The coolest future cars

Designs for futuristic vehicles have been around for decades. Many of those speculative wonders of the past are now actually realistic and even available (for a price). Here are four of the coolest FutureCars you can own today.

by Aaron Turpen

The Flying Car

The dream of climbing into the family commuter and zipping off down the street only to take to the air and fly effortlessly to your destination is now reality. Several iterations of the flying car have been attempted and even been somewhat successful over the years.

Flying cars are nothing new to FutureCars, of course. But until now, they have not been commercially available.

 

Personal Hovercraft

Hovercraft have populated movies since the first working prototypes were created in the 1930s. Action stars like Jackie Chan have featured them in their movies and a growing and popular sport of hovercraft racing has recently taken off.

Most hovercraft are large, commercial machines with a hefty price tag. A new market of personal hovercraft, however, has emerged. These range from single-rider options such as the AirBoard to the multi-occupant units like the Hov Pod. Some are meant as watercraft, others as land-only, but all hover over the ground and have the extreme coolness factor associated with hovercraft.

One thing's for sure: put any type of hovercraft in your driveway and you attain instant James Bond status in the neighborhood.

Monocycle

Many motorized unicycles, single-wheeled scooters, and even one-wheel motorcycles have been attempted and marketed. But the monocycle, which has normally been only in the realm of pedaled vehicles, has finally been commercialized in a self-propelled machine.

The Wheelsurf is a single-seat monocycle that goes up to 25mph thanks to its 31cc Honda engine. It's not street legal, but at those speeds, it's not much of a stretch to call it a motorized bicycle or low speed urban vehicle.

Want to turn heads? Then the motorized monocycle is for you.

Personal Submarines

If you're more of the Jules Verne, underwater type, then this is your lucky century. Personal submarines are no longer for deeply-funded scientific expeditions or questionable sci-fi movies. Now, assuming you've got the cash, you can buy your own 1, 2, or even 6 passenger submersible and go down 100 ñ 1,000 meters into the deep.

Hoping to discover new worlds (or undiscovered treasure ships) beneath? Now it's possible, Captain Nemo.

Read more about this, here.

World of Domotics



Domotica / Domotics?

DOMus infOrmaTICS

Information technology in the home (domus is Latin for home).

Although remote lighting and appliance control have been used for years, domotics is another term for the digital home, including the networks and devices that add comfort and convenience as well as security. Controlling heating, air conditioning, food preparation, TVs, stereos, lights, appliances, entrance gates and security systems all fall under the domotics umbrella.

Safe and comfortable

Continuing to live independently. And feeling safe and at ease in your own home. That is what many older people want. But an ´ordinary´ home is then often not adequate. The thresholds are too high, you are afraid to open the door at night, the curtains are too heavy to close and it´s too dark to feel safe. We want to get away from that. A lot needs to be done to make a home truly suitable for each person´s specific needs. But it can be done! Thanks to Domotics.

What is Domotics?

Domotics is a contraction of the words domus (Latin for house) and robotics automation). Domotics is the combination of technology and services for improved living in the areas of safety, comfort and technical management. It is therefore a complete system, not just a remote control. Things happen automatically, because they are required or because you didn´t remember to do them yourself. But you don´t need to worry that you will no longer have control over things. Everything can also be operated by hand, or the settings can be changed. Tools to serve people.

What is a domotics home?

A domotics home is a ´smart home´ which also takes account of the advancing years of its occupier. The structural provisions meet the standards of the Senioren quality mark: so you don´t need to move as you get older! Safety and comfort are the key. The facilities have been made as user-friendly as possible. A domotics home means that you can carry on enjoying life, and that technology is great fun to use.

What can you see in a domotics home?

For example: as you enter the house, you switch off the burglar alarm. This automatically switches on the passive alarm. The house then checks that you remain active and have not fallen or become unwell. If that happens, help is summoned automatically, for example from the home care service. When you go to sleep, you can use a simple button above the bed to turn the passive alarm and the bedside light off, activate the burglar alarm, switch off any lights left on in other rooms, and lower the central heating thermostat by a couple of degrees.

Other examples of domotics

If someone calls at the door, that person´s image will appear on your TV. You talk to this person using the telephone, and open the door using one of the buttons on the phone. Or the lights in the hall and bathroom can switch on automatically when you enter those rooms. You can switch all the lights in the house on or off with a single remote control. Shutters and curtains can also be closed and opened using a remote control.

Revolutionary: voice control!

If most people consider remote controls to be new, voice-activated control is altogether revolutionary. In a domotics home lights can switch on or off and curtains can open or close, all on commands given in your own voice. But various things in the home can also be controlled from elsewhere without you needing to be present, by talking to your home by telephone: switch on the video recorder, increase the temperature, switch off the coffee machine, etc., etc. The options are limitless.

Teenagers and Texting: Hazardous or Harmless?

Cell-phone texting has become the preferred channel of basic communication between teens and their friends, with cell calling a close second. One in three teens sends more than 100 text messages a day, or 3000 texts a month. Some 75% of 12-17 year-olds now own cell phones, up from 45% in 2004. Those phones have become indispensable tools in teen communication patterns, and for many parents, teens' attachment to their phones is an area of conflict and regulation.

Teens are texting almost 80 messages a day – at school, on the bus, during dinner, and in bed late at night, and the number of teen texters are on the sharp rise since 2006. As of 2009, more than half of teens (54%) were found to be daily texters.

Do you remember back then when chatting on the Internet was the trend?  Well, with mobile phone technology bringing you the ability to send text to other phones, chatting has gone mobile. Like its predecessor, texting can be quite dangerous and hazardous especially when children do it with reckless abandon, most especially teens. In fact, many children have regressed in their development because of texting.

It calls parents and professionals to wonder, what effect is this having on teens’ education, health and well-being? Do you think teen texting is harmless or harmful?

Cell phones and radiation - how safe are cell phones?

Cell phones are almost as common as pocket change these days. It seems nearly everyone, including an increasing number of children, carries a cell phone wherever they go. Cell phones are now so popular and convenient that they are surpassing landlines as the primary form of telecommunication for many people.

Yet, as cell-phone use continues to grow, so does concern about the possible health risks of prolonged exposure to cell-phone radiation. Is Growing Cell-Phone Use Increasing Health Risks?

Do Cell Phones Cause Cancer?

Wireless cell phones transmit signals via radio frequency (RF), the same kind of low-frequency radiation used in microwave ovens and AM/FM radios. Scientists have known for years that large doses of high-frequency radiation—the kind used in X-rays—causes cancer, but less is understood about the risks of low-frequency radiation.

Studies on the health risks of cell-phone use have produced mixed results, but scientists and medical experts warn that people should not assume no risk exists. Cell phones have been widely available for only the past 10 years or so, but tumors may take twice that long to develop.

Because cell phones haven’t been around very long, scientists haven’t been able to assess the effects of long-term cell-phone use, or to study the effects of low-frequency radiation on growing children. Most studies have focused on people who have been using cell phones for three to five years, but some studies have indicated that using a cell phone an hour a day for 10 years or more can significantly increase the risk of developing a rare brain tumor.

What Makes Cell Phones Potentially Dangerous?

Most RF from cell phones comes from the antenna, which sends signals to the nearest base station. The farther the cell phone is from the nearest base station, the more radiation it requires to send the signal and make the connection. As a result, scientists theorize that the health risks from cell-phone radiation would be greater for people who live and work where base stations are farther away or fewer in number—and research is beginning to support that theory.

In December 2007, Israeli researchers reported in the American Journal of Epidemiology that long-term cell-phone users who live in rural areas face a "consistently elevated risk" of developing tumors in the parotid gland compared with users who live in urban or suburban locations. The parotid gland is a salivary gland located just below a person’s ear.

And in January 2008, the French Health Ministry issued a warning against excessive cell phone use, especially by children, despite the lack of conclusive scientific evidence linking cell-phone use with cancer or other serious health effects. In a public statement, the ministry said: "As the hypothesis of a risk cannot be entirely excluded, precaution is justified."

How to Protect Yourself from Cell-Phone Radiation

General recommendations to minimize the potential health risks include talking on cell phones only when necessary, and using a hands-free device to keep the cell phone away from your head.

If you’re concerned about your exposure to cell-phone radiation, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requires manufacturers to report the relative amount of RF absorbed into a user’s head (known as the specific absorption rate, or SAR) from every type of cell phone on the market today.

Teens and the Internet: how much is too much?

Most stories about adolescents and the internet underscore the very real dangers of cyberbullies, sexual predators, and on-line scams that imperil unsuspecting, vulnerable teens. Another risk? The teens themselves. Many spend hours on-line, e-mailing, instant messaging, downloading music, and updating Facebook pages, with some visiting game sites, shopping, and gambling on-line. All of this access can be dangerous; those who abuse the internet can become trapped in a cyber riptide of sorts, pulled in further and further as their time on-line increases, their school performance declines, and their family and peer relationships begin to suffer.

Take Melanie (not her real name), a sixteen-year-old Greenwich Village student, who spent up to seven hours a day updating her Face book page and instant messaging with friends. When her previously high grades began to drop, her parents confiscated her desktop, and Melanie threatened to leave home.

"For an entire year I saw nothing but the back of my daughter's head," Melanie's dad explains. "So I took the computer away. When she became inconsolable and accused us of ruining her social life--she couldn't update her Face book page--we knew there was a serious problem."

Turned out, Melanie was down and out over a flirtation with a boy that had gone nowhere. Once she and her parents began to talk about what was bothering her, their home situation improved dramatically.The family worked it out and she stayed put--with the help of intensive outpatient therapy.

Was Melanie's a case of harmless teen tweeting and more, or a sign of a dangerous problem? Many parents wonder, how much on-line activity is too much? Though internet addiction is not yet a bona fide psychiatric diagnosis, psychiatrists and psychologists are calling for more research, so they can include it in future editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel (DSM), the bible and last word on diagnosis and disorders for therapists, hospitals, clinics, and insurers.

Who is at risk?

Experts agree teens who struggle with internet overuse do not fit a single profile. Heavy users can be socially linked-in, popular adolescents who make good grades. They might spend hours chatting online with friends, posting photos and updates on social media sites. On the other end of the continuum are the isolated, socially anxious teens. They might be teased, bullied, and avoid school altogether. Desperate to meet people and connect, they might surf the web and visit chat rooms and game sites to the exclusion of all else.

How to determine if a teen has a problem?

 While all may seem well, overuse of the internet might be hidden behind deeper problems such as depression, anxiety, substance use or eating disorders, and learning or conduct problems.

Often the problem becomes first apparent in the school setting. "Parents might first notice slippage in school performance. They eventually throw up their hands when any attempt to regulate computer use or limit access quickly devolves into defiance and angry outbursts," says Dr. Eric Teitel, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Manhattan, and a faculty member of the NYU School of Medicine.

In older adolescents (18-25), the profile might differ-though just as with a younger adolescent you might first notice absenteeism from work or school. For people in this age group, internet use is frequently intertwined with sex, gambling, eating disorders, or drug problems, as well as depression or anxiety. Others might spend hours playing on-line poker or shopping, and become increasingly single-minded and isolated.

Teens might be on-line because they are already depressed, anxious, and lonely. Or they might become so, if forced to give up their habit. Signs and symptoms of withdrawal anxiety in a child include: difficulty concentrating, pacing, irritable and stressed mood, and fidgeting.

Other signs your child could have a problem with internet overuse? In addition to a decline in school performance and grades, signs might include repeated surfing or e-mailing during class time, difficulty concentrating and falling asleep in class, hours of night-time use, frequent complaints of being tired, school lateness or absenteeism, and withdrawal from all activities such as sports practices, friends, social engagements and music lessons. Racking up bills for such things as on- line gambling or shopping is also a sign a child is spending too much time on-line.

Read the whole article here.

 

Teens concerned about Internet safety

On Monday, FOX 10 told viewers about a security breach involving apps on Facebook. Games like Farmville and Mafia Wars were accused of distributing your personal information to advertisers and Internet tracking companies. A new study shows more teenagers and parents are paying attention to privacy and safety online -- especially when it comes to social websites.

Which teens may be more likely to develop Internet addiction?

Dear 16-year-old Me!

CYBER BULLYING

Think before you post!

How Internet Predators Lure Teens

This video, The Exchange, demonstrates how easily teen girls can be lured by internet predators. Video produced by NetSmarts.org, teaching youth how to be safer on- and offline. NetSmartz is The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's award-winning, interactive, educational safety program.

A Poesia saiu à rua

No passado dia 7 de Maio, pelas 16 horas, a poesia saiu à rua, pelas mãos da Criamar, e encheu o Largo da Capela do Corpo Santo de um perfume juvenil inebriante. Deu-se voz aos jovens que declamaram os seus textos, revelando uma maturidade poética surpreendente. Quem por lá passou, sentiu esta brisa arrebatadora de quem escreve com o coração.