Category: Uncategorized

Has Technology Been a Problem in our Society?

During the school year, I feel like one of my biggest weaknesses that are stopping me from staying on task is technology. And let me tell you that it takes 6 hours to finish about 2 hours worth of homework. So has recent advances in social media made it harder for students to stay focus? 

Personally, I think it has. I think that in this generation, technology and social media has made people have less focus and lack of attention in general. But the focus and productivity have not been the only problems in our society. Texting and driving have been taking the lives of many. This also has to do with people not being able to put down their phones in any situation. I think now more than ever people are being too addicted to their phones and are making society dangerous to live in. And if this technology problem doesn’t decrease our society will be forever in danger. That’s why I think people should be educated in how they can balance their phones and social media while not letting it get out of hand in their lives. 

One solution to this recent problem to monitor screen time. This will let you be cut off from your phone when you have reached a certain limit of screen time. This could help prevent you from grabbing your phone that often because every minute is so valuable. Another solution could be to teach delayed gratification which is to delay things in your life to make you be more patient in life. Since most people in our generation have been focused on fast satisfaction than being patient. This will overall increase your attention span and make focusing on different things easier. And everyone has grabbed their phone just to open it every couple minutes for no reason. Also, I know for a fact that everyone has been mad at things not loading when searching something up. 

All in all, I think that technology is a problem in our society and will keep becoming a problem if people don’t do anything about it. But this is something that no government can control because these are fascinating inventions that have been changed our society for better and in this case for worse. 

 

The Brooklyn Nine

The book that I read this semester is The Brooklyn Nine by Alan Gratz. This book is about nine family members that cover over 150 years with one connection between all of them. And its there love for baseball. The book is designed in innings. Every inning is one part of the family’s life. And it goes through each of the family members’ stories about their love for baseball. 

It first starts off with Felix Schnieder. Felix is a German immigrant that is trying to integrate himself into a life of a New Yorker and an American. His goal is to be an American. But one of his favorite things is baseball and has an accidental run-in with his favorite baseball player Alexander Cartwright while trying to stop a bad fire in the city. Louis Schnieder is a union soldier that puts his battle troubles aside to play baseball. During the war, he becomes friends with a confederate soldier that also has a love for baseball. Arnold Schnieder meets his idol King Kelly and asks for an autograph. But then realizes he is a drunk and his perception of his idol is altered negatively. The next one is Walter Snider. They changed their names because originally Felix was a Jew from Germany and they were not being treated right in society because of it. So his father decided to change the family name to Snider to make it sound less Jewish. Walter also meets these Cuban ballplayers that are nothing he has ever seen before. Frankie Snider is connected to the mob because of her talents with numbers and betting. She gets in trouble because her dad is a police officer and she works with this mob boss named Mickey Fists. Kat Snider leaves home during WW2 to go play baseball for the first All-American Girls Baseball League. Jimmy Flint is up against his mom because his mom is helping to move the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles. Obviously, Jimmy doesn’t want that. Michael Flint uses his grandma’s technique to help him complete his first little league perfect game. Snider Flint is forced to live with his uncle in an old antique shop. But while the antique shop gets destroyed by the fire he finds the hidden baseball gems from the families past. 

 

Personally, I thought this book was very interesting how it was designed. I loved how it went by innings and how each family member is connected through baseball. Also at the ending really comes full circle about the whole book. I think it also connects relevant history from the time of the family members to baseball and I think that contrast really fits in nicely. 

The minimum wage has been constantly been talked about for the last 20 years and how it should be changed. Due to inflation in the US minimum wage has to be changed. The minimum wage has not been enough money to live and is a couple of dollar off from the living wage. The living wage is the wage that is enough money for people to live on but it does also depend on the area people live in. In 2009 was the last chance for the federal minimum wage and it moved up to $7.25. The federal minimum wage hasn’t changed since. A lot of things have changed in our economy since 2009. Also, it is proven that the minimum wage increase causes a 1.5% decrease in poverty. 

I am not arguing that the minimum wage should be raised to like $12 because that would cause some problems. First off if raised to $12 businesses will be forced to minimize their workforce because if they have to pay their workers more than they will have to have fewer workers. Which will cause the unemployment rate to go up? But if the minimum wage would be set higher than it would boost the economy because more money in people’s pockets creates greater purchasing power for lower-wage workers who are living off the base minimum wage right now.

But the minimum wage needs to be changed to keep up with our country. To put this in perspective to put the minimum wage back at how it was in 1968, the minimum wage would be $9.92. The basis of where we should keep the minimum wage should be around what’s the minimum wage that is economy can handle and what’s the living wage that people can get by within this country. Now the economy is forever changing, for example, the Great Depression and 2008 housing crisis, and the living wage is always changing depending on where people live and we society around them is like. 

Therefore the minimum wage should be forever changing and changing more frequently than it is now because it’s just not fair if it isn’t. If things are costing more and more and you are getting paid the same wage than it’s just unfair.

  With minimum wage increasing over the years the cost of college tuition has also increased rapidly. 70 percent of college students graduate with a significant amount of loans. Over 44 million Americans collectively hold nearly $1.5 trillion in student debt.” That’s an average of $34,090 per person. Debt can significantly limit your lifestyle and the things you are able to do after college.  However, Attending a four year university is not the only option to become successful and here is why; As previously stated college costs a lot of money, there are many well paying jobs that don’t require a degree, many people are not ready to go to college right out of high school, there are other alternatives such as community college.

 

College tuition is continually increasing. According to a 2017 CNBC article, yearly tuition at four year public universities has increased 213 percent since 1988. Student debt can be an extremely limiting factor in someone’s life and it determines the lifestyle they are able to live early in their life. 

 

While high schools emphasize the idea of higher learning, there are other options for occupations after high school. The three major pathways that do not require a college degree are entrepreneurship, trades, and internet occupations.  Entrepreneurship is a high risk, high reward approach to one’s career. The risk is that businesses often fail and go into bankruptcy. However, there is definitely hope of succeeding. Well-known success stories such as billionaires like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Steve Jobs are among the few of college dropouts who found success in entrepreneurship. Of course, dropping out of college contains risk. The risk as Scott Dobroski from CNBC explains is that “[s]kipping school can make it difficult to return to the traditional workforce”. Also, Dobroski explains how once an individual decides not to follow through on their education, there is a lower percentage of achieving a higher paying job. He says that “most high demand jobs require a traditional four year education”. Furthermore with trying entrepreneurship without a degree, there is a high risk like bankruptcy and unemployment but also a high reward like the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of this world. In regards to trade fields there are also many options to choose from. Some examples of trade jobs are construction, plumbing, electric services, and many others. Since in recent years the cost for college has gone substantially up, these jobs have become more pleasing for high school graduates. On one hand trades schools are a cheaper and better option for people. For example with trade schools it is one year program and then it is straight into the workforce while other people have to go through three more years of education before they get an occupation. Also according to entrepreneur magazine in 2015 44.6% of college graduates are working jobs that don’t require a degree. But on the other hand with going into the trades route it is not elastic in ever changing times. For instance David Leonhardt of the New York Times suggested “Vocational education, done right, helps workers find jobs when they are young. But as they age — and job requirements change — workers are often not well prepared for the changes”. So although trades school can be a cheaper option it is very specific to a certain occupation. All in all is college really worth all that money or is the other options benefit people more. 

 

As I walk through these teenage infested hallways, I see soulless students being drained out by schoolwork. In each class that I attend, at least one person is trying to sneak in a couple of minutes of heaven. Even I have been caught being persuaded by sleep in class. Now this poses a problem, that school days are too long and start too early for teenage students to receive an ample amount of learning.
First of all, high school is a very stressful time and there are a lot of things to think about. For example what your interests are for your career, what college you are going to, and that one decision in high school might make or break your whole life. And I feel like everyone has that same mentality that every grade that is not an A will ruin their life. Also on top of that teenagers need the most sleep because of their rapidly growing brains. So overall I feel like things are just not to go our way.
Another way to prove how teenagers need sleep is just by listening to people talk in the hallways. Everyone is tired. Everyone is complaining about how little sleep they got last night, but they do have a reason to complain because according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention it states that 72.2% of high school students do not meet the requirement of 8 to 10 hours of sleep a night. Also, if students do not meet the requirement, they are prone to a lack of concentration, forgetting simple things, and being more aggressive.
For example, I have been a victim of some of these unhealthy behaviors. One night, I had a lot of homework that I had to do and on top of that, I had a speech in Spanish. First of all, I want to say that I am definitely not the most social person, so these types of things are hard for me. So I went over my speech for probably a thousand times and went to bed pretty late. Little did I know, this decision will have such an impact on me later. I get into Spanish class and my friend tells me that I was saying this one word wrong and I start panicking because that’s just another thing that I have to remember. So I go up to the board and start my speech. Once I get through half of it, it all starts to go downhill. I say that one word wrong because I forgot and then I just pause. I lost where I was during the speech and at that moment I can’t even remember the language. On top of that, my friends are dying laughing in the back and everyone in the class is looking at me like I am a math problem that they can’t figure out. This was probably the most embarrassing moment in my life. Because of this incident, I never went to bed past 11 PM on school nights no matter what homework I had to do. I am not saying that I don’t do my homework, because now I just go to sleep earlier and finish my homework in the morning or during lunch. Even though this could be detrimental to my readiness in each class, I never want to be in that same position again. Therefore we should have later start times for school and shorter days.
There are so many factors that contribute to changing the school day. For example, if all schools changed their school days to start later then after school activities and sports will be pushed back. And if the school days are shorter then we will be getting less done in school and our lunches will be cut down. Although these examples might be true, the health of stressed students should be the number one priority in schools at all times.
Although getting sleep and health is very important, there are also some other benefits of a shorter school day. At school, there are tons of after school activities that people can join. With a shorter school day, there are more opportunities to fit in these clubs and activities while balancing school work. According to the Huffington Post, it states, “Some participate in more than one after-school activity. By the time we are finished with the school day and their activities, there isn’t much time for them to complete homework assignments and study for exams.” There is so much that students can contribute if given a shorter school time. Also, the overall school will become a better place. According to the National Sleep Foundation, some benefits of shorter school days are “less likelihood of experiencing depressed moods; reduced likelihood for tardiness; reduced absenteeism; better grades; reduced risk of drowsy driving; and reduced risk of metabolic and nutritional deficits associated with insufficient sleep, including obesity.” All in all a shorter school day will create a better environment for students to learn and create more opportunities for students to do more after school.
But there have been some changes to this teenage crisis. According to the National Sleep Foundation, “19 states have pushed back their start times, and more than 100 school districts in an additional 17 states are considering delaying their start times.” But this shouldn’t stop here because every day students are losing learning opportunities from not getting enough rest at night. In conclusion, high school start times should be later and school days should be shorter because of recent teenage health problems that are connected to sleep.

What are the top albums of all time? If you look at the list you would probably only recognize the Beatles or Michael Jackson. The rest looks like some garbage that your parents would listen too. But has music in the last 20 or 30 years been on a decline? Or is music today not being represented well. I think as a fanbase of music fans in the last decade we as a society have moved on from rock being the most popular genre of music. Because that has been the only thing that has changed between decades. This shift in genres has changed the reasons for liking a song. Back then I feel like it weighed heavy on guitars and the catchy tune as usual but now since music is so advanced there are so many different things that can catch a person.
Also, do you think that there has been an album to match or even come close to the Beatles takeover of the world? I don’t even like the Beatles but you have to accept there rule and shock on the world. I mean no band has had the run they had during the 60s.
Another factor that goes into this is music collectibility. Since the invention of mp3’s and iPods and all that stuff the interest in physical music like CDs, cassette tapes, and vinyl. Like when is the last time that you have seen a record store or something like that? But this shift from physical music to virtual music I think created a different way people love music. Before people had to buy the music they listened too or hope they hear it on the radio. Like I had this conversation with someone about how if you have a favorite song you can listen to it over and over again and eventually you will get burnt out from that song. But before if you wanted to listen to your favorite song you would have to buy the physical music. Also, nobody nowadays would really have a similar feeling of hearing your favorite song on the radio. I guess something that replicates that feeling is hitting shuffle and getting the song you like. And something that replicates collecting music is like making a playlist. Personally I feel like rocking a CD or cassette collection would be cooler. I don’t know I kind of miss the collectibility of music mostly because my dad has so many CDs and cassettes. I know this is kind of random how this blog post is organized but this stemmed from a conversation I had with someone.

About 30 percent of college and professional athletes use anabolic steroids to enhance their performance in their sport. But only a very few amounts get suspended and caught for using them. This brings up the question, should steroids and other performance enhancers be banned. Even though so many people are taking PEDs and not getting caught they should still be banned because it ruins people’s bodies and because of their competitive advantage.
One case of why they should definitely be banned is how steroids can ruin athletes’ bodies. For example according to Biology Reference taking an anabolic steroid can cause serious medical issues including damage to the kidneys, liver, and heart. It can also damage your mental state which includes depression, delusions, and violent tendencies. Also according to Nationwide Children’s, there is a chance that people can get addicted to one of these substances, especially if you take a lot of it when you are an adolescent. So why would they not ban steroids if it can cause serious damage to athletes’ bodies when overall every sport wants each player to be healthy and play. Steroids don’t improve your health even though bodybuilders who take steroids look like they are healthy, but they are just taking a chance for increased muscle mass.
Professional athletes have a role in society. Although it might not be a political or presidential role, many kids and adults look at professional athletes as someone they aspire to be. And if these drugs are used in sports without any consequences it will make those kids and adults think that one of the necessary things that must be done if you want to be a professional athlete is to take these drugs. Because if these drugs get unbanned there will definitely be a spike in these drug use.
Another reason is that these drugs create a competitive advantage. Although if these drugs are legal and every athlete takes them then there will but no competitive advantage. But that is not the case because some athletes aren’t willing to sacrifice their health for a competitive advantage. Therefore if they get unbanned it will create an even bigger gap in players who are taking these drugs and who aren’t. Also, there will be guaranteed more cases of damage to these athlete’s bodies because more people are taking it. Which will scare the more athletes and create an even bigger competitive advantage gap. Although in UFC or Ultimate Fighting Championship there was a time where fighters would take all kinds of drugs to beat their opponent. For example back then they could have the fighters weigh in at like 170 and one be ripped with veins popping out of his muscles and then have a skinny guy fight him. And this did happen. Although fighting is a sport based on entertainment. It is fun as a fan to see to ripped guys through each other apart but there are still those skinny guys that refuse to take anything. That’s why now the UFC is very strict about what you can and can’t take as a fighter. And the fighters who were ripped when they didn’t have these rules are getting smaller and smaller and facing a lot of long term damage from this.
As a fan of many sports, I enjoy watching the talents of professional athletes go head to head to see who can come out on top. When there is a certain dominance in one aspect of a sport I think it ruins the competitiveness.
All in all, athletes should be held to a standard of fairness and should not have a competitive advantage over their competitors. At school, no teacher would ever tell you to cheat on a test. But when people do cheat it creates a gap between the person that cheated and all the people that didn’t.