Tuesday, December 11, 2012


Parents should be aware that cell phones are very dangerous. Two factors play into this: sexting and texting and driving. Sexting is when someone takes a nude picture of him/herself and sends it to someone else. It might seem like harmless fun, but it’s just the opposite. Sexting does more harm than anyone knows, there have been deaths related to sexting. One of the most talked about cases was of a young lady named Jesse Logan. Jesse was a high school graduate with many plans for her future. At the time she had a boyfriend who she sent nude pictures too. After they broke up the boyfriend decided to send the pictures to some of the girls in school. Jesse was tortured by her fellow peers and her so called friends. Eventually the torture was just too much, she ended up killing herself. This goes to show that sexting is no joke and should be taken more seriously.  Parents should also monitor their children more, so nothing like this happens to their child. Then we have the issue of texting and driving. Before cell phones became an important part of our society you never heard of texting and driving. Now every state has laws against this common phenomenon. In a recent poll by Health Day, it has been confirmed that 1/3 (37%) of drivers have admitted to either receiving a text or sending a text while driving. The texting and driving law is, “All drivers are prohibited from texting – that is, typing, sending or reading a text message with a hand-held mobile telephone or mobile electronic device. Exceptions to the rule exist for emergency calls and calls made while using a hands-free device.” As you can see texting and driving is not taken lightly. Parents should also set a better example when it comes to this topic of texting and driving; my mother has texted while she was driving numerous times. It’s more likely that you’re going to do the same thing, because it’s like monkey see, monkey do. Therefore, parents should make a better example by not texting and driving.
Cell phones do have their many pros and cons. However, in this case the cons out weigh the pros. Therefore, we as a society should try to use our cell phones less, and then maybe the car crash rate will decrease along with our spelling and grammar problems. Just by reducing your texting time or anytime you spend on your phone you’ll be able to do something more productive or beneficial with your life
Parents are to blame for most of the problems with cell phones. By letting there kids get one at a young age they allow them to be vulnerable to the many health problems and etc.. However they do have some positives, for example if their kid goes out, the parents do not have to worry because they’re just a phone call away. In the 70s and 80s teenagers never had cell phones leading to the parent staying up all night just to see you walk in the door. You might see this in a lot of older movies. Cell phones give parents a sense of security and power. Most cell phones nowadays have GPS trackers which locates you wherever you go. Because of this parents no longer have to worry about their children as much.
Also many think of the cell phone as a learning tool. Since the first smart  that came out in 2000 many have used cell phones as a way of finding information quickly and easily. For example, say you’re far away from your computer or any computer and you really need to search something up for your English class, your cell phone is right there to help you quickly search information. Cell phones have become a quick reference tool when wanting to prove someone wrong, or trying to find information on a paper you’re writing. Then cell phones have become a reliable tool for many occasions. Cell phones make it convenient for any person to get in touch no matter where you are. Also, gives our society a way to communicate besides the old fashion calling on the phones or writing letters, like they did over 50 years ago.  However, many argue that because we text to communicate we no longer know how to act socially around people.  A CNN article, they] state “Developmental psychologists studying the impact of texting worry especially about young people, not just because kids are such promiscuous users of the technology, but because their interpersonal skills — such as they are — have not yet fully formed.” Meaning they are still developing there interpersonal skills which is important because if the first thing they learn is to text people instead of talking to them face to face, they are less likely to be socially outgoing.

More then anything cell phones have had a great impact on my generation, along with many others.A recent Washington Post article points out that there are more cell phones than there are people (Cecilia Kang 1). It’s impossible to escape the fact that we as a society are dependent on cell phones. Walking out of class every day I witness my peers glued to their cell phones, just sitting there waiting to go to class. Our dependency on cell phones gets worse every generation. The older generations are very unfamiliar with cell phones as a whole. They usually only have cell phones to make frequent calls or conduct searches. But our generation is completely dependent on our cell phones. We use our cell phones to go on twitter, Facebook, or instagram, which are very popular apps. It would be hypocritical for me to say that I’m not dependent on my phone because I am. However, I do believe that cell phones are doing more harm than good, such as destroying the English language.
Cell phones have many negative effects in our generation. One of the most important negative aspects is it completely murders spelling and grammar. Before there was a full keyboard on any phone they had the regular ABC which was under the number one. People would have to repeatedly hit one of these numbers to get one letter, which was a pain to deal with. This is where we started to murder the English language. We started texting 2 instead of to, also started saying b instead of the word be. However, there are people like David Crystal who disagree with this claim. He believes that cell phones aren't actually murdering spelling and grammar, but are actually having an opposite effect.  He states that abbreviations have been around for hundreds of year, so it’s only normal to abbreviate. However, there’s a difference between abbreviating all the time and doing it every once and a while.

For the last couple years there has been recent controversy on whether or not cell phones have a negative effect to there body. Well, cell phones do harm the body eventually maybe even causing cancer. Cell phones emit radio frequency energy, which can be absorbed by the tissues closet to where you have you phone. This means if you have your phone held to your ear most of the time, your more likely to have cancer in that area, or any other health problems. Some common problems that cell phones could cause are, increasing heart rate, increasing blood pressure, for men they will have a problem with DNA, low sperm motility  low viability, low morphology, and increased OS. (http://www.precisionnutrition.com/all-about-cell-phones-health). Other symptoms include fatigue, burning near ear, headache, numbness, tingling, and low concentration. We all tend to thing that cell phones are harmless, but they are now where close as you can see. Cell phones have also been linked to sleep and immunity. Some cell phone users have reported that they are more fatigue and have more headaches, however its not clear whether these are connected to other things or activities such as overworking, or constantly focusing the eyes to see the text screen, or even the brightness of the screen. According to Ryan Andrews, "Scientists speculate that cell phones might harm our bodies in a couple of ways:
  • Thermal: Radiation can elevate body temperature (think: microwave oven). With a cell phone in our pocket or by our head, slight temperature increases might disrupt cellular functioning. The eyes and testes appear especially susceptible.
  • Non-thermal: Radiofrequency energy can alter cell membrane permeability, the movement of calcium ions, cell excitability, free radical production, blood-brain barrier integrity, the stress response and/or neurotransmitter release.
What does this mean? Well it means we have to be way more careful of how we use our cell phones and how much we should use or cell phones. 





Sunday, November 11, 2012


Cell phones, a menace to society or the savior of your society? Cells phones have been around for more than 10 years now and almost ever person in America has one. Don’t get me wrong, it would be hypocritical for me to say that I don’t depend or love my phone. However, where do we draw the line of just using it for communication vs. using it for useless unsafe fun. When the cell phone came out so did many other problems. One of the least commonly talked about topics that is associated with cell phones is how cell phones affect our environment.

Do you ever wonder where your cell phone goes after you get your upgrade? Well a lot of us keep them for emergency purposes just encase the new phone you got breaks, you could quickly turn back to your old phone. However, mo matter how long you hold on to that old phone they eventually get found in the garbage. You might ask yourself what’s the big deal? Well, the big deal is cell phones contain concentrations of toxic heavy metals and other metals such as: cadmium, lead, nickel, mercury, manganese, lithium, zinc, arsenic, antimony, beryllium, and copper. Cadmium is naturally released to the environment by forest fires and volcanoes, if cadmium was to find away into or water supply it could cause: Diarrhea, stomach pains, and severe vomiting, bone fracture, reproductive failure , damage the immune system, cause psychological disorders, and lastly cause possible DNA damage or cancer. Lead is very dangerous to the human body and also to the environment. every time we are exposed to lead it gets stored into our bodies for the rest of our lives. Lead can lead to nervous system and kidney damage, learning disabilities, speech, language, and behavior problems, poor muscle coordination, decreased muscle and bone growth, hearing damage, and seizures, unconsciousness, and death. And these are only for low levels on lead in children, for high levels in your system you: increase chance of illness during pregnancy, harm to fetus (brain damage, or death), fertility problems, high blood pressure, digestive problems, nerve disorders, memory and concentration problems, muscle and joint pain. Nickel is a little less harmless, however, if you have  to much nickel in your body you can suffer: higher chances of development of lung, nose, and larynx cancer, lung embolism, respiratory failure, birth defects, asthma and chronic bronchitis, and heart disorders. Mercury is one of they most deadly, if mercury was to enter your body a number of things could occur such as: shaking of the hands, eyelids, tongue, or jaw. Also can cause headaches, trouble sleeping, personality change, memory loss, irritability, indecisiveness and loss of intelligence. As you can see these are minor affects, however if exposed for a very long time your internal organs can fail causing death. There is on main reason on how cell phones affect our environment, but there is still more to come.

 

Wednesday, October 3, 2012



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