Electronics engraved in our society

Have you ever taken a look around when you are at a crowded doctors office? What do you see? Do you see lots of people socializing? I don't think so. You probably can take a look and see 80% of people on a device such as, phones, tablets, or music devices, . Huffingtons post says,"percent of Americans sleep with their phone next to them like a stuffed animal or a blanket. It increases in percentage when you get in the teen years, it increases drastically by 30 percent," Many people dont realize how addicted they are to their phones. It is slowly becoming a bigger problem and is swarming the world. Having this addictions makes their true communication with people harder because they only know how to communicate through devices.  People in each generation has the different amounts that they use their cell phones, Jeremy Spiegel M.D. says, "College students are the heaviest users of information and communication technology and an overwhelming number of them own smart-phones and use them throughout their day—sending an average of 109.5 text messages a day, receiving just as many each day, and checking their cell phones 60 times on an average day", and this number is increasing day by day. Some time everyone should just put their phones down and talk to people, communicate without an electronic. The world as a whole would be more socialized and not as addicted to our phones.


Source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/16/smartphone-addiction-time-survey_n_1791790.html


https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mind-tapas/201212/hanging-cell-phone-addiction

School days being longer

         Our new generation of teens are swarmed with homework, studying, and getting good grades. Having hours of homework an put stress on students. They have a full day of working at school, and have to come home and work for 3-4 hours on homework totaling out to an 11-12 hour working day. Having this through school years can cause mental stress, which is not good for mental development. American Academy of Pediatrics report tells that for children and teens, too much work and too not enough play could backfire down the road. "Colleges are seeing a generation of students who appear to be manifesting increased signs of depression, anxiety, perfectionism and stress," the report says. Altering the school schedule to overcome this could help students all over the nation. Being able to work on your school work in class could increase productivity in students. School boards should consider lengthening the school day 1 1/2 hours longer, but the teacher shouldn't give any homework. When the student returns home they wouldn't have to work for 3 more hours on school work, they would have time to get lots of sleep and relax their brains.  For elementary students, they are still kids, they still need time to play and mentally develop instead of sitting at a table with a workbook in their face. It wouldn't improve their academic ability to be stressed over it, Amanda Enayati from CNN Health + says " there is no correlation between homework and academic achievement in elementary school".
Having that break to sit and relax gives you time to remember everything you learned in that day of school. Schools should consider this possibility to change the schedule to save lots of stress from the student in the US.



SOURCES:


http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/21/health/homework-stress/

http://www.webmd.com/parenting/features/coping-school-stress

Blood Diamonds

Diamonds, considered one of the worlds most beautiful gems, are prize and hold much value to people in the world. Everyone wants one, they hold essential values of love and prosperity when given to people. In some countries its a curse. It takes hard work to get them, painful work. In countries such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola, and many more. In these countries citizens are put to hard labor that tests their physical ability to work long, exhausting hours. Mining these diamonds in  these countries is traumatic for the countries because it funds the wars that are happening and provides money for the warlords causing the wars. Forcing people to work for them and then have high costs on the diamonds, creating a large profit for the rebels. The diamonds are mined around the area he rebels have held, so if anyone tries to fight, they will get shot. To keep all of the workers with them they threat an them in very harsh ways. as Pervanina P. Brown from World Press writes, "To intimidate potential voters and to maintain control of the diamond mines, the rebels chopped off the hands and feet of adults, teens, children and even infants",Creating a scare factor for the workers. A significant amount of diamonds in our possession are blood diamonds, we don't realize how hard it was for people to get them. TIME Magazine says that,"65% of diamonds in the world are mined by warlords, giving the warlords and intake of $81.4 billion dollars for the war", other countries are trying to sift out what diamonds are conflict diamonds and ones that are not. They try to not fund the wars as much as possible, but it is very hard to find which is which.  These countries are highly threatened by the rebels and the mines they are forced into. The live these people are living because of the high demand for diamonds it treacherous. Next time anyone thinks of the beautiful diamond they have, think of who lived through the harsh conditions to get the beautiful diamond for them.

Sources:

TIME magazine- http://time.com/blood-diamonds/

World Press - http://www.worldpress.org/article.cfm/Blood-Diamonds