Technology Advances That Do Good.

Technology  can often be debated as for whether these advancements are doing more good than harm in our society. I wanted to focus on the good that technology advances have done when it comes to the disabled community. Silicon Valley has a lead "employment" group and disclosing yourself as a disabled individual isn't one of them. Though many inventions aren't specifically directed towards disabled individuals, they can really help change lives for many disabled people. In the video above, this young lady now has the opportunity to take pictures thanks to Google glass. Google glass opens so many doors for any disabled individual with very limited mobility. This advancement in technology does really promote this man and machine merging dynamic. Though there is some controversy with this man and machine dynamic, this type of technology advancement helps promote equality and give disabled individuals able-bodied opportunities.

The Horror of Drugs VS Compassion

As a country, we are often so busy with our own life's that we never really take the time to connect with people. Whether it be politics or just day to day life, we all focus on what's good for us. I come from a family that really struggles with addiction. The Johann Harl article about addiction really opened my eyes to the structure of addiction. Both my parents have been off and on smokers throughout their lives. Nicotine has been studied and is an addictive substance. Just like hard drugs, it's not the nicotine that keeps you from not being addicted but instead, the action itself. It's a social norm to not question things and to just assume what we have been taught it the right thing. We have been told as kids why drugs are bad and how the substances themselves cause addiction. Why don't we learn how to help people with addictions? We all know how bad they are but that doesn't stop people from using them. It's also not about limiting the production of drugs or banning them to stop people from doing drugs. Insulating victims of addiction isn't the answer either. We need to build that connection and help these people. As studies have shown, drug addiction is way more of mental issues rather than a physical chemical addiction to a substance. Instead of just learning about the horrors of drugs, we need to learn how to help and support people that do fall into addiction.

In word news, the Philippines is currently killing anyone suspected of doing drugs within the country. The president of the country has basically given citizens the opportunity to kill anyone suspect of doing drugs without any need to justify the killings. I can't even put into words how scary this is and just how hard it is to wrap around my head that this can happen and is happening in present day. This is also a great example of how being so fearful of the drug issue has made the country lose all sense of compassion.

Forget 9 to 5. Living Your Passion.

According to this week's readings, Fidelity did a study with results that showed "millennials would take an average pay cut of $7,600 if they could improve their career development, find more purposeful work, better work-life balance, or a better company culture". I believe social media has a lot to do with our career perspective. You often see articles on Buzzfeed or other news sites about people quitting their jobs to travel the world or focus on a business endeavor. Most of the time these people document their adventures either by writing a blog or posting videos on YouTube. Eventually, they end up building a following so they can continue living out their passions. Online communities have really opened that door with letting people do things they really love and find meaningful, but also being able to make  a living out of it.

I know from personal experience other generations really don't understand why so many millennials are passing up the nine to five jobs to do something they are passionate about even if there is a pay cut. My parents really don't understand my passion for traveling or all the things I want to do in life. They have the mentality that in order to contribute to society you must go to school then join the corporate workforce or if want you can just join the workforce right away. I feel like thanks to the internet and social media, new ways of making money have been created. Just the way social norms have been changing throughout the past decade, millennials are not just looking at dollar signs but instead are following their passions.

"Our" Duty.

 It's hard for anyone to look at a war in a positive light when you think of all the innocent people dying. Hints why presidents never vocalize the lives that will be lost when introducing the decision to go to war. Bush made it seem like it was "our" duty to help those who are oppressed and defend our nation. Bush used the word "our" twenty times  within this five-minute speech. By framing the war as a community contribution, it helps people be supportive of the war.

 Of course the longer a war goes on, popular opinion changes as media starts to change. Media slowly starts to focus on all the things that are actually happening while at war, which includes lots of people losing their life's. When media starts to show mission camps being bombed or little innocence children losing their life's, people naturally start to question things. This is where media agenda come in. This is up for debate, but maybe the best part of democracy is the ability to have an agenda and the choice to choose what you want your agenda to be. Many oppressed, government regulated countries, don't get to chose their own agendas. If the man in power has decided on war then that is what the country will support. Hitler didn't show his troops freezing to death as they attempted to invade Russia. Of course the less popular a president becomes, the bigger media target her or she will become. Popular opinion is really important because it paves the medias agenda and gives them power.

Social Construct of Gender.

WHAT is considered masculine or feminine? Since I'm taking a gender studies class this semester, I've learned a lot about the social construct of gender. We live in a society where we are constantly being evaluated by how we look or what we do and whether on not it is too feminine or masculine for whatever gender a person chooses to go by. As the reading notes, woman do more of the housework whenever they make a higher income than their male partner. Housework has been socially constructed as feminine work. Males feel like since they aren't financially the main income to the family, they can't do housework because it will "lower" their masculinity even more. Though this feminine and masculine scale are all socially constructed. As a society, we have labeled "housework" as a woman's job. Just like having a higher income is  associated with masculinity. Thanks to more woman empowerment movements and LGBT rights slowly becoming a part of our cultural norm, it is a start to breaking these ideas we have of what is feminine or masculine. Many people are trying to break away from these gender role norms, but currently, they are still a huge part of our culture. 

Claude Steele did a study about gender stereotyping that really relates back to the article. In his study, he had two groups of test takers taking the same test. Group one was given instructions about how he noticed a difference between genders on how they did one the exam. While in the other group, he gave no instructions discussing anything about gender differences. His results concluded that woman did worse in group one when they were told about the gender differences while in group two, there was no difference between the scores on the exams. 

Stereotype threat was a term used in the study to show that when the threat of being stereotyped is in the person's mind, they will basically fall within the stereotype. 

Just like when men just think about making these then their wife or female spouse (that masculinity vs femininity scale popping up in their head) , their behavior changes. 

Reference: Gender Studies : Professor Karen Prager 

The Single Story

This Tuesday's readings really got me thinking about a video I had to watch in my Child Development class. It's was a TED talk about the dangers of a single story, told by an African American writer. She discusses the story she was given when she came to America from Niagara. From the books we have read as children the things we now see on the Internet, our society has given everyone from Africa a single troubled story, when in fact, many people living in Niagara live similar life's to the way we do. It's human nature to want to categorize things and this has lead us to the concept of a single story. This single story concept has capitalized on the idea of terrorism and race. As a society, media has taught us to think that terrorism must be associated with radical Islam as the term "thug" is only associated with black men when in fact these words are gender/race/religion neutral. The words don't discriminate, we as a society do. When a white person conducts a terrorist attack, he isn't ridden off as a terrorist but instead a boy with a troubled childhood or socially troubled. His story always runs deeper, while a middle eastern man is completely ridden off as a terrorist because of his looks and assumed beliefs, no deeper story is ever looked at. We as a society need to remember that race,  region or religious beliefs don't just give us a single story.