Are We Born Good or Evil Essay Example for Free

Are We Born Good or Evil Essay The age old question when discussing man has always been: Is man naturally good or evil? There are many arguments that say that man is naturally evil. There are many counter arguments that say that man is naturally good. Which one is it? Is man naturally good or evil? Thats why Im here. I will present arguments from both sides, and maybe some that share an entirely different argument, and then share my opinion about which I think. This papers purpose is not to tell you which is right, which is wrong, but to get you to think about man and his nature. I must first define the terms good and evil before I am able to discuss which medium man is. I went to dictionary.com to find what the definitions of both terms. Evil produced five definitions, while good produced 41 definitions. I will discuss why this is weird later, but for now, just the definitions. Evil is basically something that is morally wrong. Its something thats intent is to hurt others. Good is basically something that is right, and its intent is to help others or do something for someone else. Now that Ive basically defined the terms, we can now discuss what man is. I conducted a survey on an internet forum asking people what they thought man naturally was. 33% think man is naturally both good and evil, 28% think man is naturally neither good nor evil, 28% think man is naturally evil, and 11% think man is naturally good. When I proposed the question, I was thinking that people would just say good or evil. It was not my intention for them to also say neither or both. What surprised me the most was that good was so low, while evil was so high. Is man naturally evil? Possibly. Many believe that humankind is entirely selfish, only looking out for oneself. Its our animal instinct they say. We do what we must to survive. If that means hurting someone else to get ahead, then thats the way it is. Me, me, me; its always about what I want, and not what anyone else wants. There are wars in our world simply because one side thinks the other is evil and must be destroyed and vice versa. This usually involves religion. Man is evil because Satan persuaded Adam and Eve to eat from the forbidden tree. They wanted to be like God, so they ate the fruit. Thats where sin came into play. So because of their act, all mankind is born into sin, which makes man naturally evil. Is man naturally good? Possibly. Even though many people do not think man is good, there are some people that do. They think that love is a natural instinct, and love is good. Man does not have the instinct to hurt or kill simply because they choose to. Man is compassionate. Man wants to be happy. Man wants to love and to be loved. Man cares about whom they love. Humankind tries to help one another in times of need. Man believes in the humanistic perspective, in that mans mind is inherently good, constantly striving to learn more and reach its full potential. Anything that happens along the way is subject interpretation. Once again, religion can come into play. God created man in His image. God is good, which makes man good. Even though sin came upon humankind, man is still created in Gods image, so man must naturally be good. Perhaps man is neither good nor bad. Perhaps when we are born we simply are there, we are neutral. 28% of people say this. They say that man is neutral, and is influenced by their culture on what is good and what is evil. Good and evil are just terms created by man; opinions. Wars are never a battle between good and evil, but rather a battle between differing opinions of what goodness and evil constitute. Good and evil change based on the morals that you learn. There is only the perception of humanity which attempts to give itself some fundamental depth where there is inherently none. Evolution didnt design us to be civilized and polite. We are hunters and gatherers. In the end we are carbon based life forms evolved from single celled organisms. Good and evil are objective constructs. They dont exist without people to perceive them; they are not a priority. For example a soldier can be seen as a hero from one side and a terrorist from another. Its all about perspective. Religion can come into play here as well. Is atheism considered a religion? Is believing in nothing but what you see considered a religion? A belief in God creates a religion, so a belief in something else (in this case, nothing) should create a religion, right? Ill just say belief and leave it like that. The atheistic belief is that the terms good and evil are nothing more than terms, created from religion. They believe that what we see is what we get. Man is born and is influenced into doing things (good or à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"evil things). Evil is perspective, as is good. One side of the world may see themselves as good, while another side of the world might see those same people as evil. The terms are simply opinions, nothing more. Maybe man is naturally both good and evil. 33% of people seem to think so. Man always has a choice. Man can either do good, or do evil; their choice. They can choose to hurt or to help. Its easier to go down the dark side and act on greed and other negative impulses, but we have the ability to choose the person we want to be and choose the light side instead. That is what makes man special, instead of a common animal that runs purely on instinct. Man can love and man can hate. Man can kill and man can create life. Man is compassionate. Man is vengeful. Humanity can choose to do good, and choose to do evil. It 50/50; heads or tails. Where do I fall into this? Is man evil, good, both, or neither? I dont believe man is neither good nor bad. I dont believe man is here simply because of chance. I dont believe good and evil are just terms created by man to help ourselves feel better about our choices. Humanity isnt here because of an accident, or because of an explosion. Were too perfect to be. Im not saying man is the perfect being, because we all make mistakes, but were just made up so well I just dont see how we are just an accident. Do I think man is influenced in his decisions from family, culture, or even the media? Yes. But I believe man has this natural instinct to be good or evil. I do believe that man is both good and evil. Man can do great, wonderful, terrible, and horrifying things. Tony Soprano from the television series The Sopranos is a good example. He is a loving husband and father, but hes also a mobster who kills people and puts hits on people. Benjamin Franklin had many ideas for America and even invented electricity, but he was also an adulterous and a very sleazy man. If the perception of man being both good and evil is true, then each decision that humanity makes must be struggle, since good tells you to do one thing, while evil tells you to do something else. Its like youre mind is split in two. I realize thats a stretch, but Im trying to deduce all ideas around this belief. And if man can be both, can they be one or the other? I guess well find out. I do not believe man is naturally evil. Do we have evil tendencies? Sure, but that doesnt mean that the first thing I think of when I see someone is that I want to kill them. I dont wake up every day thinking Oh goody, I get to hurt someone today! because thats just stupid. Do I think that people think this? Unfortunately, yes. I dont think there are many people that do think this, but I believe there are some. People can be selfish, sure, but peoples intentions usually arent to hurt others. There is the exception though, like the popular kids in high school who make fun of the geeks just because they think its funny. Luckily, life isnt like high school at all. Evil is very real in my opinion, but we always have a choice to do evil, and I do my best to avoid it. I do believe that man is naturally good. We as humans strive to be happy. Thats what were all searching for in my opinion. We want to love and to be loved. Plus, man has this wonderful thing called a conscience. Its this little voice inside ones head that tells you when youre doing something wrong. We try to have a good day each day, even if we know that day is going to suck. Humanity tries to help each other out in times of need. Some people give to charities; others become counselors or doctors. Many people when they are children want to become policemen or firemen because, not only do they have cool uniforms, but because they help people. Its very hard to talk about good when all people usually think about is the bad. Even I think more about the bad rather than the good. Is that because I feel bad for thinking about the evil? I think so. The evil might be affecting us in one way or another. We try to do good, but sometimes the evil simply takes over and theres not much to stop it. We simply give in because its easier. Theres a quote in the bible that says The road to hell is straight and wide, and its filled with people, but the road to heaven is shallow and is filled with many turns. There arent many people on this road. I know the quote isnt exactly that, but thats not the point. The point is, doing evil is easy, while doing good is hard. But how can one truly live their lives if all they ever did was the easy thing? Itd be very hard to do. Whats really sad is that at dictionary.com, there are 41 definitions for evil and only five definitions for good. Why is this sad? Because it seems like we as humans always are trying to do good, but for one reason or another, it turns into evil, and so people get hurt. So there are 41 definitions because people get hurt. People usually think about the bad times rather than the good times. We dont really think about good things because we dont think they come in our lives very often, so there are five definitions of good because they seem so far away to attain, even if theyre not. My choice is that naturally, man is good. Sure, we all make mistakes, but when we do we try to learn from those mistakes. I believe that we are not born and are here just because. How can one truly live their life knowing that they are an accident? I dont see how thats possible. Humanity can do terrible, horrible things, but humanity can also do very good, even great things. Finding a cure for cancer, donating to a charity, helping someone paint their house just because they asked with nothing in return, the March of Dimes, Walk for Life, donating to Hurricane Katrina victims, or whatever else. We do a lot of good things yet we never really think about it. Maybe we give someone a quarter to help pay for something just because we have the change, or buying a friend dinner because they dont have any mother. Moving a shopping cart out of the road at Wal-Mart because someone might hit it or letting someone in front of you because they have one item while you have 25. Humanity does more g ood than what they think. We arent evil. We arent here just because. Were just naturally good, and it cant get better than that.

How Can Television Influence Behaviours In Children Young People Essay

How Can Television Influence Behaviours In Children Young People Essay ABSTRACT Everyone in this world watches television. Some people do not like to watch it and some people have no time for it but it is a lie if they never watched it before. No matter how much they hate it or no time for it, they must have watched it once before. Television programs give us a lot of information and we can get a lot of benefits from it. However, it has been misused by todays youths because they do not know how to interpret all those information very well. Indirectly, this causes the statement of television programs affect the attitude of todays youth to arise. It seems that television programs may lead to aggressive behavior because kids are very easy to be influenced as they are still young and just about to know the whole world. So, whatever they see on television, they tend to imitate it. As we all know, kids learn while they are growing up. After watching a lot of violence shows, they might be immune to violence and this will automatically encourage them not to hesitate to be violence in reality. Besides that, television programs also cause the development of negative social amongst youths due to the advertisements of alcohol, smoking and sex scenes. Youths will be encouraged by these scenes and advertisements as it is easier to attract peoples attention by using animation rather than pictures. Furthermore, television programs affect self development and self esteem. People who are addicted to television are willing to do anything for it including sacrifice their sleeping time just to watch their favourite shows. This will indirectly c ause self development to be affected. Television programs affect self esteem because they might put on diet as they want to compete with skinny beautiful models and actresses that can be seen on television. Do television programs affect the attitude of todays youths? From the reasons that have been mentioned above, the answer is certainly yes, television programs do affect the attitude of todays youth. 1.0 INTRODUCTION Televiewing causes people to duplicate inappropriately, in other areas of their lives, behavior styles developed while watching television. (Kottak, 1990, p.3) Television programs can be educational as well as entertaining. It can give people the opportunity to travel around the globe, expose them to new ideas that they might not have encountered from their community and also a chance to learn about different cultures. Pro-social messages from shows on television will give a positive impact on the behavior of todays youth. However, these youths are more likely to learn negative values from these television programs. Statistics show that an average of children ranging from ages 2-5 years old spends about 32 hours a week in front of the television while children ranging from 6-11 years old spends about 28 hours a week watching these television programs (McDonough, 2009). Another set of statistics show that 68% of children between ages 8-18 years old have a television set in their bedrooms, 37% of them have cable/satellite television and 20% have premium channels. This is very interesting as studies show that 53% of households of 7th to 12th graders have no rules or boundaries regarding the amount of time they spend watching television or the type of programs they watch thus making these television programs a very influential tool because studies have shown that kids with no televisions in their bedroom spend an average 1.5 hours less per day watching television than kids who do (Roberts, Foehr Rideout 2005). Television has now become a debatable issue as some question its influences on the attitude and psychological development of todays youth. Nowadays, the world of television has been discovered by children at very young age. As we know, television is an effective educational tool. With programs showcasing wildlife, scientific theories etc, it helps these children to be broad-minded and also have a better understanding about the world around them. However, we have to remember and be aware that the television also is seem to posses more negative effects than positive ones. A day in a youths life will generally be filled with activities such as playing with friends, reading, doing homework and being physically active but this can be easily replaced with the presence of television. This is detrimental to their physical and mental development because studies show that the first two to three years of a childs life is where he/she learns through observing, interacting, playing and also exploring new things. Thus if these children are glued and become addicted to these programs on television they will have lesser time to interact with human beings. This is crucial, as it can retard their normal physical and social development and skills. Hence, the burning question here is, do television programs affect the attitude of todays youth? If we look further into the issue, television programs do indeed affect the attitude of todays youth as it enhances negative social development amongst youths, which may lead to aggressive or violent behavior, and they tend to affect self development and self esteem. As we all know, youths are more likely to imitate and adapts ones behavior into their own because they can easily relate to what is shown on television. There surely will be a lot of behavioral changes in youths today if they are exposed to excessive violence shown on television. These kinds of programs will encourage these youths to be aggressive in both their behavior and in their thoughts. Not only that, they will also be more likely to be influenced with what they have seen regularly like smoking and drinking scenes which are shown frequently in these television programs and even commercials. This will encourage the development of such unhealthy habits at an early age (Bora, 2009). This report shows the effect television programs have on the attitude of todays youth. These research findings are confined to the United States of America as the knowledge and collective behaviors of contemporary Americans are everywhere. Like any other problem, there is always a solution, in order to ensure that television is used as a source of knowledge and healthy entertainment, one must be sure to watch it in moderation by setting a time limit when you sit down to watch it. Besides that, the government, the parents and the teachers should encourage todays youth to participate in other positive activities like playing outdoor and indoor games. Not only that, they should also encourage todays youth to watch programs that reinforce family values. 2.0 TELEVISION PROGRAMS MAY LEAD TO AGGRESSIVE OR VIOLENT BEHAVIOR Aggressive attitudes, values and behavior can be increased by watching entertainment violence, particulary in children. The effects are measurable and also long lasting. Some of the television programs will show scenes with stabbing, hitting, shooting, punching, guns and any type of other violence. Almost all the violence shows on television are fake as television programs use fake guns and fake blood to represent violent acts during acting (Kaufman, 2004). Violent scenes on television may not be a great deal for the adults because adults know the difference between reality and fantasy compared to children who know nothing about it or not clear about the difference between reality and fantasy. Most of the time, children who see a lot of violence will settle their conflicts in violence way. According to psychological research, youths can be negatively affected by the violence on television. Watching violence on television will give three major effects which youths will be less sensitive to pain and suffering of others, youths will be more fearful of the world around them and they might behave aggressively toward the others (Abelard, 2008). ACT Against Violence (cited in Kaufman, 2004) states that infants are interested in television only for a short period of time as they are attracted to the light and sound from the television. Toddlers who are 18-36 months are paying more attention to what is on television and are able to get the meaning from the programs they watch. The link between their fantasy and reality is not strong which will cause them to react equally to animated violence and real violence. Preschoolers who are 3-5 years old are looking forward to shows on television. Eventhough they can understand what they are watching, they cannot give it a context. They cannot judge commercials versus regular programs or reality versus fantasy. Vivid scenes, rapid movement, sound and colour are highly attracted by the preschoolers. Hence, this shows that most of them pay the most attention to the most violent scenes on the screen. Children in the range of 6 to 11 years old believe that television reflects real life. The y will show more aggressive behavior after watching the violent scenes. 2.1 THEY TEND TO IMITATE SUCH BEHAVIOR FROM WHAT IS SHOWN ON TELEVISION Everyone knows that viewers may imitate positive and negative behaviors from the television programs. However, the Gerbner group has found that people will be more apt to perceive the real world as being similar to television programs if they spend more time on watching television (Kottak, 1990, p.11). This situation will be faced mainly by the children as they do not have enough knowledge and experiences to differentiate between reality and fantasy. Since they only spend their time on watching television, they might have forgotten that they are actually watching something that is fantasy, not a reality. Hence, the innocent children will follow blindly what they have seen on television because they think that the characters on television programs can do so, why cant they. Violence on television programs may create blur images of good and evil. Kottak (1990) states that the distinction between heroes and villains is fading. This will cause the children to be more confused and lead the m to do anything they want. For example, if they adore a character from one movie, they might just imitate the behavior of that character without knowing that behavior is a good behavior or a bad behavior. Most of the shows on television are using violence as the central to the storyline, where the heroes and villains can get what they want by using violence as it is an effective way. It is true that television programs may lead to aggressive behavior. This can be proven by an incident in Dallas where a boy has been killed by his elder brother, 7 years old with a clothesline maneuver he had seen on a wrestling show (Kaufman,2004). 2.2. THEY BECOME IMMUNE TO VIOLENCE Children will tend to have favorable attitudes toward aggressive behaviors if they watch more violent television programs. This will indirectly cause the child to become immune to the horror of violence (American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, 2002). This is because, they can always see violence in the television programs that they are watching. Hence, the child will gradually accept violence as a way to solve problems. Lefebrve has found an example to show that a child has immune to violence until he uses the type of violence that has been seen by him on television to solve his problem. A six years old boy wearing turtle costume stabbed his friend in the arm for not returning his toy. This shows that this child has no humanity because for him, it is only a normal thing to stab someone as he has already immune to violence. AGGRESSIVE AND VIOLENT BEHAVIORS ARE CONTRIBUTED THROUGH OTHER CHANNELS Some people argue that not only television programs can lead to aggressive and violent behaviors but these behaviors can be influenced by people surrounding them like peers and family. However, children spend most of their time by watching television. Almost everyone in the world has their celebrity idol. Children tend to like the characters of their idols on the television programs or movie without thinking whether their idols are doing the good or bad thing in that show. This will cause children to imitate their favourite characters in particular shows because they are too obsessed with the characters. Factors that may lead to aggressive and violent behaviors that have been influenced by their peers or family members are not a strong argument compared to television programs. This is because, children will not always agree or listen to what people say to them because they are quite stubborn and will just follow their hearts to do whatever they want. Eventhough they have been influen ced a lot of times by people surrounding them, they still can choose whether to do it or not as they might not interested in their type of violence. If they chose not to do it, they can just not do it and can stay away from people who are influencing them. Think about television, how are they supposed to stay away from television? There is no way for people in this world to stay away from television unless that person is in a jungle or no television set at home. Although they do not have television sets at home, they can still watch it at their office place or any stalls. No matter what, they can still watch programs on television and somehow will come across to violence. Besides that, television programs are visual and children can always see the act in an interesting way and it can be watched repeatedly. There are so many types of violence on television programs that can be seen by the children. So they have variety types of violence to be chosen and if children love what they are watching, then they will start to behave like what they are watching. Hence, television programs are the main source which may lead to aggressive and violent behaviors. In a nutshell, the attitude of todays youth are affected by television programs as they will indirectly encourage the children to be aggressive and violent in their behaviors. Children tend to imitate such behaviors from what is shown on television and also the immunity to violence cause the childrens behavior to be easier affected by television programs. 3.0 TELEVISION PROGRAMS ENHANCE NEGATIVE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AMONGST YOUTHS Children are very curious because they are still growing up and just about to see the whole world. So, they are more easily being influenced to do either negative or positive things when they see something new or something that they can see often on the television. We cannot control childrens mind because they seem to keep it to themselves and we can only see the differences in them when they express it. Besides that, they do not know what the good and bad things are as they are just about to understand and see the real world. So, they will simply do whatever they like which have been seen by them on television. Examples of negative social development that can be enhanced by the television programs are drug and alcohol abuse, smoking and also sex amongst the youths. All of these cannot be expected not to be seen on television because these will be included in most of the television programs and advertisements. Outley Taddese (2006) state that one of the factors for increased drinking amongst the youths are due to the exposure to alcohol use on television and in music videos like MTV, Hitz, and [V] channels. According to Kaiser Family Foundation, three quarter of the prime time shows entitled Sex on TV contain sexual references. There is only one tenth of the sexual content shows include the risks, responsibilities and safety of sex. Only 17% of messages about safety and responsibilities of sex have been portrayed in shows about teenagers in sexual situations. Children will start smoking at an earlier age for those who watch more television as the factors of influenced by the peer and parental smoking and gender is not as strong as the relationship between the age of starting smoking and television viewing (Mekemson Glantz, 2002). 3.1 THE MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO THEORY Audience can experience strong emotional reactions, gain new values and change the way they behave by observing the performance of actors. This will be more likely to happen especially when the models show new patterns of behavior and thought which are rewarded (Bandura, 1985). This explains that the audience will do whatever they like which have been seen by them on the television and this will affect their behavior and attitude. Most of the people who can think rasionally, they will not follow the negative things that have been watched by them on television. However, we have to remember that youths are still young and they are still learning about things around this world. This world is new to them and they do not understand which is good and which is bad until the adults thought them the right things. At this range of ages, youths will have problems in controlling themselves if they are addicted to television programs which will then lead to the monkey see, monkey do theory. Television is the most influenced medium. It can be part of the solution and part of the problem in the area of sex amongst the youths. It will give solutions to the area of sex amongst the youths when the shows are giving a technique to have safe sex, a warning program to the teenagers about the consequences if that person gets pregnant, the responsibilities that they need to know from the start before they decided to have sex, etc. However, it will give problems when the children watch the sex scenes in the television programs. When they watch this kind of scenes, they will get attracted to it because everyone has the passion and it is a human nature to have the feeling to do it. Children will think that it is not wrong to have sex because they can always see the sex scenes on television without being censored and the monkey see, monkey do theory will be seen in this situation. They see it on television and they will do it in real life. Not all of them will do it in real life becau se some of them might not get a partner to do it in real life but nowadays, in this kind of situation, it is not difficult anymore to get a partner to have sex due to the influenced by television programs. For those who might not get a partner to satisfy his satisfaction, he might do something worst like rape the girls. In most television programs, there will be at least one scene where they will be drinking alcohol and smoking. For those children who watch this scene, he or she might not know what is alcohol and cigarette. As the theory said, monkey see, monkey do, the children might try to drink and smoke in real life like what they have seen on television. 3.2 THEY HAVE BEEN ENCOURAGED BY THE TELEVISION PROGRAMS People in the advertisements of alcohol can always be seen more successful, happier and sexier when they drink. Alcohol advertising including the television advertisements caused the drinking among youth to be increased (Johnson et al. 2004). When they see this kind of advertisements, they will be more likely feel encouraged by the advertisements because everyone wants to be sexy, happy and successful. Since these advertisements show that they can feel all of the feelings, this will indirectly encourage them to drink so that they can feel to be more successful, happier and sexier. There are some of the television programs about a group of friends ignore he or she because that person doesnt want to do something that had been asked to do by that group of friends, for example like smoking. When children watch this kind of shows, they will feel scared because they do not want to lose their friends, and they are still young to know that actually the friends who ignored them are not good friends for them. In order to be secure, children will take precaution steps before they lose their friends, and hence they will decide to smoke. This shows that television programs are indirectly encourage the children to develop the negative social in them. YOUTHS RECEIVED THE KNOWLEDGE OF NEGATIVE SOCIAL FROM OTHER SOURCES We are doing our young people a real disservice by attempting to protect them from straight and open information that is imperative for adjustment in the real world.  (Maw, 2007) Some people argue that youths can get the information and knowledge from their friends, parents, teachers, magazines, etc. There are also some of them who claim that the purpose of television programs show all these kind of programs is because they want to protect todays youth by showing them the real side of world. However, television is still the most influenced medium. This is because, children can spend most of their time in front of television and can watch that particular show for a long period of time as well as get the information in detail throughout the show. If compared to the information by the parents, peers, etc, they will not get the information in detail. Besides that, it is not that they will spend their time with their parents and peers to talk about it for 24 hours, they need to talk about something else too like family talk and etc. Hence, that is why television programs will give more impact on the negative social development amongst youths compared to the other sources. 4.0 TELEVISION PROGRAMS MAY AFFECT SELF DEVELOPMENT AND SELF ESTEEM In order to create a good relationship with other people, it is important for us to have good self esteem and self confidence in ourselves so that we can achieve our goals. People who have trouble getting positive relationship and afraid to do anything that can improve their life is due to the lack of self esteem. We can always see beautiful skinny models and actresses on television. Most of the children will then start to feel insecure and they will definitely want to do something with their bodies so that they can feel as good as the beautiful skinny models and actresses on television. However, in order for them to maintain their bodies or to get the body like their role models, they have to sacrifice a lot of things. For example, they have to diet in order to be beautiful and skinny like models and actresses on television. This will affect the youths self development and self esteem. 4.1 THEY HAVE SLEEPING PROBLEMS BY WATCHING TELEVISION Sleeping disorders and sleeping patterns among youths have been altered by television viewing. In order to get healthy sleep, we need regular sleep schedules. Thompson Christakis (2005) state that watching television makes the youths to have more irregular sleep disorders. Children need to get enough sleep so that their brain can work and can think carefully. If they do not have enough sleep, their brain will be very tired and cannot think carefully which will indirectly make their brain to be slow. When the brain is slow, this will affect the development of the youth. Besides that, the development of youth will be affected by the sleeping problems because they need to have enough sleep to grow. The growth at this age is very important and the growth rate should not be affected by anything so that the self development will not be interrupted. 4.2 THEY TEND TO PUT ON DIET When they see beautiful actresses and models on television, they feel insecure about their bodies and they will start on diet to get hot body like those actresses and models. When they look someone beautiful on television, their self esteem will automatically being activated. They will start to ask themselves whether they are beautiful or not. For example, when someone sees Megan Fox on television, she will automatically feel very insecure and she thinks that herself is ugly. She will definitely think the way how to compete herself with Megan Fox. No matter how preety that person is, normally if she sees someone who she thinks is preety, her self esteem will then automatically be activated and cause her not to eat in order to be preety like the others. Not only that, when they are not having a proper diet, this will also affect the self development on them. SELF ESTEEM AND SELF DEVELOPMENT CAN BE AFFECTED BY PEOPLE SURROUNDING THEM People who do not agree with television programs may affect self development and self esteem say that self esteem and self development can be affected by people surrounding them. It is true that it can be affected by surrounding people but we have to remember that our surrounding people are random people. We will not see the same person every day. It is also possible if the children see their idols as random people for only once. Compared to television, children can always see their idols on television again and again, which will make them feel more uncomfortable with themselves due to the self esteem and self development. Hence, television is the biggest influenced medium on youths. 5.0 RECOMMENDATIONS The following recommendations have been made to solve the problem of youths attitude that has been affected by the television programs: Provide the youths with media education and monitor them Discuss the contents of the shows with youths Give them more confidence in themselves According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the kids will be less influenced to the negative effects of watching violent shows on television by the help of media education. Some studies have shown that media education can make the kids to have less violent behavior after watching violent shows on television (Kyla, 2009). This shows that media education can help the youths to control their aggressive behavior eventhough they have watched a lot of violence shows. Hence, it is not wrong for the parents to try the method of providing their children with media education. Either it works or not, parents are highly recommended to try this method as it is one of the most effective ways for controlling childrens behavior. We have to remember that we cannot control everyones interest. If the kids love to watch violent programs, we cannot stop them from watching it and it is not wrong for them to watch it as long as they can differentiate what is good and what is bad. Besides that, another way to prevent the youths from having aggressive or violent behavior is parents should monitor the children on what they are watching. This is to prevent the children from straight away imitate whatever they have seen on television, especially for kids. Parents should try to explain to kids as many as possible about what have been shown on television because the children do not know how to differentiate which one is reality or fantasy as they are still young and know nothing about it. Usually, children love to imitate the aggressive or violent behavior from cartoon and this is the main reason that the parents need to explain to their children about reality and fantasy terms to give the children an idea about this issue. Secondly, parents should discuss the contents of the programs with their children in order to avoid the development of negative social amongst the youths. The advertisements about alcohol and cigarette as well as sex scenes cannot be avoided from the youths. Parents should spend more time with their children to share opinions between them. Parents need to know what exactly on their childrens mind so that they can give advices to their children. This is the time for the parents to be a good role model for their children. Give them good advices and hear their opinion patiently without judging. Eventhough their thoughts are wrong, parents need to correct it and give them a bigger idea about the effects of alcohol, smoking and sex before married by giving them a story based on experience or tell them the consequences of all these actions. In order to avoid self esteem and self development from being affected, parents should help their children to build confidence in themselves. They should remind their children how attractive they are and nobodys perfect. Parents should keep on telling their children that that all those beautiful skinny models and actresses on television must have scarcity in themselves. Parents have to help their children to build their confidence so that they do not want to be someone else due to the confidences that have been built in them. Besides that, parents should set rules for their children. For example, set the rule that they have to switch off the television before 10 P.M so that they can sleep early and get enough sleep. This rule may help the children to have a good self development. . 6.0 CONCLUSION To summarize, television programs contribute more damage than benefits. Television programs may lead to aggressive behavior and violent behavior as kids become immune to violence and they tend to imitate what is shown on television. Eventhough aggressive and violent behaviors are contributed through other channels, television is the main source which will lead to this behavior. This is because, they spend most of their time on watching television compared to the others. They can easily imitate the violent behavior due to the blur images of good and evil which have been created by television programs. Since they watch more violent television programs, they become immune to the horror of violence as they can always see violence in the television programs that they are watching. Evidently, television programs enhance negative social development amongst youths. This can be proven by the theory of monkey see, monkey do. Whatever have been seen by them on television, they can always do if they want to without thinking the consequences because they are still young and do not know how to differentiate the good and the bad things. Eventhough the knowledge of negative social can be received from other sources, television is the most influenced medium because they can watch those actions as if it is real while magazines and posters are only in a form of pictures. Not only that, television programs may also affect self development and self esteem. The self development is affected by the sleeping disorder because they might watch their favourite shows until late night and have not enough sleep. Sometimes they tend to put on diet due to their self esteem as they see beautiful skinny models and actresses so that they can be as preety as those models and actresses. Youths can always see the beautiful skinny models and actresses as long as they watch television, they cannot avoid from seeing them on television. Do you think it is logic for us not to see even one beautiful actress? Of course the answer is no and that is why television is the most influence medium which can affect self development and self esteem. In a nutshell, television programs do affect the attitude of youths today as it enhances negative social development amongst youths, which may lead to aggressive or violent behavior, and they tend to affect self development and self esteem.

Social and Legal Issues associated with Multimedia Industry

Social and Legal Issues associated with Multimedia Industry Section A Identify and discuss legal and social issues of the multimedia industry Multimedia the name itself indicates its a combination of multiple media content, all the digital devices, electronic machines utilized this generation and future generations mainly aims to focus on delivering high quality multimedia content in their desired product. As the Quality of the products or service is good, such organizations have huge reputation in society. Apart from goodwill there are also some other side effects in multimedia industry (Adjeroh and Nwosu, 1997). The media content can be served in many forms text, audio, and videos by stealing others digital property or morphing media content and providing false reputation to organization. Majorly Copyright issues cause much loss to film industry, by duplicating media content, and selling illegally earns money. Most of the organizations in media industry are using advanced tools in designing graphics, logo creation, banner creation, 2d animation, 3d animation and wedding works etc. But along with pros there are some cons existed in this field. This paper presents all the pros and cons, legal and social issues in depth knowledge to improve its performance, effectiveness and remove its difficulties for future generations as well as it helps for technology vandals. Some of the major issues in media industry are copyright issues, Health and safety, Employer liability, Employer rights, Confidentiality, Accuracy, Privacy, Harm and offense, Misuse of technology in social media are critically evaluated in this paper. Other part of paper will discuss purely about design and implementation of application show case, the way animation is planned using appropriate tools and its sub options. In depth explanation of the way how individual objects are re-shaped and grouped as one object. Copyright Issues: A medium used for protecting rights of media creators from various illegal technologist by providing proprietary ownership (Browell, 1997). These basic rights are already formulated decades ago to protect individual copyright. But with the use of internet and technology these laws are subjected to modifications. Individual has a Right to freedom but no right to interfere or utilize others media content without their concern. Many authors in related field of research have mentioned similar qualities and illegitimate use of copyrighted documents or content. Recent times  ­Ã‚ ­Ã‚ ­Ã‚ ­Latest techniques have emerged in protecting and identifying illegal misusers of media content using water marking process. According to US legislation have some protocols released on Copyright act of 1976 a notice on such issues it says that offense of using or selling others work without purchasing its rights. Health and Safety policy: This policy clearly describes about some sectors of multimedia industry such as Film industry, news channels, discovery, cartoon which gives support and advice to public (Adjeroh and Nwosu, 1997). Before telecasting media content certain risk assessments are taken to avoid miscommunications and social issues. Accuracy: Misuse of technology by creating unrealistic media content and misguiding the public and provoking them to unwanted emotions causes severe social issues which have been identified in this research. So it is advised to not to modify the facts for their own self to acquire profits. This may cause huge damage and mistrust on media industry reputation. Privacy: The primary aspect of multimedia industry is nothing but privacy, it always advised to not interrupt with any individual life before telecasting multimedia content (Cuttler, 2011). The telecaster must be aware of laws and have permission of rightful person whom it concern before providing publicly. Harm and offense: Some Television broadcaster and every civilian have right to produce righteous content and information to public. By keeping kids and youth on mind unsuitable content must be avoided. In order to prevent from socio ethical issues on misguided multimedia content (Multimedia, 2016). Here, there are some other issues which are related to moral principles based on ethical way in media industry creating trust with appropriate information will create trust else subject to issues. Adjeroh, D. and Nwosu, K. (1997). Multimedia database management-requirements and issues. IEEE Multimedia, 4(3), pp.24-33. Browell, S. (1997). Open learning and multimedia the legal issues. Open Learning: The Journal of Open and Distance Learning, 12(1), pp.52-57. Cuttler, B. (2011). Media and telecommunication issues. 1st ed. New York: Nova Science Publishers. Multimedia. (2016). Social and Ethical Issues. [online] Available at: http://educationandtraining-multimedia.weebly.com/social-and-ethical-issues.html [Accessed 26 Nov. 2016]. Section B Evaluate your multimedia application, discuss using critical judgment and reflection its effectiveness The starting state of multimedia application development that is designing the logo and poster based on given Project for Revolution Films production with the movie name: Interstellar Battalion which is released in 2016. Then started using adobe Photoshop tool to design my first logo in which set up background colour and border with distinct colour with alien image middle of screen with given criteria 50 * 50 mm size. This software contains various options to design a professional logo and poster for film industry with less effort in short time. The poster of A4 size international format utilized gradient tool and applied some filter to blur the image and look good. When designing another format multimedia content form i.e. 2D animation which is of 1 min animated movie clip based on given scenario aliens invading into earth and attacks on china, Russia and Europe. These three attacks are classified into 3 days scenario every time a new layer is created then selected starting and ending key frames to have an action. Motion tween is used to provide an object or character move from one place to other. Other similar functionality of classic tween is used to move objects on a particular background screen. Text option is used display textual content on image. An alien and spaceship characters are designed to give full justification to given scenario of title Interstellar Battalion which is designed Adobe Animate. When comes to 3D animation design, there are several objects are included in the tool such as rectangle, square, circle and sphere etc. Each object has its associated properties to reshape the object into desired shape. But initially to reshape an object, it must be converted to editable poly to get advanced options to reshape such as vertex, edges, polygon etc. Different shape and coloured objects are taken reshaped according to image of spaceship and alien robot. Further group certain objects and then done cloning option is utilized to get similar create object then changed direction to flip and look grouped object in correct direction. Then created application show case with the above designed all animated designs using adobe premiere. By adding all the animated clips into given screen, using some shortcuts f5, f6,f7 and f8 and finally exported a video on the above delivered scenes and a sample video mixing clip is developed using sample application. Initially took some sample video clips on YouTube and edited according to film scenario and added other clips and created sample video. This application is best useful for video editing and mixing. Initially while designing the film there was some problems faced but the material and the guidance provided by the professor helped me to finish the film. Apart from the university material lot of you tube videos has been useful in completing the film successfully. Different kind of softwares has been used for the designing of film like logos have been designed using adobe Photoshop, posters have been designed using adobe illustrator, Adobe animate was used in doing 2D works which has an alien, spaceship, spaceship with legs and the film shows three days attacks that take place. 3D work is done using 3DS software and adobe premiere was used for making the movie trailer. Initially when the project was started different kind of logos have been designed which are scary and which contains too much texts. Later, it was observed that the logos should be clear with good colour and texts and should be clearly understood by everyone. Then the logos have been designed differently. Different logos have been designed and one among them is chosen finally for the film which is the best one. Once after finishing the design of the logo poster was designed. Poster was to advertise the film. Different posters were designed and one was chosen from them for the film. With the completion of the film become familiar with the softwares that have been used. If there was more time the film would be have designed more effectively by doing the repeated work and making changes to it to get the good work Section C Designs The below sketches are the different ideas of logos, posters, aliens, spaceships. References Jim Sterling (2016) Spacecats in Space. [Online Video].Aug 9th. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IjEuBu_Xe8. [Accessed: 25/10/16] Lukes 3D (2011) Spaceship Battle in Atmosphere. [Online Video]. 26th Aug. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rlh9bfPTBNs. [Accessed: 30/10/16]. Rob the Robot (2016) Cartoon. [Online Video] 28th Aug. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zakT0OeRCBU. [Accessed: 15/11/16]. Jack Teeya (2012) IL Risveglo Quantico. [Online Video] 7th Jul. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k35jiwEr6eE. [Accessed: 18/11/16]. 1. Introduction: Internet has changed the world in many possible ways, with the inception of internet and World Wide Web communications and interactions have started a new phase. With Social Media becoming a daily life essential, it has turned into a new place to expresses opinions and feelings. There has been now a huge increase in demand for tools which can analyse the individual behaviour and in social media and internet. Social media analysis has now divided into multiple branches and there are many applications. This project would analyse the tweets and makes a sentiment analysis of a on a specific topic. 2. Aim: The Aim of the research is to study the Opinion mining and Sentiment analysis and the various applications of it. Also, to analyse the challenges of sentiment analysis and build an artefact with collaborative Opinion mining and Sentiment analysis model from an external source (like Twitter). 3. Objects: To study various types of Opinion mining and Sentiment analysis and techniques To study the features of Sentiment analysis and analyse its applications. To build an Artefact produces a processing model for Sentiment analysis which gather information from external source like twitter. To Investigate the future scope of Sentiment analysis and its challenges. To get a detailed report analysing the various challenges and treats in applying Sentiment analysis for industry. 4. Research Ethics: The ethics to be dealt with to do research are called as research ethics, and it is carried all along the research. No personal or confidential information would be collected from the people, and the results are produced without any personal biases, research would not take place on a vulnerable group. All University rules and regulations are strictly adhered. All the requirements and deliverables would be discussed and their suggestions would be considered for. And it is also ensured that no personal information would be accessed through the data collected from tweets generated for the project, and that data would not be made public either. The survey conducted would not hold any personal information like name and contact information. And only copyrighted and open source software would be used for the project. And it is made sure that any pirated software isnt used with in the project. 5. Intellectual Challenges: 1) Creating an interface with twitter server using public and private keys and to extract data directly from the server requires good configuration management, as the data fetched has to be perfectly pipelined and fine-tuned for the project. 2) Analysing the tweets, which are in the form of semi-structured data requires good analytical skills and the Hive Distributed File System Format would be used to store and analyse the data as it is semi-structured data. 6. Deliverables: Producing a detailed project plan and complete documentation. Data collection includes primary and secondary research the both methods for the project. Producing a detailed literature review. Analysing various challenges that had to be addressed during the project development. Building an artefact which extracts the data from twitter by creating a twitter API. Producing the design models in the project documentation. Testing the artefact and the results obtained. Critical evaluation of the project is done. Analysing the future scope of the project and document it along with conclusion. 7. Resources: Hardware: Processer: Intel Pentium Dual Core. RAM: 4 GB RAM. Hard Disk: 10 GB HDD. Software: Front End: Hadoop, Scala, Spark, Sqoop. Back End: H-Base or MYSQL. Operating System: UNIX Operating System. IDE: Eclipse or Intel IJ 8. Research Approach: A mixed method approach is used for this research, in this method both the Quantitative and Qualitative data are used. And the result gained would be based on analysing the both methods. Qualitative approach, is to collect the data from already existing literature such as standard journals, IEEE paper, research publications etc., also a subject matter expert opinion or an individual feedback which is obtained by their research, experience or individual feedback and this cant be indicated in percentages or the data that cant be quantified. Quantitative data is the data which can be measured in numbers and percentages which makes the result in numerals and this is obtained in case studies or questionnaires and online surveys. A sample survey is carried for this research with a short questionnaire and this questionnaire consist of some sample questions like how often do you use twitter? What types of tweets do you generally tweet? Etc. are carried on the questionnaire. And this gives the quantitative data for the research. A lot of standard literature is referred to get the qualitative data for the project. And the combination of both the qualitative and quantitative data would be make the research more authentic. 9. Literature review: Throughout the history humans always want to interact with others socially. And, this has been keep on changing from time to time. It started with signals, symbols, radio communications, telegraphs and telephone till internet. Information technology has completely changed the face of communication and socialisation. As per the report by Nelson (2010), the internet consumers spend most of their time online for social networking followed by online gaming and e-mail in United States of America. 2.1 Social media and Data Collection: There are many social networking sites currently available and this has given an alternate to media and connect with known people like friends and transfer required information directly. The different social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn which are all web based applications which creates and exchanges large amount of user generated data. The social network can be considered as mapping of different individuals, where individuals can be taken as nodes and the way they are related can be taken as edges. Currently, millions of people across the world use social media for expressing their views, share ideas which generates data. Conventionally, mailing services are used in sending and storing data and social networking is used for connecting with people and for bloggings. Social networking has a remarkable increase in popularity and usage in a very short span. Statica (2016) claims that there are about 1,590 million active Facebook users, and they generate millions of data updates constantly such as communications, blogs, post, etc. However, Rashid (2011) discusses that social networking has played a key role in the Middle East revolution of 2011 where the activist used Facebook for scheduling the protest, Twitter for co-ordinating and spreading information and YouTube to share the progress to the world. Number of Active Social media users for different applications. Social media can be used for both personal and business needs and thus can be done by an account creation, contacting the other users, creating post either personal or business related and all this activity create data. And creating such data by millions of users regularly is large and big. Social media is a fastest growing internet application and this started with the inception of a social networking sites called classmates.com in 1995 and this has grown in an un-predicted manner. 2.2 Data Analysis: The artefact built is used in analysing the semi structured data, the data that is in the form of limited characters and this data is like the data in emails, log documents, word and text files etc., And analysis such a huge amount of data and in a semi structured format can be done with the traditional relational databases such as SQL, MYSQL or DB2, so we can do that with some Hadoop databases and the data must be stored using the Hadoop frame work databases such as H-Base, Couch DB or Mango DB. Sqoop is used to extract the data and then a database is formed in the Hive format called HDFS i.e., Hive Distributed File system. And the data is extracted using Map Reducing Technique. 2.3 Sentiment Analysis: The sentiment analysis is done by using some token words and all the tweets generated are assigned with some augmented words, and these are argument words are classified on three categories such as positive, neutral and negative. And when the arguments are categorised all the positive words are grouped as a positive group and certain words can be grouped as negative group and all the tweets with words which dont fall in both can be termed as neutral. And based on the cumulative of the collected tweets the trend can be easily classified and is accessed, and thus trend can be easily analysed using sentiment analysis. 2.4 Extracting Data from twitter: For the artefact, live data from Twitter is to be extracted, for this twitter account must be created and then by using APP. Twitter, a set of private and public keys are created and this keys are used in the creating a connection with twitter server.

Physics of Rock Climbing :: physics sport sports rock climbing

Anchor systems are vital for a climber and whether or not an anchor is secure can mean the difference between life or death for the climber. Good anchors are not difficult to set up and all they require is a little experience in setting up and some common sense. We will anaylze the forces generated in two different types of anchor systems. Another factor in the forces generated in an anchor system that can be applied to both systems is that of the angles involved in the system. The greater the angle at the bottom of the anchor system, where the rope attaches to the anchor, the greater the force that is exerted on each anchor point. The table below reflects this. The American Tringle is an anchor made in the shape of a triangle. The force on either anchor point is equal to where F is the force exerted on the lowest carabiner in the system. With an angle of 60 degrees this force is equal to the force exerted on the system. Any smaller angle will mean a greater force on the anchor points. This anchor will effectively double the forces present in the anchor system compaired to the Equalized V anchor, making it quite a bit more dangerous. The Equalized V is an anchor in the shape of a V. The force it exerts on each anchor point is , where F is the force exerted on the system. At 60 degrees it exerts a force of F/2 on each anchor, so it is much better than the American Triangle. This is a fall. If you climb it will happen to you. Sometimes in hurts. The rest of the time it really hurts. This is especially applicable in lead climbing where you place protection or clip into bolts as you climb. In lead climbing you can easily take falls of more than 10 meters. 'Static' climbing ropes are not really static, but actually just low elongation. Suppose, climbing with static rope, a 60 kg climber was to fall from thirty meters, with his last piece of protection 5 meters below you. He would then fall 10 meters. Assuming that his rope stopped him in 1/10 of a second, the stopping force he would feel would be equal to 8.4 kN, and the force on the anchor would be twice that, 16.8 kN. While most carabiners are rated up to 20+ kN, most ropes can withstand significantly less, usually about 9 kN.

eighteenth amendment Essay -- essays research papers

The eighteenth amendment of the United States Constitution was ratified in the year 1919. This amendment made buying, sellieng, and producing alcoholic beverages illegal. However, this amendment did not stop some on the citizens in the United States, this included some of Louisiana’s own citizens.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Even though the making and selling of beer and wine was illegal the citizens did not seem to care to much. The majority of the people, who brewed their own beer and wine at home, and even the people who were involved in bootlegging were among the ones who did not believe that the amendment was constitution, and some did not get arrested with taking part in this illegal activity. The reason that the people did not get in trouble was because they were to many people who did not want to conform to the new rules on the constitution; so there would be to may people to arrest sine everyone was practically doing it. These people who were involved with selling alcohol made tons of money. One man was even able to purchase a new car with the money that he made. This man was named Mr. Hungerford. He was able to collect wine from the railroad cart that was caught trying to transport some alcohol. He stored the bottles in a family member’s barn till his neighbors ran o ut of their own and then sold his bottles at an inflated price. What this man did was illegal in the 1920s because of the eighteenth amendment, but the federal authorities did not have the heart to g...

Linguistic Performance and Competence Essay

Linguistic Knowledge Speakers’ linguistic knowledge permits them to form longer and longer sentences by joining sentences and phases together or adding modifiers to a noun. whether you stop at three, five or eighteen adjectives, it is impossible to limit the number you could add if desired. Very long sentences are theoretically possible, but they are highly improbable. Evidently, there is a difference between having the knowledge necessary to produce sentences of a language, and applying this knowledge. It is a difference between what you know, which your linguistic competence  is, and how you use this knowledge in actual speech production and comprehension, which is your linguistic performance. Linguistic Performance Linguistic Performance – a speaker’s actual use of language in real situations; what the speaker actually says, including grammatical errors and other non-linguistic features such as hesitations and other disfluencies. When we speak, we usually wish to convey some message. At some stage in the act of producing speech, we must organize our thoughts into strings of words. Sometimes the message is garbled. We may stammer, or  pause, or produce slips of the tongue. We may even sound like the baby, who illustrates the difference between linguistic knowledge and the way we use that knowledge in performance. Linguistic Competence Linguistic competence is a term used by speech experts and anthropologists to describe how language is defined within a community of speakers. This term applies to mastering the combination of sounds, syntax and semantics known as the grammar of a language. †¢ACCORDING TO CHOMSKY, COMPETENCE IS THE ‘IDEAL’ LANGUAGE SYSTEM THAT makes it possible for speakers to produce and understand an infinite  number of sentences in their language, and to distinguish grammatical sentences from ungrammatical sentences. oThis means a person’s ability to create and understand sentences, including sentences they have never heard before. Competence versus Performance â€Å"Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogeneous speech-communication, who know it’s (the speech community’s) language perfectly and that it is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors (random or characteristic) in  applying his knowledge of this language in actual performance. â€Å" Chomsky differentiates competence, which is an idealized capacity, from performance being the production of actual utterances. According to him, competence is the ideal speaker-hearer’s knowledge of his or her language and it is the ‘mental reality’ which is responsible for all those aspects of language use which can be characterized as ‘linguistic’. Chomsky argues that only under an idealized situation whereby the speaker-hearer is unaffected by grammatically irrelevant conditions such as memory limitations and distractions  will performance be a direct reflection of competence. A sample of natural speech consisting of numerous false starts and other deviations will not provide such data. Therefore, he claims that a fundamental distinction has to be made between the competence and performance. Chomsky dismissed criticisms of delimiting the study of performance in favor of the study of underlying competence, as unwarranted and completely misdirected. He claims that the descriptivist limitation-in-principle to classification and organization of data, the  Ã¢â‚¬Å"extracting patterns† from a corpus of observed speech and the describing â€Å"speech habits† etc. are the core factors that precludes the development of a theory of actual performance. Chomsky thinks that what linguists should study is the ideal speaker’s competence, not his performance, which is too haphazard to be studied. Although a speaker possesses an internalized set of rules and applies them in actual use, he cannot tell exactly what these rules are. So the task of a linguist is to determine from the data of performance the underlying system of rules that has been mastered by the language user.

Things Are Not Always What They Seem

Thursday, September , 2011. This marks the start date of the Class of 2011's first and last full year at Oxbow Prairie Horizons School (OPHS), the new K-12 school in Oxbow, Saskatchewan. It's an absolutely gorgeous facility, complete with a large gym (equipped with top-of-the-line sound and lighting systems), integrated program for the functionally challenged students, large foyer, kitchen and even an extra gym. The building is plenty big and even has removable classrooms, but every rose has its thorn, right? Or in OPHS' case, thorns. Shortly after starting the 2011-2012 school term, and even shortly after moving into the school in March? of 2011, many staff and students have noticed a few glitches (so to speak) in the system. At first, small, piddly details that we can easily deal with (overcome? ). Like the room design of the biology, chemistry and physics labs where bulletin boards are blocked by the teachers' desk and computer or even by entire counters. Like in the canteen, we were lucky enough to have beautiful cupboards installed to store our merchandise, but when it came time to actually sell it/them, students were unable to see the products anyways. So, in turn, the cupboard doors were taken off completely. Eventually, the small problems began to arise more suspicions and more noticeable and elaborate ones were recognized. Toilets in the washrooms began to constantly flush, some having to be manuallly shut off. The office in the shop has no windows, it is just a small room enclosed of cement. The parking lot is poorly designed. Trying to see around parked vehicles to hitting oncoming ones is hard and it is nearly impossible to maneuver large vehicles around at all. The buses drop students off half a block from the main entrances and when students do enter the school, depending on the weather, are required to move outdoor shoes because the parking lot is either muddy, full of water, or both. Which is not only a bother to our janitors but also to visitors, who trip over shoes trying to enter the building. Wireless internet was the first of many large problems to be noticed by the students. They were told that if you have a class where you will be using laptops and it is a larger class, to bring a personal laptop to work on as there may not be enough laptops for everyone. So, some did, until they told that the principal wasn't given a password to the school's public Wi-Fi network and they were unable to do homework and sassingments anyways. Even now, after Mr. Petlak has been given the password and used it on student's computers, they are unable to access certain sites due to them being blocked. Sites that students use to complete and accomplish tasks and assignments. Why? Because staff at OPHS are unable to control this. It is government workers in either Weyburn or Regina that do. The base temperature of OPHS is, put simply, freezing. During September, where it can be twenty degrees celsius and above, most staff and students were already wearing sweaters and jackets to class. Which, in retrospect, is not uncommon for Oxbow. In the old high school, anyone working in the building would be wearing jackets, touques and mittens, unless you were in the science labs or the main office. There you would wear shorts, tank tops and flip flops. But with the excitment of the Horizons School close to being fully built, came the realization that we could actually wear seasonal appropriate clothing to school. Or so we thought. Now, in the new school, we freeze pretty well everywhere. With the exception of the Sr. Computer Lab, main office and the canteen (which are all normal temperatures), staff and students are still needing to wear layers and even haul blankets form class to class. Why? This is because of the poor commmunictation between our school and Weyburn, where they then decide whether or not to contact Regina to turn up the heat in jsut one particular room. Which, after the first few attmepts of doing so, we were told to use the thermostats located in each classroom. These allow teachers the ability to raise or lower the room temperature by 3 degrees. That's it. In one area of the school there is actually cold air being blown throughout its rooms. But for us to fix this, we must flip a breaker. Instead of simply pushing a button on a thermostat to raise the temperature, we are required to issue a complaint to the Weyburn office, who then decide whether it is a big enough deal to report to the office in Regina. And apparently, it isn't a problem for us to freeze. All of these problems can relate back to the fact that Oxbow has no power against the authority offices in Regina and Weyburn. We are not able to decide the climate of our classrooms, who has access to use our internet or even who is allowed put a screw in the wall to hang a picture. We are by no means, allowed to. A government office in that is 150-250 kilometers away makes the decision of what is and is not allowed. People who have no idea what goes on in our school, who attends or works there, what we are like or even where Oxbow is, has that discretion. Yes, our old school's had a very large laundry list: plumbing, heating, electrical and just overall renovating. This article is not set out to complain about our new school. We were in much need of a new facility and are greatly appreciative for the effort, time and hard work that were pput into building it. But, with that said, I find it hard to comprehend how certain, seemingly common sense issues are ignored. The new school in Oxbow has heightened the school's many previous strengths such as atheletics, drama, academics and even the staff and students as individuals. This school also has its negative effects though. And it is the students that are being effected. The future depends on them. So why does it have to be such a struggle to give them a proper learning environment? Teagan Loppe