7 ways your gadgets are making you stupider
(09/18/14 1:18pm)
Don’t worry. This isn’t a list.
Use the fields below to perform an advanced search of The Chronicle's archives. This will return articles, images, and multimedia relevant to your query. You can also try a Basic search
35 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
Don’t worry. This isn’t a list.
Nobody should be surprised by the Ice Bucket Challenge.
Much is made of coal in the United States. In fact, much is made of coal across the world. The worldwide average of coal use per person per day amounts to 6.4 pounds, compared to an 18-pound average in the United States and a (shockingly) 33-pound average in Australia. And from this single resource, which produces 40 percent of global electric power, we see the contribution of 39 percent of global CO2 emissions.
My Facebook newsfeed failed me last week. Usually a great source for news and controversy, this time something was missing. I saw lots of #CancelColbert, the outrage calling for the end of The Colbert Report following a tweet that invoked Asian stereotypes. I read about the rumored haircut policies enacted in North Korea that require all men to get the same haircut as Kim Jong Un. I even learned that if I were on “How I Met Your Mother,” I would be Robin Scherbatsky (thanks, Buzzfeed!). But, for some reason, there were no 30-minute Youtube videos—the same friends who two years ago really wanted me to watch Invisible Children’s hit documentary seemed too preoccupied with 2048 to strike up the energy for Kony 2014.
This past year, the North Carolina state legislature made taxable purchases which previously hadn’t been. Most relevant to those of us who sleep, study and eat at Duke University, they made food sold to students at institutions of higher education taxable. This means that all food sold to Duke students is taxed at a rate of 7.5 percent, and the difference between food points and real money comes down to a $75 dining fee and a requirement that you purchase a minimum number of food points.
“I have the right to write whatever I want. And it’s equaled by a right just as powerful: the right not to read it. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to offend people.” –Brad Thor, American thriller writer.
It takes a lot of guts to write about people. Sometimes those guts are nothing more than misplaced confidence, a belief that what you write supersedes an individual’s right to privacy. Or their right to naiveté, their right to believe that the way they want to be perceived is in reality how they are perceived. Reading something that has been written about you can be like listening to your voice in a recording: whiny and disjoint, certainly awkward. Anything other than a whitewashed “the girl is nice” or “the girl is smart” can bruise feelings and cast an author as overly judgmental or simply wrong.
Spike Jonze’s new movie, “Her,” presents a novel iteration of the Western fear of artificial intelligence: the fear that we might fall in love with it. Everyday people express less extreme fears about the role of technology. The fear that texting, Facebook chatting and chatbots might replace human interaction. The fear that a Candy Crush addiction has gone too far. The fear that the ease and aptitude of technology will render the skillsets of some individuals obsolete. Perhaps fear is a strong word, but as society furthers its reliance on technology the discomfort that stems from dependency is far outshone by the underpinning of that dependency: our infatuation with new technology. Although this seems like a stretch, the reality of the matter is that human relationships with technology aren’t too far from the reciprocal romantic relationship portrayed in “Her.”
This past Friday, I turned 21. As someone who isn’t terribly excited about the prospect of being able to rent cars at 25, I saw this landmark as the last barrier to adulthood. I’ve been driving for five years and voting for three, and now I can purchase alcohol. I feel confident that bouncers and bartenders and waiters will check and double-check my ID until I begin to look a little less like a 15-year-old, but the ID that they will check is a proof of adulthood, a guarantee of all the privileges and responsibilities contained therein.
This past week I had the privilege of speaking with Daniel, a Duke student from Kenya, and Robert, a Duke student from Zimbabwe, about their first impressions upon arriving in the United States for freshman year. Many American students at Duke, myself included, can provide insight into the psyche of a first-time traveler to African countries, but today I hope to discuss the reverse: Daniel and Robert’s experiences as students at Duke and in the United States.
HIV/AIDS is a topic that cannot be divorced from realities across the African continent. To invoke the words HIV or AIDS is not to discuss the identity of any nation or any individual—but as a far-reaching public health concern—legislation, research and social work in the continent often revolve around eliminating the disease. Uganda has many organizations taking powerful and complex approaches to curbing instances of HIV/AIDS, with incredibly intelligent people working and succeeding in taking charge of their own public health issues. Too often though, nations and districts are reduced to their prevalence rates; HIV becomes almost a version of national identity in the eyes of the global community. Similarly, policies are constructed around dealing with the threat posed by HIV-positive individuals, without considering the policies that should be instituted in order to constructively help them. Ultimately, it is this mindset that provides the basis for legislation that criminalizes the transmission of HIV.
“I recently spoke at a university where a student told me that it was such a shame that Nigerian men were physical abusers like the father character in my novel. I told him that I had just read a novel called ‘American Psycho,’ and that it was such a shame that young Americans were serial murderers.”
Flight to Africa: $1500. Rent: $400. That safari you’ll go on: $125. Food: $400. International SOS Coverage: $200. Cost to student: priceless.
Each year, over one million tourists visit Uganda. Thirty-five percent of them stay less than a week, while only 4 percent remain there longer than 46 days. The net result is a large group of people with twice-used safari hats in the back of their closet who seem to know a little bit more about this great big, beautiful marble we live on.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, Barack Obama is not much of a political figure. In fact, he’s much more than a political figure. To see a man with a Kenyan father hold one of the most powerful positions in the world is empowering, especially in a world where success traditionally belongs to white Westerners and, increasingly, to the businessmen and businesswomen of the East. Obama has become an icon for the continent; he’s a t-shirt slogan and is idolized by teenagers. When it comes to policies, however, citizens of African nations are either disappointed—as demonstrated by the protests in Johannesburg this past summer—or ambivalent. Often people are tempted to ask, “What policies?”
It doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect nations to consider foreign policy decisions in the context of the wishes of their allies abroad. However, globalization and ever-increasing cash flow have brought international oversight to all aspects of domestic policy in countries that receive large sums of aid. In Uganda, foreign aid accounted for 50 percent of the government budget in 2012, and these contributions are evident when you look at correlations between things such as the U.S. presidency and policy decisions in this small East African nation 8,500 miles away.
If you’re white and enjoy being the center of attention, Uganda is the place for you. The word “mzungu,” a word meaning “white person,” isn’t specific to Uganda; it pops up just about anywhere in East Africa where people speak Swahili and enjoy yelling at tourists. But where I was in the Buganda kingdom, the borderline insult had really taken hold. Vendors sold t-shirts that read “My name is not mzungu!” or for those willing to embrace the term, soccer jerseys from the Ugandan national team with “Mzungu” printed where someone’s last name ought to be. These novelties came into being as a result of a total fascination that Ugandans possess for white people. Touching my hair was a super popular activity amongst strangers and it seemed like every personal ad on television requested responses only from Americans (and “real” Americans, not like those sixth generation Americans who were really from Asia/South America/Africa). Uganda is one place that as a sunburn-able white-bread American it’s impossible not to be ogled at.
The problem with band kids is that people don’t want to have boring, predictable conversations they can’t relate to. Oh, your friend who plays second trumpet is upset with the girl who plays first trumpet because of X, Y and Z? Hmm. Fascinating. It’s hard to interest somebody who has never been to band camp in the drama of seating auditions and the scandals of missed F#s, just like it’s hard to explain to that guy who isn’t in your cult why this man’s choice of blue over red Kool-Aid is so terribly relevant.
I spent every summer between the ages of eight and 18 in a state of full-fledged Americana. I grew up in Raleigh, but each June my family would drive five days across the country and set up shop in Bozeman, Mont. My dad worked for an environmental think tank, my mom hiked up and down the mountains of Gallatin Valley and I educated myself in the appropriate and punny manner in which you should always answer the home phone:
Sometimes I miss the eco-reps of freshman year. I miss the “Green Dorm Room” sign that my roommate and I earned by virtue of living in a non-air conditioned room with a broken radiator. I miss the free, metal water bottles. I miss having a representative vouch for my right to live with paper AND plastic recycling bins in my common room.