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YouTube Addiction

The thing that I want to talk about today is a story revolving around youtube. And the reason for that is there is a story that came out recently about a 13 yr old girl who is reported for watching youtube videos to the point that her parents put her in rehab for “digital addiction”. I want to bring the facts, some of my opinion, and hopefully get a conversation started.

So this 13 yr old girl we will call her Olivia because her name is being protected because she's a minor. And the report says that she was always a nerd, straight A student, but quote “[Olivia] desperately wanted to be popular, and the cool kids talked a lot about their latest YouTube favorites.” and so Olivia said “I started trying to watch as many videos as I could, so, like, I knew as much as hey did,” “The second I got out of school, I was checking my phone.” And at home, her parents said she would just watch youtube for hours. “[Olivia’s mother] says she was walking on eggshells around her daughter.” saying “Olivia was often in a foul mood and quick to anger after staring at her small screen for hours.” The report then says she started to watch girls fighting videos. Olivia said “I think it was just fun to watch because they would make me laugh. And at that time I was having a pretty hard time dealing with depression and anxiety”. There was a lot going on at that time, her parents are always arguing, her grandmother just died, she was having problems at school. At one point of all, Olivia told her mom that she wants to hang herself and so her mom took her to a hospital, she spent about a week there under suicide watch. Then 3 weeks later she ended up going back to the hospital after taking a bottle of Tylenol. Olivia says that she got the idea of overdosing drugs from youtube videos. So after that instance, her parents took her to paradigm, a high-end addiction recovery center for teens. The family spends 60,000 dollars for Olivia’s 6-week inpatient stay. Jeff Nalin, head psychologist and co-founder of Paradigm, “teens are using smartphone and tablets for the same reasons they’d turn to hard drugs, to numb themselves from what’s really going on inside”.  Now that’s said, I agree with more of the mindset of Patrick Markey, a professor of psychology at Villanova University, and he says that we should slow down before we labeling this addiction, saying “if we see kids playing video games or watching Youtube videos, in our eyes it’s as if they’re wasting their time and not being productive. We might want them to be outside playing baseball or something, but for that generation that’s their pixelated playground. It might not be a sign of a pathological behavior”. If anything I think it is saying it's an indulgence problem, that's when people indulgence sex, food, exercise, religion, work. And once you saying addiction you start fear among them, it is a saying of them as meth, heroin, it's just not comparable. And base off of everything else we see in Olivia’s story, it seems like she was just looking for somewhere to escape, she had trouble at home, school, she did not felt belonged, so she escaped to the internet like so many other people did. And unfortunately, there are not a lot of substances there. And i also find it extremely troublesome that people who charge 10,000 dollars a week for someone trying to get help are perpetuating this idea that this is a huge massive problem. I think it is pretty easy to see for someone who is running a facility like this. I do think that people need to learn the skills to handle what they want to overindulge. But to focus just on that, it seems like there are a lot more that pushed her to this point.

So again I do not just want the facts, opinion, I also want to start a conversation. So I want to know what you think. You think the internet or youtube addiction is a real thing? You think it's a side effect? Yes? No? I just want to know what you think and why you think. So definitely leave your comments below.

Sourse: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/compulsively-watching-youtube-teenage-girl-lands-rehab-digital-addiction/ 

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Cigarette, 1 2 3

This is a short story that I spent this afternoon writing. It is also (possibly) the longest story I have ever written. So there are possibly more grammar mistakes than the words combined. And I apologize for that. Enjoy. 

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Mr. Munger walked into the bathroom and lit up a cigarette. The fire alarm went off on the third second that the smoke emerged in the air. Mr. Munger threw the cigarette in the trashcan, rushed down to the lobby, paid two hundred pounds and said: “Damn, I forgot I'm in England again.” That's the first ending.

Mr. Munger sat in the hot bathtub and lit up a cigarette. The smoke mixed with molecules of the water, allowing them to sneak through the smoke detector. On the third day, red spots emerged onto his face; five days later he caught a cold; the thirteenth day he went to the hospital and made a reservation; the twenty-eighth day he finally got to see the doctor, confirmed that he has aids. The day before he died, he ran out of energy to even go to the vintage 80s disco bar that he loved. He listed the song “You Can Never Tell” by Chuck Berry for around thirty times. And said helplessly: “ C’est la vie. C’est la vie.” That’s the second ending, and if I don't say, nobody will know that he doesn't speak a word of French.

The third ending happened for most Mr. Munger in lives: No fines and no AIDS, but to him, it might even be a worse ending. He walked out of the bathroom, the steam of from the bathroom escaped and filled the entire hotel room with annoying water vapor. He lit up another cigarette in the room, but the ending of it went off after 0.1 seconds like his old dreams back when he was 13. He threw the cigarette outside the window, looking away to the trees on the hill, and said: “C’est la vie. C’est la vie.” Boring, that's was how Mr. Munger’s would describe his life. He then recalled a movie from the back of his head, Ghost World, the movie is about the life of two high school girls after graduating --boring, simple, work, try to go to college, try to acquire love, and try to live alone. Mr. Munger saw the shadow of Woody Allen from the movie, but when he looked into the cast, Woody Allen was not in there. “So someone could replace Woody Allen? Follows that logic, who couldn't get replaced? Someday I might even be replaced. Only movies have non-replaceable things, like the characters in Ghost World.”

A girl that Mr. Munger had sex with last time came up to his mind. He went into a deep moment of silence and almost lit up a cigarette that would cost him 200 pounds.

The name of that girl is Min, they met on a social media app. The personal profile says tags like “Jorge Luis Borges”, and “Charles Bukowski”. Mr. Munger pressed the like button and DMed to her:

Mr. M: “Hey, I want to offer you the streets”

Girl: “What?”

Mr. M: “I also have the moon of the ragged suburbs.”

Girl: “I don't understand.”

Mr. M: “It’s fine.”

Girl: “I saw your tags, you like the Weekend too? I love the Weekend.”

Mr. M: “Yes, yes.”

Girl: “It’s so boring tonight, you have any plans?”

Mr. M: “Oh I heard that there is a recent art show in….”

Girl: “Let’s go get a drink.”

Mr. M: “Yes, yes.”

The girl turned off the light, lays along Mr. Munger’s chest. Mr. Munger asked: “What's you name?” The girl said: “Min.” Mr. Munger said: “I mean your real name, not your internet name.” The girl responded: “Min-lean streets-desperate sunsets-the moon of the ragged suburbs.” Mr. Munger responded with surprises: “You really read Borges before!” Min said: “You really just want to have sex.” The two looks up to each other and giggles.

The next day, Mr. Munger dress nicely in front of the mirror, the girl lies naked on the bed. Sunlight casts from the windows directly on to her body.

“Nice body.” Mr. Munger thought.

Min rolls around to the back and says: “Are you leaving now?”

Mr. Munger silenced for a few seconds and said: “I really don't like the translation by Paul Williams.”

Min said: “Cool, I really don't know him. I’ll sleep for a little while, later.”

Mr. Munger walked out of the room.

A few days later, Mr. Munger headed back to England, never talked to Min again. And he also never wants to talk about Borges and left wing politics anymore. He stood in front of the windows many times, thinking about the translation from Paul Williams: “I’m just a normal guy who reads poems.” Sometimes, when he is walking on the way back the hotel room alone, he glances back a few times, hoping to see some girl behind him.

But most of the times, just like Mr. Munger could never light a cigarette in his bathroom, whenever he looks back on the trail, the only thing he sees are the ghost-like trees behind.

Min had disappeared in Mr. Munger’s world a long time ago. Min, other girls, and Woody Allen in Ghost World had all been replaced.  

“Are there things that could not be replaced?” Mr. Munger walked into the bathroom, lights up a cigarette.

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If you ever happen to read all the way through here then I truly appreciate you. And if you could give me some feedbacks on it that would be great ^^

[deadasiandawg-blog]

Cat

One cold winter morning, a kitten laid outside our door.  It had gray fur all over its body, and it was also terribly skinny. It just laid there. If we hadn’t taken it in and cared for it, it would have a very high chance of dying from the cold or hunger. Mother brought it in and fed it every day. I don't know if the cold weather outside played a role in it but none of us really liked the cat. It wasn’t energetic, and it didn’t like to meander around like other cats. Even a cat-lover like my sister didn’t spare any attention to it. However, whenever we all gathered to chat on the front porch, the kitten would come over and curl up under mother’s or sister’s feet as if it is listening to the recent news around here.

Springtime, the kitten had grown into a strong cat, but it was just as lazy as the first day it got here, and still, wouldn’t chase mice like other cats.  It just lay around lazily all day, eating and becoming fatter and fatter. Around this time, mother bought a pair of yellow canaries and put them in a cage on the porch. The gray cat also seemed to have taken a special interest in the birds, and it often jumped up on the table and stared into the cage.

“Watch out for the cat,” mother would say, “It’ll eat the birds.” Then my sister would hurry over and move the cat away.  But after a while, it would jump back onto the table and stare into the cage again.

One day, as I was going down the stairs, I heard sister yells, “One of the birds is dead.  The leg of the other bird also got bitten off.  There’s blood all over the bottom of the cage.  Could something have bitten it to death?” I quickly ran over, and indeed one of the birds was dead.  There were feathers scattered all over the place as if it had put up a valiant struggle against its enemy. I was furious and shouted, “It’s the cat!  It must be the bloody cat!”   The mother overheard and also ran downstairs.  She was terribly sad when she saw the dead bird, and said, “What else could it have been if not the cat that killed it? That was why I was always telling you all to be careful!” Everybody started to hunt for that wretched animal, eager to give out an appropriate punishment. We looked all over the place but couldn’t find it.  Then sister called out from upstairs: “The cat’s right here.” The cat was lying very peacefully in the sun, right out in the open on the balcony, though it seemed to have something in its mouth that it was still eating.  I thought to myself, it had to be that pitiful little bird’s leg.  Full of rage, I rushed towards it, trying to chase after the cat.

“Meow----” the cat howled mournfully while it slides off of the balcony and land dead on the ground. I still felt furious.

A few days later, sister hollered out from upstairs: “The cat, the cat!  It ate another bird.” Then and there, I saw a black cat jumping straight away over the balcony railing, yellow bird clenched between its teeth.  I started to think that I’d been wrong the entire time. I hopped on my bike and rode away from the house. It was a rainy day, I felt absolutely miserable. I hadn’t judged clearly, wronging an animal that couldn’t speak in its own defense. Oh, I wanted to make up for my mistake, but the cat couldn’t speak, so how was I supposed to explain my misunderstanding to it?

I would never have an opportunity to correct my mistake.

After that, our family never raised cats again.

[deadasiandawg-blog]

Davis Howland

Here are a few things I didn't know about Davis Howland before writing this :

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, he climbs and train for rock climbing.

He really loves mechanical engineering

His family were on the mayflowers

He fixed a golf car

Close your eyes and imagine you are tied onto a rope, holding besides the slanted angles of rocks around you. You look down, there isn't really a place for you to stand. That’s the reality Davis Howland has lived for the past 8 years. When he was 7, Davis went to take a gymnastics class for the first time. At that moment, he already knew that he would be doing this for a while. And in less than a decade later, Davis had already made to the Nationals of climbing for 4 times. Over the past years, Davis has always been seen as a calm and lay back person, but in reality, he’s one of the most competitive, focused, and driven person out there in his age when you are talking about climbing.

Last summer, Davis traveled to New Hampshire, where he found a route that stopped him momentarily. Lots of people had tried but rarely conquered. It's a 90 foot 5.13b(a grading system for climbing) That’s his first ever 5.13b. On a planet with 7 billion people, being one of the best at anything-- even for climbing on an afternoon-- is amazing. At his age, eight years at the high point of any sport is rare, but Davis is still not satisfied with what he had accomplished so far. And not only did Davis have the ability and skill to climb a 5.13b, he had the genius to see the potential, coupled with the commitment to spend years and months of his life proving it. “Absolutely, it(climbing) is really what has shaped me into the person I am today.” Davis has spent more than half of his life climbing, traveling, and seeking out to more challenging courses and problems every day.

Currently, Davis is preparing for the New England championships and if he wins that it will bring him into the entire East Coast finals. Now, Davis may climb lesser than average climber due to a finger injury that lasted a lot of time and he admits getting a little rusty and still trying to get back. Yet he can still go against all his competitor's toe to toe in a competition for whom training is the air they breathe. When Davis does climb, he goes all out, pulling down with every fiber of his body.  His face is contorted with effort, and he is climbing as though his life depended on it, climbing as though he were the one and only Davis Howland-- and no one else competing with him can do what he does.