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Devices + Teenagers = the Justice League for our World





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Introduction: A Fork As An Assassins Weapon

Technology is as old as mankind. Many people dont know that technology is not only
advanced inventions like cars or plains, yet it all started with simple techniques such as rubbing
two stones to make fire or the use of forks in order to eat. But, who was the responsible to give
these things a concrete use? If we think for a minute, forks couldve been used as an ancient war
tool in order to murder people. Their sharp extremities can easily penetrate into someones skin
becoming a powerful tool for a brutal death. Repetitive stabs on the victims heart can call for an
immediate death, yet its not common to see a cover story on
a news report that says: Women dies due to fork stab.
Humans were able to use the fork in a way that benefited
them in the simple act of eating rather than an assassins weapon
for a savage and merciless death. These types of tools have
been developed year after year with the purpose of improving
humans lives. It is essential that individuals are able to use these developments properly, in
order to avoid a pyrrhic victory. Electronic devices are one of these improvements that have
emerged in our society with the purpose of providing information and facilitating
communication, yet their misuse has been transforming them into a detrimental tool for our
society. This is mostly abundant with teenagers since they have been created a destructive
dependency that harms them. Many people dont realize that usage depends on us. Even though
the misuse of electronic devices can pose health risks, they can be used in a moderate way as a
tool to help our world grow intellectually.


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Our Health: What Are We Causing?
Every easy way out has its consequences.
Younger societies have been exposed to the constant
use of technology to facilitate a great part of our daily
duties. Now, there is no such a thing as the love letters
Romeo and Juliet use to write in Shakespeares work,
yet teenagers declare their love with one simple click.
Those long hours Romeo took in order to write one poem of affection to his beloved have been
reduced into a minute of texting, abundant of abbreviations such as ILY or LOL. These
messages are received every half a minute, therefore the absence of them have created teenagers
to suffer from anxiety and paranoia. They are so eager to send as well as receive messages that it
has become a mental illness. Moreover, research has demonstrated that people exposed to a
screen more than one hour a day suffer from sleep deprivation to the extent that it affects their
performance in school. According to Boston College, about 75% of students suffer from this
effect and have problems sleeping. Ray Holt, a family medicine doctor, insists that teens that are
too plugged in suffer from many symptoms of sleep deprivation. For example, he says that
these teenagers tend to have problems to wake up in the mornings as well as trouble focusing on
school. Consequently, students tend to decrease they school grades. Dr. Holt states that teens
have become attached to their phones having difficulties to stay at least two hours without them.
Yet, sleep deprivation is not the only illness common in teenagers. Dr. Jonathan Pletcher,
who is an adolescent medicine specialist at Childrens Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, talks
about technology and says the following: The short-term anxiety is, Will he or wont he
answer? Its unnecessarily negative, but the same as a phone call, we learn to deal with over


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time. Long-term, it impairs your daily functions. They are doing it late and not sleeping as well,
leading to daytime anxiety (Warren, 2014). What Dr. Jonathan Pletcher tries to say is that
teenagers have become slaves of the constant messages they are getting as well as the need to
watch videos or play video games. The Will he or wont he answer? is common among
teenagers since love lives or friendly relationships are frequently establish via texts, therefore
they question themselves about the reasons behind the time they take to answer them and are
desperate to have an immediate answer.
Nevertheless, the real question we should ask ourselves is whose fault is it? Human
beings have been given the advantage of these technologies to facilitate our existence, yet we are
the ones misusing them. We can prevent these harmful consequences by limiting ourselves and
teaching others how to use them properly in a way that minimizes the impact in our health. For
instance, Dr. Holt provides alternatives to help hyper-connected teens unplug. First of all, he
suggests that its important for their parents to create a schedule were electronic devices can be
used. They should narrow the daily hours of its use to a maximum of two hours. In addition, it is
necessary to power down any phones at least one hour before bedtime in order to avoid sleep
deprivation. (AmericaNow, 2012) These measures can help us avoid a common health risk such
as sleep deprivation, depression, anxiety, and more. It is important to remember that everything
in excess is bad; therefore if we learn how to restrain ourselves and others from the use of
devices, then we could be gaining benefits for our society.
Technology: The Hero of Our Earth
Since the beginning of history, we have been trying to develop tools to facilitate our
existence. We have developed an ideal way to collect cotton, which was known to us as cotton


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gin, an ideal method for transportation which is known as cars and plane. As time passes by, we
have improved our way of living by implementing these types of technologies into our world, so,
why shouldnt we take advantage of it? The younger populations in our modern societies should
have the right to use a variety of electronic devices since they are instruments that can expand
their knowledge.
We should teach teenagers how to actually use these electronic devices in a way that
serves the most important function: to inform. Teenagers like me wonder what is happening at
the other end of the globe. Maybe, there was a plane that suddenly disappeared or a shooting at a
museum, or even the best awards given to musicians. Every little piece matters. If we unite all of
these pieces we get a complete picture of our world. World full of injustices and discoveries that
help us learn and grow our skeptical minds. We, as individuals of a society are responsible of
knowing what is happening all around the world.
Advances in technology have helped us be able to communicate faster with countries
that are miles apart. We need to be able to use this in our advantage by promoting younger
societies to read the news daily, and use electronic devices in a way to keep us informed. Many
of us could contribute more to society if we would know what actions are harming our planet. In
modern societies, the abuse of light, water, and paper has become common. Some of us dont
even realize that our entire house has the lights turned on, when we are using one single room, or
we think that a small pencil mark in a blank sheet of paper is a reason to throw the whole paper
away. Devices can be the tool of the future that will help us have an improvement in our world
since it can reduce this abuses of technology by informing society about the risks in our world.
Electronic devices could educate people on how to conserve resources in our world in order to
save them for our future. Moreover, we have easy access to billions of sources of information


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that help us with our school duties. David Lazer, a professional in political science and computer
science in Northeastern University, highlights the effectiveness of electronic devices by talking
about Google Flu Trends, a web service operated by Google, which estimates influenza activity
for more than 25 countries. We now have access to detailed data about individual movements,
behaviors, and communication. Used correctly, this information could be the starting point for a
new "societal science" that can illuminate and do good for the world (Lazer, 2014).
Saving Our Trees
Digital devices are not only a tool to educate societies, but also, they can be used as a
direct solution to save the trees in our planet. The use of paper is constantly abused, including
educational institutions. We could avoid this by providing an online learning for students.
Schools like mine, have a predominant use of technology such as computer or tablets. We have
got use to sending homework via email, or doing tests on tablets. This way, we have reduced the
amount of copies used for students as well as the number of notebooks used per year.
One dollar can buy around 100 pieces of paper. This is around one cent for each sheet of
paper. For some, this amount of money seems insignificant in relation to the amount of sheets of
paper we are receiving, yet what is the overall amount of money the whole world is spending?
Believe it or not, the global income of paper per year is around 2 billion dollars. The National
Center for Education Statistics expands in this idea and makes the following estimation: If there
exist around 62.6 million students and faculty in our world, and we estimate that each of them
use an average of ten sheets of paper per year, this will result in around 360,000,000 sheets of
paper annually. (Blistree, 2014) Human beings are damaging the Earth by not using resources in
a sustainable way, but why if there was a solution to this? By increasing the use of electronic


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devices in students we will be providing an immediate solution for the waste of paper in our
planet. The global income of paper per year is around 2 billion dollars. This same amount of
money could be used to provide cheap but efficient electronic devices that could be the
replacement of paper. This way, student would have access to a variety of information without
putting our natural resources in risk.
Conclusion:
Moreover, technology has emerged in our society as a useful tool that can be used by
younger generations to improve education and save our planet. Devices will help individuals
gain knowledge about events that can occur all around the globe creating informed students that
can raise awareness of the different issues in our planet. Teenagers should be pragmatic about the
most miniscule event in our world in order to take a position and fight for what they believe in. It
is essential to know and understand how to use digital devices to be able to take advantage of
them. As mentioned before, teens could end up having a variety of mental illness if they overuse
digital devices. Luckily, there is a solution to this. By having a moderate use, which includes a
screen time exposure of maximum two hours a day, we will be preventing these types of
consequences, and instead we will be earning a mechanism that will help us in school as well as
our daily lives. Devices help us gain knowledge from all around the globe. By joining these
pieces of information in our heads we will not be ignorant of the world we are living in, and we
will strive to make it grow. The younger generations could become the justice league for our
planet. With effort, they could create an informed society that struggle and fight for fairness in
our society. This generation has the power to preserve our planet for the future and to live in an
intellectual society.


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Bibliography:
Concordia University (2009-2014) Pros and Cons of Allowing Digital Devices in the Classroom
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cons-of-allowing-digital-devices-in-the-classroom/
Blisstree (2014) Reduce Paper Wastes in School. Defy Media. Retrieved May 6, 2014 from:
http://www.blisstree.com/2009/08/25/reduce-paper-waste-in-the-schools/
Lazer, D. (May/Jun2014) Mistaken Analysis. Technology Review. Retrieved April 4, 2014 from:
http://web.a.ebscohost.com/src/detail?vid=7&sid=e60742d9-6ec6-4b53-bf24-
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teens
Images:
CSL (n.d) Forks. CartoonStock. Retrieved April 25, 2014 from:
http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/p/paper_recycling.asp
Smth, L. (Feb 21, 2013) Young Justice: Legacy Arriving Early 2013. Retreived from April 25,
2014 from: http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/5161/article/young-justice-legacy-
arriving-early-2013/

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