Speech

Are Smartphones Making us Dumber?

How many people are there in China again? Oh don’t worry I’ll just google it.  Have you ever considered that using a smartphone is actually making you dumber? Imagine that after a routine medical exam, your doctor delivers some terrible news.  Since your last checkup your intellectual abilities have significantly decreased.  Your social ability to communicate with others has worsened, and your memory for everyday events is no longer operating as it once did, but there is some good news.  There is a solution that won’t cost you a cent.  The solution, put away your smartphone.

There is research that suggests that the memory capabilities of smartphone users is actually decreasing.  Researchers believe that a possible reason for this is because of the huge amount of information accessible on a smartphone, users are no longer required to remember and retain information as they once did.  For example where somebody would have had to rely on their memory to reach a certain street in a city now they could easily put that name into a smartphone, and simply follow the directions given.

Another area of concern for smartphone users is how it is affecting their socialising skills.  Have you ever noticed a group of teenages sitting around having lunch and every single one is on their smartphones.  They tend to be looking down at their phones instead of making eye contact while chatting with their friends.  This can lead them to miss important facial expressions that are crucial in effective communication.  

The next area that researchers looked at was the productivity of smartphone users compared to those without because of the constant distractions for smartphone users from email alerts, texts, facebook, twitter and all the other types of social media.  Once the alert goes off it makes your brain wonder who is trying to contact me, should I answer it now or should I answer it later.  These constant distractions although small add up over the course of a day, a week, a year to be substantial. An experiment was conducted by a school in England where they imposed a mobile phone band on students.  After a short time students test scores had risen by 6%.

In conclusion the benefits of smartphones are huge, the amount of information that can be accessed instantly has huge benefits if used correctly. However smartphone uses need to be aware of some of the downsides to excessive smartphone usage. Such as affecting your intellectual abilities.  Smartphones also affect your ability to socialise correctly, and there are possible detrimental effects to your memory recall. Don’t you think that it is ironic that a device designed to improve efficiency, and communication is in a way achieving the exact opposite. We have designed a device to help control our lives but really that device ends up controlling us.

Week 4 Term 3

This has been fun because I finally finished making my pillow in tech arts!! To make the pillow we had to design what we wanted the front of our pillow to look like we did this on paper. Next we drew the design onto fabric. My design had a purple sewing machine on the front and blue, and pink a pattern as the border. Next we used vivid, and out lined the pencil markings, and then painted our cushions. When the paint had dried we ironed, and pinned our cushions before sewing them. Finally we stuffed them, and they were ready to take home. Another event that took place this week was our class speeches I was really nervous especially because they were filming us. Mrs Crowe liked my speech, and a few of my friends speeches, so we have to do them again on Monday. A few speech topics were T.V. adds should be banned, animal abuse should stop, could we last without technology, no more bulling and my speech topic was are smart phones making us dumber? This week for reading our teacher has set us the task of reading a new book that is out of our comfort zone then writing a novel analysis about it. I am very proud of myself because I have earned my never give up band. I am really look forward to next week because it is going to be a very busy very exciting week!

Week 3 Term 3

This week has been exciting because of the five new gusts that arrived at our school this Tuesday. There are two boys, tow girls and one teacher I have only met the two girls, and they seem really nice, but they don't usually speak in English if they can help it. The two girls are staying at my friends house for the two weeks that they are in New Zealand, and because my friend is in my class the two girls spend a bit of time with us. They have come over from China to New Zealand for a little while, so they can learn English. This week in tech arts we have been creating pillows I finished painting my one on Tuesday. For the pictures on the pillow I have a really big purple sewing machine in the middle of my pillow case. In the bottom two corners I have little jars that I want to sew buttons into I am also planning on sewing little stitch marks across the bottom to represent sewing. In writing we finished our last argument writing on cats and dogs, and have now moved onto a new piece of argumentative writing my new topic is plastic supermarket bags should be abolished. Yesterday at lunch time I had my student lead conference (SLC) that's when you, your parents and teacher have a conference, and you read out stuff that you wrote about school and work it was kind of embarrassing. Next your teacher will read out something she wrote about you, and your work habits, and then your parents ask questions if they have any.    

Week 2 Term 3

This week has been very busy. Every day we train for cross country which is being held in week five. Last night I finally finished my speech it has taken me ages to write, and it is lucky that I have finished because the cut off date is tomorrow. This term I made it into the Inter Intermediate gymnastic team which means that me, and a few others will go to a gymnastic competition, and compete against other Intermediates. Coming up is our inter house haka competition that is when the four houses/groups in our school do a haka, and the best house will win. Today at two pm we have the college expo I don't actually know what it is, but all the year eights are excited so I guess it must be interesting. There is another really big that is happening this term, and that is the Japan trip, and a girl in our class is going. During class time we have been doing this thing called readers theater where we sort of have to act using our voice. It is not my most favorite thing in the world, but that is because I don't like stuff like that in general.      

Week 1 Term 3

So far the first week back at school has been good. In tech arts we have moved onto fabric. We have only had one lesson, but in that time I hand sewed a soft green and black ball about the size of a tennis ball. To make it we had to cut out our pattern on the two colours we had chosen then place them togeather to make a T shape. Next we had to had sew them togeather starting at the top, and going black to green, black to green until it looked like a half circle thats when cut the the string so we could replace it with more string. We carried on sewing until there was three finger before the end. After we had done all that we turned our fabric in side out, stuffed it. Finally using invisable stitches we sewed up the last bit, and we were done. Yesterday we had french, and we had to do maths in french! The questions were easy it was more the spelling of the french numbers that made it hard. This term in week five is our school cross country we have been training every day at school, and today we are training with a few other classes. I think that this term will be exciting because we have lots of upcomming events. I am going on the one week ski trip with about 40 other students from our school, and I am also going to aims with my netball team. Aims is this competition that our school is part of it is held at Tauranga, and lots of other schools travel there to compete against one another. Another event that this term brings is speeches. I already have my speech topic and I have started writing it. Over all I think that I have a pretty good year ahead of me. 

   

Week 9 Term 2

This week I have learnt a lot of things such as... how to use commas and FANBOYS properly. At the start of the year I thought that you only put a comma if you wanted to join two sentences together, but it turns out that you only put a comma in your work if you are adding extra information than you would put a comma before and after the extra information. You would also use a comma if you are listing things, or before you use a FANBOY. In writing we have been doing a novel analysis I have just finished mine, and have now moved onto writing my student conference that is coming up. In maths I can now find the area of composite shapes which is really very easy now that I know how to do it. How to find the area of a composite shapes e.g. to work out how to find the area of a composite shape you first find the area of the shape if it was whole shape. Next turn the smaller thing in a shape of some kind. Then find the area of the smaller shape. Now take the area of the two shapes away from each other, and you will have your answer. I have also learnt how to convert metric measurement, and to find the volume of some 3D shapes. This week our school has been preforming a production I haven't seen it, but I'm going to watch it tomorrow!! I am really excited because it sounds really cool, and lots of my friends are in it. Overall this week has been a very busy week, and I have learnt a lot of new things.      

Week 7 Term 2

This week is going to be very busy as we had a maths test a few days ago, and we had our ICAS science test yesterday. Every Wednesday we have jump jam, but this Wednesday when we were doing jump jam our teacher filmed us, and put the video on YouTube it was so embarrassing!! This weekend I have my second netball rep torment I am really nervous, and excited. It was going to be in Auckland, but they changed it to some other place. Every year our school has a production this year the production is called The Battle of the Bands. I don't really know what its about, but I'm guessing something to do with bands battling. A lot of people are involved in the production, and next week everybody in the production gets a week off school to practice!! I really want to watch the production because the way that they set up the hall looks awesome. Coming up in week 10 is Belmont and I am in the traveling Belmont team. That means that my whole team has to travel to Belmont and verse other teams up there. When we go up to Belmont each person in the team has to be billeted by a random family. Normally it is one person to a house, but luckily I am allowed to stay with someone else!