Day: January 27, 2015

Dear Ms Samantha Taylor,

I just recently read your article about teenagers using social media too much. You disagree with the claims made about teenagers by these other individuals. I strongly disagree with you in the fact that these ideas about teenagers are wrong. Technology is sabotaging the minds of teenagers. Teenagers are unaware of how much time they spending on their phones or computers interacting with others. I feel the need to speak out and contribute to what is being reported about teenagers. This is because I want to inform teenagers about why they should spend less time socialising over the internet and more time socialising face-to-face.

Teenagers are afraid of socialising in person therefore hide behind their computer screens. This is due to the fact that they have spent most of their lives interacting over the internet making it seem impossible to express themselves in person. Jonathan Franzen believes that online socialising is causing a shallow culture and makes teenagers unable to socialise face to face. I completely agree. Most teenagers tend to become introvert because they do not get enough practice on real communication. Speaking through the internet isn’t good for shy people because it will only make them more shy and will make it harder for them to approach difficult situations such as communicating face to face. Teenager use social media to find new people to speak to. Most of the time they speak to the person online but would be too afraid to speak to the person face to face. Lack of real communication skills will start to kick in and there will be a sense of awkwardness.

Teenagers usually get into relationships online. Teenagers will be incapable of expressing emotions to their partner in front of them. It makes you ask yourself whether you’re in a meaningful relationship or not. Relationships lose all their romance when they’re based on social media. In addition teenagers get into relationships with people they do not know. They fall in love over the internet. This is bad and dangerous because you do not actually know who you are in a relationship with. The information your partner may have told you could be false. The pictures they send to you could be false (picture may not be them). The age they tell you could be false. Even the little things they tell you about themselves like their likes and dislikes and favourite colour could be false. You cannot 100% trust the person you’re in a relationship with because you’ve never met them or interacted with them in person. When speaking on-line, teenagers are unaware of what they do; spreading their personal information on-line may put them at serious risk. Broadcasting your phone number, what school you go to, where you live and your full name is extremely dangerous. People can get hold of your information and attempt to steal your identity.

As the writer Susan Greenfield’s states, “We could be raising a hedonistic generation…are in distinct danger of detaching themselves from what the rest of us would consider the real world.”. The word hedonistic tells us that teens seek pleasure by using the computer and going on social media. They’ve become addicted to social networking. Teenagers are ‘detaching’ themselves from ‘the real world’ because they are afraid. They are afraid of communicating face to face. They are in their comfort zone when speaking on-line because they are free to say anything they please without a physical reaction. Cyber bullying is more likely to happen to a person who gets bullied outside their house. These people being bullied that are socialising on-line are at risk of being bullied on-line. Since they’re afraid of speaking out in public or confronting their bullies, they try to speak out on-line because they have the opportunity to interact with new people. They then tend to go on and express themselves to these people and to seek sympathy. Cyber bullying could get to a stage where people are being depressed, having anxiety, severe isolation and in extreme unfortunate cases suicide. Being addicted to social media is not a good thing. There are a lot of dangers. Teenagers tend to use social media such as Facebook, Snapchat and Texting to interact. Social media has become a daily procedure for them. It has become a necessity. What they do not notice is that the more time they spend communicating with other people on-line, the harder they will find it to communicate with people face to face. Teenagers are less cautious of what they say to people on-line because they are not physically in front of them.

In conclusion I believe that teenagers should continue to be presented in this light. I feel it is needed to get the point across that spending too much time on social media is inadequate. I strongly urge teenagers to spend less time sitting at home going on social networking sites and more time going outside in public, trying to meet new people and communicating with others face to face.

Yours Sincerely,
Simeon Balogun

Transformation of moving Image

Everybody was in panic. Immediately the doors and windows were tightly shut and were blocked off by massive bags of rice. Nobody could leave or enter the overcrowded shop. Furthermore there was an absence of light; the mist caused a murky darkness. The sun was concealed by the mist. The mist inhaled the light provideth by the glowing spark of the sun. Condensation slid down the window as though it had just finished raining. Suddenly there was a silent pause amongst the shoppers. The thought of not living to see daylight flew across the minds of frightened ones. A women then screams “ We’re all gonna die!” as though she wanted everyone to panic in depression. All that could be heard was the screaming of petrified shoppers. Tears fell from the faces of the young whilst parents broke down in distress beside them. Not a living soul could begin to comprehend the immensity of the dangerous situation. Responsibly the shop owner went around trying to reassure people that everything would be alright. You could see in his eyes that he was just as afraid as everybody else, the only difference was he tried to stop people from panicking and crying. In one corner of the shop people were being attracted by a woman preaching. She was persuading ill-hearted sinners to repent since she believed judgement day was swiftly approaching. In another corner of the shop, couples were kissing and caressing; making sure they spend what would seem to be their final moments together.

Four brave men were willing to sacrifice themselves in order to observe the phenomenon in the outside world. Amongst the four men stood a soldier as tall as the Eiffel Tower. He had a muscular physique. His fists were tightly clenched and you could see the blue veins popping ferociously out of his large hands. The second person was the owner of the shop. He was a very large man. Overweight. He was the most terrified of them all. He wanted to leave the shop and get back home to his family knowing something was out there destroying mankind. The third man was an ordinary person trying to figure out what was happening. He was a middle aged man (30-40) with an authorized gun in his back pocket. He’s an experienced shooter and he was the only person with a gun. The last person was one of the shop workers. He was a very young adult. He was lanky and skinny with ginger hair and freckles. He had a big personality. He wasn’t worried about anything. You could tell that he was very childish and stubborn because he believed he could take down the monster with one hand tied behind his back. The fate of the shell shocked shoppers were entrusted in their hands.These four men tread past the shoppers; into the basement without attracting attention.

Their plan was to open the garage door. See what was lurking around causing the mist. Difficult decisions were enforced upon them. How would they do this? Who would go into the world of the unknown?. Eager to make himself look like a hero, the ginger haired fellow volunteered without hesitation. Fearful of what may happen, the soldier did not want to allow the young man to leave. However, everybody else concurred to his decision of leaving because he showed no fear, in fact was overjoyed to be the leaving the isolated store.

They opened the garage door slightly but gradually to prevent anything from entering the shop. The mist entered the shop slowly; the mist smelt like some sort of gas; the mist felt numbing and cutting. The young man had rope tied to him so if anything happened he could be pulled back into the shop. He walked around and kept on looking back to check if he could still see the garage door.

He then shouted “ We’re safe there’s nothing out here”. A feeling of ease was blessed upon him. Overjoyed. Delighted. The thought of being safe made him feel tranquil.

Suddenly he could hear the voices of three men echoing in the distance, “run you’re going to die…behind you”. At that very instant the young man had a numinous feeling. He started running back as fast as he could. An octopus like tentacle grabbed him by the bottom of his legs. As soon as the tentacle made contact with his legs, there was a puddle of blood surrounding him. The tentacle was draining the young man’s blood.

The soldier and the middle aged man then ran out in desperation to try and save the young man. The soldier grabbed onto the young man’s hand and from there, was a battle of tug-of-war. Would the young man survive?. The tentacle latched onto the young man and you could hear steam burning through his skin. Blood was gushing out of his body. You could tell by the expression on the young man’s face that he didn’t want to die. Tears dropped from his face. Ear bursting screaming revealed the amount of pain he was in.

The shop manager shouted “Leave him, there is no hope for survival”, the two men fled in order to save their own lives. The boys hand reached out crying “save me…please”.

The light started diminishing as the creaking garage door was closed, where they would remain stuck, hidden in the mist.

Writing To Argue

There have been 157 deaths in London between the years 2005-2013. It is shocking to believe that 105 people have been stabbed; 30 have been shot; 13 have been beaten ; 2 have been burnt; 3 have been strangled and 4 have fallen into the others category. Why do teenagers/young adults carry such dangerous weapons?

Teenagers tend to carry knives around for many different reasons such as: self-protection (if they feel they are likely to get approached by someone they’re afraid of), gang activity and in some cases, simply because they are easy to access. People wonder why the statistics of knife crime is so high. It is egregious to believe why so many teenager/young adults carry knives. Maybe it is because they are forced to or have no choice but to use these dangerous weapons.

However using knives is clearly not the only solution to problems. If police catch anybody in possession of a knife, they can be put into prison for up to 6 months! It doesn’t matter whether they use the knife or not, just being in your possession can put people in a lot of trouble.

Have you ever been threatened? Have you ever witnessed somebody being stabbed? Have you ever been stabbed? Or have you received a death note? If yes then you are more likely to carry a harmful weapon. This is because you’ve had an unpleasant feeling. You have experienced terror and you’re most likely to be scared and want to protect yourself. The first thing teenagers and young adults think to do is protect themselves. Carry a knife. Risk their lives. They do not think of the consequences of their actions They do not stop and think, what if I get caught or what if I get into big trouble, what will happen then? Teenagers/young adults tend to keep their problems to themselves and act anti-social. The best thing to do is ask for advice, just sit down and speak to a mature adult. Try to get the problem sorted out.

On the 7th of December 2013 a photographer named Adam Patterson began photographing London gang leader, “Vipoh”. This was shown in the newspaper “The Guardian”. The figure of knife crime in London was 14,192 in 2007-8 but significantly decreased to 11,376 in 2012-13. Whilst being interviewed, Adam Patterson asked why he carries knives and other weapons. Vipoh replied “ To make me look intimidating, so others will be afraid of me”. When he was young and was new to this way of life he chose the name ‘Vipoh’, his close friends told him that somebody was after him because his “tag” (the name he goes by) was similar. Vipoh was horrified and didn’t know what to do. He went down the wrong path. When the boy and a couple of his friends approached Vipoh, he brought out his knife and the bunch of boys were afraid so they left Vipoh alone. That was probably the most significant decision that he was forced to make. The clear impact to this is that he lived a life of a teenage boy committing crimes and getting involved in gang violence. This is an example of why teenagers/young adults carry knives.

Male teenagers/young adults are much more antisocial than females are. This is because boys dislike expressing their emotions and feelings.They tend to take matters into their own hands rather than speaking to somebody about their problems or worries. One solution for a knife crime is to think before you act (be careful of the decision you’re making); think of the consequences of your actions. The second solution is to speak to a person or a specialist about your problems. Also we should enforce more severe laws on the possession and utilisation of knives. People will be too worried to have them in the first place let alone use them. Prevent is better than cure. We should all put down the knives of death.