Gadgets For The Youth: Beneficial Or Not Essay

I. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND A gadget is a small tool such as a machine that has a particular function, but is often thought of as a novelty. Gadgets are sometimes referred to as gizmos. The origins of the word â€Å"gadget† trace back to the 19th century. According to the [Oxford English Dictionary], there is anecdotal (not necessarily true) evidence for the use of â€Å"gadget† as a placeholder name for a technical item whose precise name one can’t remember since the 1850s; with Robert Brown’s 1886 book Spunyarn and Spindrift, A sailor boy’s log of a voyage out and home in a China tea-clipper containing the earliest known usage in print. The etymology of the word is disputed. A widely circulated story holds that the word gadget was â€Å"invented† when Gaget, Gauthier & Cie, the company behind the repoussà © construction of the Statue of Liberty (1886), made a small-scale version of the monument and named it after their firm; however this contradicts the evidence that the word was already used before in nautical circles, and the fact that it did not become popular, at least in the USA, until after World War I. Other sources cite a derivation from the French gà ¢chette which has been applied to various pieces of a firing mechanism, or the French gagà ©e, a small tool or accessory. The October 1918 issue of Notes and Queries contains a multi-article entry on the word â€Å"gadget† (12 S. iv. 187). H. Tapley-Soper of The City Library, Exeter, writes: A discussion arose at the Plymouth meeting of the Devonshire Association in 1916 when it was suggested that this word should be recorded in the list of local verbal provincialisms. Several members dissented from its inclusion on the ground that it is in common use throughout the country; and a naval officer who was present said that it has for years been a popular expression in the service for a tool or implement, the exact name of which is unknown or has for the moment been forgotten. I have also frequently heard it applied by motor-cycle friends to the collection of fitments to be seen on motor cycles. ‘His handle-bars are smothe red in gadgets’ refers to such things as speedometers, mirrors, levers, badges, mascots, &c., attached to the steering handles. The ‘jigger’ or short-rest used in billiards is also often called a ‘gadget’; and the name has been applied by local platelayers to the ‘gauge’ used to test the accuracy of their work. In fact, to borrow from present-day Army slang, ‘gadget’ is  applied to ‘any old thing.’ The usage of the term in military parlance extended beyond the navy. In the book â€Å"Above the Battle† by Vivian Drake, published in 1918 by D. Appleton & Co., of New York and London, being the memoirs of a pilot in the British Royal Flying Corps, there is the following passage: â€Å"Our ennui was occasionally relieved by new gadgets — â€Å"gadget† is the Flying Corps slang for invention! Some gadgets were good, some comic and some extraordinary.† By the second half of the twentieth century, the term â€Å"gadget† had taken on the connotations of compactness and mobility. In the 1965 essay â€Å"The Great Gizm o† (a term used interchangeably with â€Å"gadget† throughout the essay), the architectural and design critic Reyner Banham defines the item as: A characteristic class of US products––perhaps the most characteristic––is a small self-contained unit of high performance in relation to its size and cost, whose function is to transform some undifferentiated set of circumstances to a condition nearer human desires. The minimum of skills is required in its installation and use, and it is independent of any physical or social infrastructure beyond that by which it may be ordered from catalogue and delivered to its prospective user. A class of servants to human needs, these clip-on devices, these portable gadgets, have colored American thought and action far more deeply––I suspect––than is commonly understood. People were using gadgets since the beginning of history. These devices that are created by people make their life better and full up their bellies. They have let humanity learn the basics of sciences and technology and lead us to this level of development. At the very beginning people where gathering berries, plants roots, fruits and vegetables they were finding to feed themselves. Then they started hunting using sticks and rocks to kill animals. So the best gadget created at that time was a simple bow. Bow hunters were the most successful and they also used bows to protect themselves from other people. This would be the most popular gadget on dig if only they had dig back then. Well, the problem is that they did not have any social networks because they did not have Internet they where only planning on creating something like that, but I am sure they were discussing this news very much. Later on, ages later, when humans needed to carry heavy stuff they have just  designed wheel. Why so late? They just did not need it earlier. However, the result of their wheel creation we have cars and all the things that use round things. For example watches have gear wheels, our cars have wheels, most of mechanical devices have something that looks and functions like wheels. This all is great but what do you do when you need to till your fields and plant some crops on it? You buy some John Deer tractors and do that, or even hire other people to do that. However, farming began with working on your own land with your own hands and no John Deer. They were also pulled by bulls and not internal combustion engines like we use now. When they created the plow gadget it was revolution in farming. Imagine if they had created a gadget that would multiply your harvest today. That would be a great solution to those starving people in third world countries. The plows cost a fortune back then but every farmer dreamed of having one of those. One more revolution gadget that had changed the world back then is their Laptop. It has nothing to do with Mac, Sony Via, HP; those brands did not even exist back then. I know these Laptops make millions calculations per second, however the first one was capable of making about 1 to 10 calculations per minute. Its name is Abacus the first non electronic counting frame; this is what humans used to convert how much of their money it will cost them to buy an iphone and how many ears they had to earn money for that. II. CAUSE AND EFFECT A. CAUSES Need to use It may be a need due to homework and to socialize or communicate with relatives. To entertain oneself Because of the different gadgets applications that are occurring nowadays, teenagers prefer to use their leisure time to play games, read e-books, take pictures, listen to the music, and browse social networking sites that are installed in a specific gadget. B. EFFECTS Increase in Stress Work in office is getting stressful now-a-days. This is not just because of the work pressure, but it is also because of continuous exposure of your eyes to gadgets. It is not good for the eyes. You will be able to see the gadgets for long, but without your consciousness, the eyes are strained which makes a silent increase in stress in your brain and body. Physical and Internal Organ Disorders Gadgets locked us before it. We have reached a stage that nothing can be done without gadgets. Yes of course, it is becoming true or it has been made to become true. We humans are responsible for it because we create it, we use it. Most of the diseases are because of less physical activity. Diabetes is becoming common even at early age. Less physical activity plays a vital role in getting diabetes. Do not think diabetes is just a single disease. It’s the gateway for all other internal organ malfunction and fatal disorders. Once we are locked before gadgets, we do not (or cannot) do any physical activity which makes your physical fitness to get worse. Obesity is becoming an alarming issue. It may be because of bad habits of food culture, but less physical activity makes it worse. Gadget-users are addicted to junk foods because it can be edible at their work table itself. Since they are addicted to gadgets, they just take those junk foods, sit in without burning the calories and obviously adding up of fat resulting to obesity, indigestion, gas trouble, diabetes and even heart attack. Hearing disability MP3 players, iPods and mobile phones are used to hear music. But using these gadgets continuously has become a trend in youth. Hearing disabilities are increasing in youngsters. We can see most of the youngsters are roaming with their headphones plugged in ear. Continuous usage of headphones will make their ear drum become less sensitive to sound and at a point of time we may completely loss our hearing. Nervousness Music can be used as a method to get relaxed. But not all kinds of music will  reduce stress. Only few types of music will reduce stress. Hearing rock and pop music will not reduce stress. After long hours of work while returning home most of them are used to plug in their headphones and listen to music to get relaxed. But it really irritates your brain. Hearing is not related only with ears. It is related with brain too. Brain processes the sound waves and makes it hear. So listening to music needs your brain to process the sound to make you hear which makes your brain to keep on processing without rest which in turn can create nervousness. If this kind of habit continues it may be fatigue. Damage of Brain cells due to Mobile Phone Radiation As we all know mobile phone radiation are harmful to health, but still we use it, because it has become like a second heart in our day to day life. When used for long hours, it creates pain in our ears and when this condition happens daily then we may suffer from hearing disability and damage of brain cells. Text Messaging Syndrome Texting is a new word used for Text Messaging. Repetitive or continuous use of mobile phones for text messaging or playing games will lead to pain in fingers. And this may be called as Text Messaging Syndrome. This will weaken the nerves of all your fingers and make them stiff not allowing your fingers to move easily. III. VERSIONS AND MODELS A. LOW UNITS 1994: The original PlayStation The PlayStation was Sony’s first big video game success. PlayStation was the first video game console to ship 100 million units after 9 years and 6 months of its initial launch. 1996: Nintendo 64 Nintendo 64 was the successor to the extremely popular Super Nintendo. The game system featured a unique controller and was released with two launch games, Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64. N64 retailed for $199. What was happening in 1996: Tupac Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas and child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey was found dead in her basement. 1996: Motorola StarTAC The StarTAC was the first clamshell phone released. The StarTAC was among the first mobile phones to gain widespread consumer adoption; 60 million StarTACs were sold. Some key features of the Motorola StarTAC were: SMS text messages, although only the later digital models had the capability to send messages. It could use an optional lithium-ion battery, at a time when most phones were restricted to lower capacity NiMH batteries. Was one of the first cellular phones to introduce vibrate alert as an alternative to a ringtone. 1996: The first DVD The first DVD players and discs were available in November 1996 in Japan and March 1997 in the United States. DVDs revolutionized the way we viewed movies and interacted with personal media. By 2003 DVD sales and rentals topped those of VHS; during the week of June 15, 2003 (27.7M rentals DVD vs. 27.3M rentals VHS in the U.S.). 1996: The original Tamagotchi Tamagotchi is a keychain-sized virtual pet simulation game. Users took care of a pet by virtually feeding it and walking it, just like a real animal. The game was extremely popular. As of 2010, more 76 million Tamagotchis have been sold worldwide. 1997: Nokia 6110 It seems like everyone had this classic phone from Nokia. The Nokia 6110 had three games including memory, logic, and the iconic Snake. It also had several other apps that seemed revolutionary at the time, such as a calendar and a currency converter. The removable front cover meant you could customize your phone with a variety of color options. 1997: AIM While AIM is not a gadget, it was an amazing piece of software that’s still widely used today. The software, maintained by AOL, Inc., at one time had the largest share of the instant messaging market in North America, especially in the United States (with 52% of the total reported as of 2006).  In March 1996, the Buddy List was opened up to AOL subscribers running Windows 95. The buddy List feature became available to Mac users sometime in late 1996 to mid 1997. The standalone AIM became available to non-subscribers in 1998. 1999: Napster Napster is not a gadget either, but this platform changed the way the public viewed music and file-sharing. Napster was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files – typically music – encoded in MP3 format. Although the original service was shut down by court order, the Napster brand survived after the company’s assets were liquidated and purchased by other companies through bankruptcy proceedings. Rhapsody now owns Napster. 2000: The Nokia 3310 The 3310 is known for having many features that were rare for the time. These included many utilities, such as a calculator, Nokia network monitor, stopwatch and a reminder function. It had four games: â€Å"Snake II,† â€Å"Pairs II,† â€Å"Space Impact,† and â€Å"Bantumi† The phone was popular for text messaging because it allowed long messages three times the size of a standard text message (459 characters). It also featured threaded SMS writing called SMS Chat. The phone also had voice dialing for the quick dialing of selected numbers. 2001: Original Xbox The Xbox was Microsoft’s first video game console after collaborating with Sega to port Windows CE to the Dreamcast console. Microsoft repeatedly delayed the console, which was first mentioned publicly in late 1999 during interviews with Microsoft’s then-CEO Bill Gates. Gates stated that a gaming/multimedia device was essential for multimedia convergence in the new times. 2001: the first iPod The first iPod sported at 5 GB hard drive, long battery, and could hold 1,000 songs in your pocket. It only worked on Macs. The original iPod retailed for $399. It was received with much skepticism, but eventually changed the way everyone listened to their music. 2004: The Motorola RAZR The Motorola RAZR’s futuristic appearance was one of its most impressive features. The flip phone, just half an inch wide, was thin enough to fit in a back pocket. It was also very light at just 3.4 oz. The original RAZR was only available with an aluminum alloy, though later models offered metallic colors like red and blue. B. HIGH MODELS Google Glass Anyway, these futuristic specs are currently in Beta with some high profile geeks posting pictures of them wearing a pair on their Twitter accounts. Enabling you to interact with the world around you in a totally different way, Google Glass lets you get info from the web and take pictures using voice commands. You just might look an idiot wearing a pair in the next 12 months, before it takes off and everyone has them. Smart watches Hot on the heels of the Pebble and Samsung Galaxy Gear smart watches, will surely come newer and more innovative mobile-linked wrist pieces. In fact, at the 2014 Mobile World Congress expo, we’re bound to see loads of the things in a concept stage. But 2014 will be the year Apple launches one. Or maybe it won’t. Both of which would be a big story. The first would show the potential power of these products and the second would dismiss the idea as a fad if a company like Apple fails to take up the gauntlet. No doubt, in time, we’ll discover which one. Wearable tech Similarly, 2014 will be the year of technology that you wear – and not just on your wrist or nose. The whole sector looks set to increase throughout our lives on the back of the growing trend for wearable fitness devices that track exercise progress and healthy living. Expect to see products built into clothing as well as stuff you can physically wear yourself. Big screen Apple TV Well, it’s been talked about since 2012 and we are still none the wiser. But  it would make sense to enter that market and take on rivals Samsung and Sony. A touch screen telly backed by iOS and all of Apple’s apps and games would be a massive disrupter in the TV space. However, it would surely cost a premium price and that marks out one major issue for the US giant as it battles to extend mainstream reach of the iPhone and iPad. Internet of things This catch-all term for appliances in our home talking to each other is yet another buzzword but it will come further to fruition in 2014. It speaks of a world where washing machines, fridges, kettles and ovens connect to the internet and can be controlled via mobile phones or tablet computers. iPhone 6 The next yearly update for Apple’s flagship product will be crucial. With the 5S bridging the gap with its fingerprint reader, it will take a huge jump in technology and design for the iPhone 6 to really garner positive headlines and satisfy investors. Apple usually has a trick or two up its sleeve but facing stiff competition now in the Smartphone space, it will have to conjure up the sort of magic that set the original iPhone apart from the rest. Electric cars From the Nissan LEAF to the BMW i3, 2013 started to bring electric cars more to the middle of the road. As more charging points are rolled out across the country in 2014, expect the interest in these motors to increase. As well as helping the environment, they keep the cost of driving low with no need for petrol or diesel. All you do is plug them in overnight and off you go in the morning. Of course, you have a limited range but they’re great for local and short hopper journeys. Gaming takes centre stage As the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 begin to take hold in our living rooms, all eyes will be on new gaming experiences being created for them. With more power and better graphics, we’re expecting some developments that really push the boundaries of immersive entertainment crossed with gaming experiences. If we don’t get them though in the next 12 months, that’ll be  the final nail in the coffin for the traditional-style home console we used to know and love. 4K TVs When we switched from normal telly to high-definition, the change in picture quality was massive. Now imagine taking that up a few notches further and moving from HD to Ultra HD or 4K. 2014 should be the year these screens start their extension into the mainstream with prices lowering enough to make them affordable for early adopters. It won’t be until late 2015 that these will be within reach of us all but in the meantime, along with thinner and even curved TV screens, this is a trend to watch. B. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES ADVANTAGES A. Youth’s Lifestyle Health – Persistent use of high-tech gadgetry can lead to a slew of health problems for young and old alike. A sedentary lifestyle discourages exercise and encourages obesity. The back-lit screens used for computers, iPhones and video games can cause eye problems. Walking around everywhere with music blaring directly into your ears brings on headaches and hearing difficulties. The net effect of all these things, plus the pressure of immediate responses to everything, can become stressful. Your Brain – In The Mail Online, neurologist Susan Greenfield says that gadgets use changes our brains and not always for the better. Just thinking about doing something — such as performing an action in a video game — affects your brain nearly as strongly as actually doing it. There is circumstantial evidence linking a rise in Attention Deficit Disorder with increased use of video games, causing many scientists to worry that children may do permanent harm to their brains by spending too much time interacting with such gadgets. B. Youths’ Academic Performance Easy Access to information: It has become very easy to get access to relevant information at any time anywhere. Lots of data is being published and indexed online, sites like Wikipedia and YouTube have great original content which can be used in research or entertainment. Information is power, and  those who find information and use it well always succeed. With smart gadgets like the ipad , iphone , galaxy tablet , users can easily have access to information through these smart gadgets because they use internet. So a user on a train can easily read breaking news while traveling, they can also buy and sell stocks while in the bedroom using the internet. These smart gadgets make it easy to access internet and this simplifies the way we get information. Convenience in Education: Learning is a process and it is part of our daily lives. Gadgets have made it simple for students to learn from anywhere through online education and mobile education. Also students now use gadgets in classrooms to learn better. For example, students use ipads to share visual lessons and examples with peers in the classroom. This has made learning more convenient and fan. Also new modern educational gadgets support individual learning which gives a chance to students to learn on their own with no need of tutors. C. Youths’ Social Life Improved communication: Communication is like water to life. We cannot develop without communication. Gadgets have blessed us with advanced communication technology tools. These can include electronic mail, mobile phones, videoconferencing, instant text messaging applications, social networking applications. All these modern communication technology tools have simplified the way humans and businesses communicate. I can easily talk to my relative oversees using a mobile phone or video chatting services like Skype. Improved Entertainment: Gadgets have played a big role in changing the entertainment industry. Home entertainment has improved with the invention of video games and advance music and visual systems like smart televisions which can connect live to internet so that a user can share what they’re watching with friends. Easy access and storage of music, services like iTunes allow users to purchase and download music on their ipods at a small cost, this is a win – win situation for both musicians and the users. Because musicians can easily sell their music via iTunes and the user can also have a wide selection of which music to buy without having troubles of going to a physical music store. Social Networking: Gadgets with the use of internet have made it simple to discover our old friends and also discover new people to network with. This is a benefit to both individuals  and businesses. Many businesses have embraced the social networking technology to interact with their customers. Users of social networks can share information with friends, live chat with them and interact in all sorts of ways. DISADVANTAGES OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY: A. Youths’ Lifestyle Students tend to be lazy, because they are too busy exploring and playing the games on their gadgets, and because of that, they have no more time doing for household chores, doing their homework and going to church. B. Youths’ Academic Performance Competency – Increased dependency on modern tools like calculators has reduced on our creativity. You can find a student when they can solve a very simple mathematical equation without using a calculator. This affects the way this student uses their brains and reduces on the level of creativity. Social Networking – Students who use their computers or cell phones to participate in social networking sites may post material considered inappropriate by school authorities. They may also develop an unfavorable reputation based on those pictures or comments. Pictures of misbehavior can adversely affect their chances of getting into the university of their choice or of getting a job. Addictions – It is easy to become addicted to gaming, texting, talking on the phone or socializing online. Some students may attempt to do this in class, which disrupts their learning, and at home it detracts from study time. Kids putting in long hours on their gadgets will give less attenti on to assignments and may be irritable when they are away from their gadgets. They might also sleep less, which can slow down their thinking the next day. C. Youth’s Social Life Increased loneliness – Social isolation is on the increase, people are spending more time playing video games, learning how to use new modern technologies, using social networks and they neglect their real life. Technology has replaced our old way of interacting. If a user can easily interact with 100 friends online, they will feel no need to going out to make real friends which at a later stage leads to loneliness.