Let’s talk SEX

There are over 300 million sexual acts preformed each day. The international porn industry rakes in over 4.9 billion dollars annually, 2.84 billion of that which comes directly from North America. Including sexually suggestive content in an advertising campaign can increase sales up to 85%.

These are all facts that indicate how so much of our culture, the media, our personal routine, even our very essence of existence, comes down to sex. Look around.  How much of our promotion and advertising is centered around sex? How much of the Internet is pornography? How directly has sex influenced the world of fashion?

The reality is, sex is an integral part of our culture. It’s almost literally the “pursuit of happiness” concept our southern neighbors seem to be so fond of.

Sex motivates us. Sex manipulates us. Sex rules our world.

And yet, while our culture relentlessly shoves sex down our throat 24/7, our society postures sex as taboo. While advertising giants pepper our highways, magazines and cities with an over abundance of explicit, unrealistic sexual images, our parents, religions and society counter with fear and warning. Both polarize and distort the reality of sex as well as fail to promote any of the positive aspects of sexuality.

“Culturally, we’ve almost forgotten how to address the subject without turning it into a taboo. We are constantly bombarded with images and texts depicting various forms of sexuality, but we rarely engage in more nuanced or articulate discussions about sex,” Mark Ambrose Harris, who teaches a Sociology of Sex course at Dawson, said. “The more we evade frank discussions about sex, the subject just leans more towards the realm of taboo.”

The danger of sex leaning towards the realm of taboo is that, since no one can adequately address the issue, a specific divorce from reality arises that has potential to be very harmful to younger generations.

This potential harm is an effect from misinformation. Since this delicate and potentially explosive topic has been for the most part dubbed as unmentionable,  sex education in North America has resorted to being taught using fear campaigns solely promoting abstinence because teachers are too uncomfortable to go into any depth, preventing youth from getting any form of sex ed.

“There’s no talk about what sexuality is and what sexuality means. There are many questions left unanswered,” Dawson Sexual Behavior and Psychology teacher Madelaine Cote said. “The current system isolates people, making them think that they may be weird for wanting sex.”

In an attempt to get the knowledge being denied to them by school, parents, religion and society, youth then turn to pornography and/or the media that, as previously noted, present an unrealistic, heteronormative and most often unattainable, version of sexuality. Learning about sex from the soft glow of our computer screens presents a myriad of problems.

Cote said, “It [porn, advertising] doesn’t completely represent reality. That’s the problem. It’s all cliches and only shows you a certain picture; only one type of ‘good-looking’. The viewers are not seeing normal.”

Socio-sexologist Alice Bastabul also believes the current sex-ed system leaves much to be desired.

“I’ve based my entire career on sex. I still see adults who chuckle and blush when something remotely sexual is suggested. Behavior like that is a direct symptom of a bad sex education and understanding of the normalcy of sexuality.”

“Other symptoms, that are much more serious, like teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and self-esteem related bad body-image, are cropping up everywhere due to the extreme lack of education regarding sexuality.”

“If kids are just being told to not have sex by some prude of a teacher and their physical biology is telling them the opposite, guess which one wins? I mean, the average age for loss of virginity is 17, an age we can all agree on is very young, naive and vulnerable. If schools aren’t teaching the issues that need to be taught, who is? Porn stars with fake tits that don’t wear condoms? Lil’ Wayne telling them he wants them to lick it, or have it licked, like a lollipop?” Bastabul asked.

“With no knowledge of what to do to be safe, sex becomes the symptoms of no education. Sex becomes the pregnancies, the diseases and the shame when it should be the fun, the exciting and above all, the natural.”

“We need to start teaching a new sex ed.  A new sex education that encompass everything abstinence “education” does not. It needs to talk about sex related pressures, sex related decision making, acceptance and protection of the Queer Community (Lesbians, Gays, Transgender, Bisexuals, Asexuals, Questioning), where to find support sources like help lines and clinics, effective contraception and overall,  a factual, interesting education on how to pursue each’s own personal sexuality,” Bastabul said.

Last year, the provincial Ontario government adopted a similar plan, and it has been met with great success. Their sex education curriculum is based on several stages taught gradually from elementary school to the last years of high school.

By the end of grade six, students are expected to have a basic knowledge of human physiology and puberty. By grade 10, they should know all about contraceptives, STIs, pregnancy and a in-depth knowledge of human biology. Grade 11 and 12 are mostly dedicated to conversations on physical and mental health regarding sexuality. This structure covers all the bases, enabling students to make strong, informed decisions about sex.

But how can the sex paradigm be changed everywhere else?

Experts agree, through education and dialogue.

“Talking about sex de-mystifies it. Talking about it lets them [youth] see that there are different ways of viewing sexuality and lets them know that maybe they’re not that different from everyone else,” Cote said. “The more knowledgable they are, the more they explore, the more comfortable they get. There needs to be a open context where they can explore sexuality safely.”

Also, instead of having sex ed as a additive to mandatory courses, Harris believes that “we could improve sex ed by making it an imperative part of the overall learning process, and not just some accessory lesson that gets sprinkled on the course load every couple of weeks.”

We all like sex. So why can’t we start openly talking about it? No argument that there needs to be understanding, protection, maturity, a level of discretion, consideration, and responsibility in the process, but why don’t we just admit we like sex, be open about it and learn an honest, healthy approach to physical and emotional sexuality instead of pretending that sex doesn’t take place all the time?

A new sex education system, with all the tweaks mentioned by Bastabul, Harris and Cote, will help people, particularly youth, realize that talking about sex, or sex in general, doesn’t make you a deviant or perverted or mal-adjusted or disgusting or the proud owner of “daddy issues”.  Maybe it just makes you human.

Written by: Alexandra Herrington

It’s like, I’ve got ESP*n*… or something

You’re walking down the street and you have this shaking feeling that someone is watching you. Your gut feeling lying inside at the bottom of your stomach tells you to turn around and go home. There’s something about this night, this street, this time, and you can’t scratch that itch that keeps urging you to leave. So, you listen, because the uneasiness takes over. You wake up the next morning to discover that a murder took place in that exact area you were in.

However, you are not shocked. It seems as if you knew that something bad was going to happen, but you just didn’t know what.

Have you ever experienced an incident like this? Where, for a moment, you felt as if you had psychic abilities to foresee the future, to read other people’s thoughts, or to just “know” certain things about people.

In the eyes of believers, those abilities are called Extra Sensory Perception, or more commonly known as ESP. Yet, in the eyes of skeptics, they are only just coincidences.

Is it fact? Or is it our imagination trying to explain the seemingly inexplicable? Most people are open to the idea because they have had at least one experience they feel qualifies as ESP. Parapsychologists who specialize in the study of paranormal activity have been trying to prove its existence for decades, but without success. And scientists, well, they are unsurprisingly the most skeptical of all because of the lack of scientific proof.

However, nowadays, scientists hardly try to prove ESP. Instead, they attempt to create it using technology. The Wall Street Journal reports a new advance in computer technology that can “read” minds by “translating the brain’s electrical signals into simple words.” These experiments are being held at the University of California, Berkley by Brian Pasley, a researcher, and Robert Knight, head of the neuroscience department.

If machines can pick up on our brain waves and signals, which allow them to “read” our minds, then our brain is definitely sending these signals out. Can humans truly pick up on them? Computers reproduce what humans can do but at a greater speed. It is possible that humans have the ability of ESP but they simply cannot comprehend the difficulty of channeling that ability.

That is, ESP in a most general sense and at its minimal form. Not the over dramatization in movies of vivid premonitions and loud telepathy, and not the telling of those classic ghost stories of haunting spirits that are doomed to walk the earth searching for vengeance. These are common misconceptions.

ESP is defined as a sense outside the five, an extra sense that lies beyond our abilities to see, to hear, to taste, to smell and to touch. In other and simpler terms, it is a “sixth” sense.

There are three main categories for ESP: telepathy is the awareness of another’s thoughts, precognition is the knowledge of future events, and clairvoyance is the ability to gain knowledge of objects and people. All these, without the use of our five senses are considered Extra Sensory Perception.

“It happened yesterday that I was sitting next to a tall dark stranger with the sound of a computer buzzing behind me,” Damienne Bauer, a fifth semester visual arts student said, “until I realized I had dreamt of this before.” Bauer claims this was an experience of precognition since she had a dream that came true.

Could that be coincidence? Maybe. Or was it a sign of something more? A sign of a greater force we still, today, don’t know anything about. She’s not the first to tell such a story that falls under the category of precognition.

“I went to bed one night and dreamt that my grandmother was cooking at 11:13 at night,” Amanda Korylo, a fourth semester CinCom student said. “She looked troubled and when I went to hug her, she disappeared in my arms. I told my mom about the dream the next morning. It turned out that my grandmother had passed away at 11:13pm.”

Could ESP really account for such a coincidence? Dean Radin, Ph.D., explains in his book The Conscious Universe how “psychic phenomena is now no longer based solely upon faith, or wishful thinking, or absorbing anecdotes. Instead, [it] exists because of new ways of evaluating massive amounts of evidence collected over a century by scores of researchers.” He claims that the evidence lies in the experiments held in laboratories and in the fact that the very idea of ESP exists. Since something cannot exist without our knowledge of it and since many people can recount their experiences with ESP.

The results in experiments can either be chance or a form of ESP, yet Radin states that after a century, there are more than enough positive results that cannot be disregarded as chance. For example, a famous experiment conducted by J.B. Du Rhine in the 30’s involved Zener cards, cards with various shapes on them. The test subject would have to “guess” or “feel” the next card in the deck to test for clairvoyance. Although the success ratio is only at a mere 20%, over time, that ratio grew since more people were involved in this study. Also, something cannot exist if we have no feeling of it and people feel like they experience ESP all the time.

However, why do some people have a greater sixth sense than others? Anthony Karaplis, a second semester psychology student, recounts his story of a woman who claimed to be a psychic. “I went to Alberta for the first time, and during my first day I went to a festival. As I was walking alone, a woman approached me and told me things about my life she couldn’t have possibly known. I was completely shocked because I had never met this woman and she was telling me very specific things about me, my family, and my friends.”

Although people claim to have experienced ESP at least once, most are not as riveting as that woman who approached Karaplis. “Sometimes I experience [ESP] in dreams, but I don’t think anything of it, it’s just a coincidence,” Matthew Orsini, a fourth semester CinCom student said.

Whether it is coincidence or not, hard facts are still missing. “I’m skeptical because I am a firm believer in facts and evidence to back it up,” Andrew Kruppa, a fourth semester social science student said, and he has a point.

There is not enough proof, scientifically speaking, for a theory like ESP to exist. Although Radin states that the proof lies in the experiments and recounted human experiences, “[a] theory has to be correct 100% of the time. If these pseudo sciences were to be true, then you’d have to add in new theories that don’t fit with the old ones,” Mathieu Coulliard, a Concordia student majoring in physics said. It is a lot easier to accept ESP as false than to change our already established knowledge of nature and of science. Instead, we could come up with new ways to make ESP a reality, just like these new machines Pasley and Knight are experimenting with. They can open doors to new scientific advances. Our extra sense can be created via technology, and with a 100% success rate.

ESP is becoming a fantasy, especially to scientists who can prove its non-existence through facts while believers try to prove its existence with faith.

There could be other reasons for being able to “read” people’s minds or “know” certain things about objects and events. “We indirectly do mind reading all the time because we do know what people are thinking but we’re not in each other’s mind,” Robert Stephens, a Dawson humanities teacher who is studying cognitive science, said. “We do that based on each other’s behavior and we infer. That’s not extra sensory. That’s just using our senses. People who claim to have ESP are either con artists or just very good at indirectly reading people.” Which could be the case in Karaplis’ story about the woman who approached him.

ESP has been in question for centuries because of the countless stories told by people who have experienced some form of it. However, skeptics will only believe after it is fully proven with hard facts because having a feeling of ESP does not necessarily prove it exists but only that we believe it exists.

Based on our scientific knowledge of the world and of the universe, ESP cannot exist. It is simply not feasible. However, science is infinite and our knowledge will only expand with time. Also, most people have claimed to experience ESP at least once in their lifetime. Is it so hard to believe that a force unknown to us exists? What do you believe?

Written by: Sarah Papadopoli

La educacion es un derecho… hermano

“But it’s my home, all I have known/Where I got grown, streets we would roam,” are the words K’naan sings in Wavin’ Flag. Whether it is the anthem for the beautiful game, a song to Haiti after a near destruction, or used infamously for political campaigns, many young people also show reason to sing these lyrics as well, as student protests continue throughout the world.

Significant student protests have been held in Chile. Their movement began in May of last year, and shows no sign of slowing down despite a lack of media attention across the border. During a demonstration, a reported 900 students were arrested in one day alone.

Until now the media has covered the main student movements across Europe, Canada and the United States, but what about the rest of our blue planet? With the emphasis on us, it feels we’re the only ones here. Let’s take a trip.

Camila Vallejo, president of the University of Chile Student Federation, stated in a speech dating Oct. 19 2011, “it has much to do about, as ensuring that education is a right not a commodity. […] Where progress is made in ending the deep inequality of distribution of wealth in our country.”

Until Augusto Pinochet came into power during the 1970s, higher education in Chile was free. However all would be changed for the worst once Pinochet created privatized schools and universities. Today, only those with a higher income can afford to attend university in Chile.

The current is slowly changing now due to a generation of young voices, the same ages as students like us, who are speaking up against their oppression. Despite hundreds of thousands of students taking part, the face of the Chilean movement has been greatly led by twenty-three year-old Vallejo.

“The extinction of the student movement is not a possibility,” said Vallejo in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País, or The Country.

One thing sparking controversy is Camila Vallejo now has the support of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro. He claims, “We should support the ideas of the young Chilean woman.” These are the same words from the man who once lead a country where children only receive “free” education if they undergo military training to become a pionero, or pioneer.

Now picture a paradise that is famous for white sandy beaches, nothing but blue skies, and music loud enough to drown the reality of everyday life.

Between South America and the coast of Florida lies Cuba, a place that once had the exact education people like Camila Vallejo have been fighting for. Recently, on Oct. 22, 2009, student protests also occurred, but not quite for the same reasons– for their poor living conditions.

Early on before the revolution of 1959, Cuba was known for having one of the top education systems, including many scholarships for those who couldn’t afford.

Nevertheless their fate was quickly changed when the new government under Fidel Castro made education based upon communist ideas, where children are taught such things as, that God doesn’t exist. If parents interfere they are threatened with sanctions, and often face jail time should they teach their own child something which may contradict the school’s teachings.

While most of us here have been busy fighting to keep the easy access to higher education we at times take for granted– not a plane flight away are students the same age fighting with that common goal. Many others are also fighting to simply get a taste of that diploma–a ticket to freedom in uncertain times.

Miriam Celaya, Cuban author of the blog Sin Evasion, or Without Evasion, wrote, “Comparing Cuban social reality […] with those of countries like Great Britain, Spain or Greece, can only be classified as a childish fantasy or a perversion.”

From Brazil, Isabella Peres, a 2^nd semester International Business student at Dawson, mentioned that movement is active in her country of origin as well. “[In Brazil] Higher education costs a lot of money, and the public universities don’t have many spots available, so students are protesting.” Few online articles and videos– some showing police firing tear gas at students– can be found, showing once again relying on the media is not always the best option.

“Knowing that other students in my country don’t have the same privileges as me- to have a good free education,” explained Peres, “makes me realize the importance of education, and I value it a lot.”

With technology advancing every day and copyright acts such as ACTA– which has sparked major protests in Europe as some governments signed (reportedly without consulting the public) –it’s shocking to realize how little we know about what is happening around us.

Reporters Without Borders (RWB) discussed in their annual index, “Never have acts of censorship and physical attacks on journalists seemed so numerous” As a reported 29 journalists have been arrested in Cuba in 2006 alone.

While Celaya makes a strong point, differences in culture, language and beliefs do not slash common struggles. As seen 10,046 miles from Cuba, there is another country with students fighting for the same reasons.

“Government media is criticizing us all the time,” said Delani Galagedara, a university student in Sri Lanka, for an interview with ‘The Plant’.

Several years after the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka, which lasted almost three decades and killed 100,000 people, many students like Galagedara are now taking on a battle of their own. Their government announced a new law called the “University Act” in an attempt to privatize schools, something students in Chile know all too well. Due to these protests, the passing of the new law has been postponed– for now.

“It is worth noting that in the 1988-89 period when university students protested against privatization of education, several student leaders were tortured to death,” stated Lionel Bopage of Ground Views, an online news site from Sri Lanka.

In the last two years, 1,000 students have been suspended for protesting, while 70 remain in custody. Higher Education Minister SB Dissanayake claims the protests are “stage-managed to rouse students,” despite students winning support from the Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA).

“We will not be able to bear the high student fees, as our parents are getting a low income,” Galagedara continued. “Here we still have free education and we are fighting to protect it.”

It is difficult to estimate how many countries have taken part in the student movement. Reports of protests in Romania, Taiwan, Canada and many other places have also emerged- all for similar reasons. Although with a growing number of governments passing laws to privatize schools, the protests for a better education are not likely to see conclusion any time soon.

“If it continues how it is going,” Isabella Peres added, “I think fees will get higher and higher and this will certainly be more difficult to pay, which means I will need to work more.”

As Abbie Hoffman, co-founder of the Youth International Party, said, “The lesson of the ‘60s is that people who cared enough to do right could change history.” Looking at the world today, change may not be so far away.

Written By: Karina Licursi

RETHINK PINK

breast cancer campaign

“It’s amazing how a little pink ribbon can hide all the lies behind it,” said Lea Pool, speaking to a crowd of journalists and guests gathered at the premiere of Pink Ribbons Inc. It took seven years of development, but the documentary is finally set to reveal its claim that corporate hypocrisy camouflages itself in pink.

Do you use Revlon? Maybelline? L’Oreal? Or, perhaps you are familiar with Ford Motor Vehicles, Yoplait, HP, GUESS, Pandora Jewellery, KitchenAid, Evian, Energizer… the list goes on and on.

What do all of these companies have in common? They are all corporate sponsors of Susan G Komen for the Cure, an organization famous for promoting breast cancer awareness and collecting funds for breast cancer research. Their pink ribbon is an omnipresent banner in today’s society and media, usually followed by pink make-up, pink computers, pink blenders, etcetera. Many claim that such philanthropy can only benefit breast cancer victims and their families.

So, it may (or may not) surprise you to know that Revlon has a Breast Cancer Center in Los Angeles, on top of using a special pink lipgloss shade to raise funds for breast cancer awareness. The Annual Revlon Run Walk has grown to be one of the biggest fundraisers of its kind, according to the organization’s website. Women dressed head-to-toe in pink, with pink boas, pink angel wings, and pink Revlon lipgloss walking for lives – what more could one ask for?

Other companies have done the same: Estee Lauter, L’Oreal, Yoplait, even Ford. They raise millions of dollars for breast cancer awareness and research, and generally seem to be the friendly philanthropists in pharmacy aisle.

However, many argue that the numbers do not add up so well. Let us take the example of Yoplait: they ran the “Save Lids, Save Lives” campaign. The premise was simple: for every pink lid sent back to the manufacturer, they would donate 10 cents to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Let’s say an 8-pack of yogurt costs 3.00$. That is a total of 80 cents that could be donated: 2.20$ for the company in question.

For a donation totaling less than a dollar, consumers would have to eat all the yogurt, keep the lids, wash them and post them – in a time where Canadian postage stamps, according to the Canada Post, cost 0.61$. Unless all the lids are fit into a single, letter-sized envelope, then the cost of the donation doesn’t break even.

That is, of course, assuming that people actually do it.

Unfortunately, Pink Ribbons Inc. goes beyond the pure numbers. On that hand, Yoplait is supposedly pocketing obscene amounts of profits for themselves by using the pink lids as a marketing technique. Meanwhile, during the time of this campaign, General Mills (Yoplait’s parent company) used a hormone known as rBST – a hormone given to cows to produce more milk. What it also produced, was cancer.

On one hand, the company began a breast cancer supporting fundraiser, offering their own profit for the good of the cause. On the other hand: they pocketed more for themselves than for the charity, while using a product that produced the breast cancer in question, according to the American Cancer Society.

As for the Revlon Breast Cancer Center mentioned in Los Angeles — while honorable, does it change the fact that Revlon’s products include ingredients such as: aluminum powder, quartz, BHA, and many more? These substances are linked to disorders such as organ system toxicity, reproductive toxicity, neurotoxicity, and cancer. Cosmetics often penetrate the skin to enter straight into the bloodstream, and Revlon – along with several other cosmetic companies – has refused to sign the Compact for Safe Cosmetics, according to SkinDeep (ewg.org/skindeep), a site that allows users to input the names of brands so that the engine can search how many harmful chemicals are inside.

“Most of the ingredients being queried cause hormone disruptions by imitating the hormones, notably estrogen,” said Fiona Hanley, a professor in Dawson College’s Nursing program and a member of the Canadian Nurses for Heal and the Environment (CNHE) and Breast Cancer Action MTL. “Cancer is multi-factorial. It’s hard to say what causes it, but recent studies show that substances that imitate hormones are probably a factor.”

Activists claim this is a vicious circle: the corporations invest little money in a breast cancer campaign or walk, they get profits from those desperate to donate, and then use the money to produce the products that cause more cancer, amplifying the need for more fundraisers.

Assuming the charities – notably, Komen – do get so little money, where does it go? According to Komen’s 2009-2010 financial statements, only about 40% of the money raised actually goes to treatment, prevention, and research. Of the 80 cents donate through Yoplait, for example, only 32 cents actually goes to directly helping the women diagnosed with breast cancer.

“In all areas of cancer research, very little money and attention goes into prevention of any disease,” explained Hanley. “This isn’t a healthcare system, it’s an illness care system. There isn’t enough being to keep people healthy before they get sick.”

The other 60% of funds is administrative costs, fund-raising costs, and education. Most of this ‘education’ is spent creating more pink merchandise, such as the pink ribbon, devised by Evelyn Lauder – senior corporate vice president of Estee Lauder, the very same company who has a level 10 warning (the highest receivable) by SkinDeep.

After the creation of the pink ribbon, the entire “culture” of this pink phenomenon seemed to take off. It is full of women cheering, running, and displaying signs such as “I <3 BOOBIES” are common appearances, and terminology like “warriors” and “battling breast cancer” have become commonplace.

Some do not take to the ‘culture’ of the disease well. “Pretty, feminine, and normal? It’s not normal. It’s horrible,” said Barbara Ehrenreich, a columnist and essayist for The New York Times.

Some were more direct in their opinions, frustrated by the lack of social awareness when it comes to the “pinkwashing” of breast cancer.

“If people knew what was happening, they’d be pissed off,” said Barbara Brenner, former executive director of Break Cancer Action. “They should be.”

“We have to think about every action we do and what impact that will have on us, as a community,” said Hanley. “We have to ask ourselves: do we want a society that’s cheap and convenient, or healthy and cancer-free?”

Written by: Laura Marchand

Big Brother Is Watching You

Is instant gratification really worth the loss of privacy

My laptop’s screen burns a neon glow as it rests  on the middle of my bed,   my Facebook feed growing every few seconds, constantly telling me that I have ‘New stories’ from my so-called ‘friends’, which, in fact, are simple status updates. ‘I could write a book on people’s daily lives with the amount of updates I receive,’ I think, as I gawk at the number of new ‘stories’ skewed atop the page; 83.
In today’s day and age, we may not realize it, but as a modern society, we have reached a point in which we share everything about anything on a minute-to-minute basis and the word private has completely lost its credibility. ‘Private lives’, ‘personal lives’, the actual thought of ‘privacy’ have all nearly disappeared; it is only all the more ironic that we indulge in a daily activity of posting our every breath on the internet and throw a fit when someone tries to tamper with any aspect of our ‘confidentiality.’
Now, in the twenty first century, society depends heavily upon social-networking and communication technology and instant knowledge to get through the day. Cyberspace, to be more specific, the innumerable social-networking websites which fill it such as Facebook and Twitter in particular, have taken over our lives and become interwoven into our daily routines.
“I’m pretty much on it twenty-four seven,” Maria Athanasoulos, a second semester Pure and Applied student said. “I’m, like, addicted. I’m constantly updating my status every few minutes.”
The Internet, though just one factor that has taken over our day-to-day lives, largely contributes to the irony of what people consider  should be revealed to the public,  censored and what needs to be monitored. It’s as if people enter an entirely different dimension that holds no boundaries or consequence when they turn on their computer screens, flip up their phones, or take out any sort of other communication gadget.
“I actually have a friend who posted photos of herself in her underwear and bra, for guys to see,”said a young first semester student, of whom did not wish to be named, afraid her friend would read this.
In addition to the openness that already we strip ourselves of, people, when within range of these networking mediums, also tend to not hold back their emotions and thoughts.
“I would say, aside from posting your life story to the world, people have no control over what they feel, like what is humane or not,” Linda Brimer, a sales consultant at Apple said, “I actually get a lot of parents asking me sometimes if there’s a monitoring type of program for their children, so they can program on our computers, because they’re afraid their kid will get bullied.” She continued to elaborate on how these sorts of parents are just examples of how ‘loose’ people get once they feel like there is no authority over them, thus causing trouble.
So, this puts in question, do people need more control in their lives?
The irony of such a situation comes into question; the government seems to be over-bearing nowadays, yet people seem to rebel in the wrong sort of way. In order to fix some of these problems that the public have reacted negatively to, it seems the only true solution would be to implement and institute a much more cohesive view; but none of us want to wear that leash, right?
As we continue to merrily on our way through modernization, the fear of utter governmental obedience and control increases. For instance, it’s a popular fear that George Orwell’s 1984is slowly creeping its way into our daily lives and this is beginning to scare people, to say the least. Could this be the source for people trying to rebel in the parallel universe of cyberspace, where hurting others and overly revealing themselves to simply revolt or feel some sort of freedom from the constraints that the government has implemented, or are we simply being ignorant?
“I think we have reached a dead end, or we’re close to it,” Matthew Johnston, a fourth semester Social Sciences student said. “The government knows where we are whenever, can track us down whenever, pretty much control what we learn, what we watch, what we hear, what we can read, and I’m sure that even though we’re a democratic society there has to be things that are never even revealed. Something like a secret society, you know?”
Gadgets like cell phones, GPS trackers, hand-held tablets and all the technological wonders which we all love keep us on a tight leash and effectively cause us to feel constraint. For example, cell phone signals can pin point where people are, leaving us no privacy as to where we are going; our conversations are all archived with the selected phone company that one is with. GPS trackers, or in some cases some cars with an On-Star in-vehicle security apparatus which tracks the whereabouts of your car, trails where people drive, analyzes the routes they have taken and records all time spent. Some might argue that this is all necessary in order to stay safe in today’s reality, where we need to take specific measures, despite the consequences, such as our privacy, in order to function properly. Although, there’s always the other side which firmly believes that we don’t NEED all of this surveillance, especially when not in our everyday lives. Rather, we actually seem to be paying up the nose for it through taxes, the same applies with video cameras at stop lights to catch speeding cars.
“I’m sure the government just wants to make money off of us for the most part,” Johnston said.
Now who wants a ticket, right?
In addition, just recently posted in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, by the editor-in-chief, Rajendra Kale said that now the gender of fetus should be concealed until abortion is no longer an option, to all mothers, as there appears to be disparity between the genders of babies being born today, particularly within the ethnic populations.
According to The Gazette’s writer, Karen Seidman, “Delaying the information until 30 weeks, he said, makes it much more difficult to get an abortion unless there’s a medical reason… Kale argued that studies show some couples who have two girls and no son selectively get rid of female fetuses until they can ensure their third-born child is a boy.”
Of course, many have responded negatively to this, as not only is this an alienation of personal decisions, but also tightens to the chain of control that has already been implemented on us.
“But I don’t really feel it, you know?” Athanasoulos said, “I just go about everyday with my Facebook and Twitter and don’t really pay a lot of attention to this whole privacy thing. It’s not like it gets in the way of my everyday living.”
She continued to explain that she felt that it was probably more relevant in the lives of adults, rather than adolescents, as it concerns more with issues which encompass money and the government.
“I think it’s because kids have less responsibilities, so we just do what we want, and our parents are the ones always in an uproar or something, because they feel so controlled,” Athansoulos said.
All this to say, as some may feel it or not, our everyday lives,  movements, thoughts, as with countless other things, are closely monitored and despite whether we feel it or not, the ever-increase of control tightens as we continue to progress into a future of new technologies. It may not bother everyone, as long as they are accommodated,  through being made to feel safer when driving, or make life is easier and quicker through new appliances, etc., but just how much can society really take before we actually morph into a real life 1984?

Written By: Barbara Madimenos