iPad: the New Generation

Oh, hello there. It's just me, the so-called author of this blog. I haven't actually done any authoring of late - in fact, I haven't done anything that concerns this blog of mine for almost eight months - but I decided that maybe it was time to come back to it when I was reminded once more of its existence. Here's how that happened:

A friend of mine is obsessed with Bing. He says it's a great search engine, and would prefer that it steal a little bit of the attention that Google always gets. I, frankly, have always been a Google girl. And there I was, sitting at my desk, wondering how I should start off my day. To help me with this, I unconsciously opened my web browser. What page was I looking at? Google.ca, of course. I looked at Google and instantly thought of my friend. So what did I do?

I Googled "Google vs. Bing".

I first read an interesting article. The next link down, though, allowed me to compare the two engines side-by-side by searching something up. I tried to think of something that had any sort of relevance to me, and the title of my blog came to mind. Alas, here are the results:

In the Google search on the right, my blog came out as the first search item - the first! That never happened before - while it didn't even seem to register with Bing. Nowhere on the first page, nor on the second...not on the third, fourth, or fifth, either! I gave up after that - not enough hours in the day for me to see how long it would take for my blog to actually show up. I found that mildly insulting, and so you could probably imagine what my default search engine will now be (or rather, remain). I mean look at that! The top four searches, all actually relevant to this blog. Now that's impressive.

Especially for someone who hasn't even added anything new for so long.

But I do have something that I feel is worth taking the time to sit down and rant about. As you might have gathered from the title, it has to do with the iPad.

But before you freak out and start hurtling insults and curses at me (assuming you are an iPad fan), an unknown blogger revealed to you only through the words you see on your screen, allow me to clarify: I have no problem whatsoever with the iPad. While I am personally not a fan - I don't like anything touch-screen; I need buttons - I do admire it as a concept. So it is not with the iPad that I have an issue.

No, it is three-year-old children owning iPads that concerns me.

A couple of days ago I went to get a much-needed massage. It is an office with three separate massage rooms, one of which is used by another masseur. This room happened to be right next to my own, and partway into the massages, I hear loud noises walk by my door and into the neighbouring room. The noises were a combination of sobs and what sounded like Spongebob Squarepants. And both were loud.

I understood that a child had just walked into the neighbouring masseur's room, and I figured that her mom had given her the iPad to use as a distraction. Forty minutes later, I realized my error: after my massage was over, I came out of the room, looked to my left - and saw not one but two little girls - twins - with iPads, fixated on the screens in front of them. These girls could not have been much more than three years old, four at most. And they stared at those screens unrelentingly. They even walked while looking at the screens. Their mother had to physically steer them away from harmful objects - like walls - so they wouldn't bump into them. They did not reply to their mother whenever she spoke to them. No, all they knew was the little yellow rectangular prism dancing around on the screen.

It was a horrifying sight. I know nothing whatsoever about the little girls' medical history, and in fact I know nothing whatsoever about them, so I can only speculate as to why they would be in possession of such technology at such a young age. But I do know that a 32GB iPad sells for about $600 (give or take a cent) at Future Shop right now, and that is an expensive toy to buy for a little girl - twice. That is putting $1200 plus tax ($1356 +/- $0.02) - man, I am salivating at the prospect of what I could do with that much money - in the hands of a child that does not - and will not for several more years - even have the mental capacity to comprehend just what that value is!

And that isn't even getting into what the iPad is going to end up doing to their little brains. Making them even smaller, I suppose, slowly inhibiting synaptic development and teaching the little girls' minds how not to have to function. What I can't understand is why the parents would condone such a thing. No, wait, they aren't condoning it. They are encouraging it. They are perpetuating it, because it is through their financial endorsement that such a thing is made possible! What happened to the days of buying children a nice, colourful toy that makes only a few sounds when you play with it, as opposed to a multitudinous display of animated lifeforms on a smooth, flat screen.

And here's a completely wild idea: if you have money to throw away, why not settle for a really expensive book? One with lots of beautiful, intricate illustrations? At least it will have a few words, teaching them to read, helping them develop the neurological pathways that will serve to help them in later life. At least pity the kids if $1355.98 is your equivalent of a toonie in my wallet. I have not seen a child's book cost more than $30. (That's $60 for a pair of them, more than enough money to pay my cell phone bill for a month...) And quite honestly, I think that is far better value.

But what do I know? Maybe I'm just blinded by outrage because I'm a university student who can't afford such luxuries and secretly really want them. We'll never know.

As ever,
Candidly yours, 
Aya

Why North America is going to the dogs

Okay, so clearly I lied when I said "by the end of the weekend." What I really meant was, "by the end of the month, assuming a multitude of external factors don't get in my way." But, you know, I assumed you could read between the lines. I swear I'm trying to be more diligent about this blog, but with my current schedule, that's far easier said than done. 

So, without further adieu, let's go on to the topic at hand: North American education (or lack thereof)! Here are the top ten, academically-related reasons (in no particular order of significance) that are contributing to the demise of our society (intellectually and otherwise), presented in a list of what high school-related terms really mean (primary education is just a watered-down version of this).


10. School: A large building that provides an opportune location for consistent, daily social gatherings of the under-age variety. Not only can it be fun, but attendance has been made mandatory by the government, who didn't realize that they were enabling continuous debauchery. Activities include any and all forms of socializing specifically designed to infuriate the administration and authorities. It should be noted that, just because there is no computer in sight, that does not mean that Facebook and Twitter cannot be checked and updated. All. The. Time. 

9. School Board: A group of people who writes up documents for schools, including their curricula  and regulations. And by writing up documents, I mean that they edit them each and every year, taking out the parts that have made learning and getting a passing grade too difficult that year, even though a decade earlier that same curriculum would have been viewed as a practical joke. Incidentally, the most dramatic changes always take place after a series of parental complaints, so we can see that the school board really cares about its students, and continue to simplify the education system for its students' sakes. It's got nothing to do with the fact that they want to avoid confrontation as best as possible, because dealing with complaints always results in having to work overtime. Of course not.

8. Teacher: A fancy name for the babysitter that looks after a group of young people between the ages of 13 and 20 for an average of 75 minutes every day. 

7. Principal: The person in charge of the babysitting business. It is his or her responsibility to hire the babysitters that they think will best suit the students' array of needs, and for whom the students will have the least number of complaints. He or she is also to whom a teacher turns when they can no longer control their roomful of raucous people.

6. Student: A person who belongs to an institution of education, and as a result gets discounts on public transportation fare. Also the person who has made it his or her mission to cause teachers and principals as much grief and trouble as humanly possible.

5. Class: A place where the teacher tries to keep his or her students quiet and complacent by pretending to feed them information that will supposedly help them later on in life. It is also where the students love to ask questions along the lines of, "Why do we need to learn this?" or "When are we ever going to use this information?" If a teacher dares to say that it is so that they can go on to university or college, get a job, and lead a successful life in the future, he or she will be laughed at and ridiculed for the remainder of the semester - possibly even year. After all, what kind of stupid response is that?

4. Homework: Optional activities assigned to the students to maintain the pretense of learning. It is a teacher's way of trying to keep his or her students out of trouble once they leave school property, when it is no longer his or her responsibility to look after the charges. Even though they are secretly relieved that the students have gone, the school board mandates that homework and assignments be given out on a regular basis. This is clearly evidence of the board's stupidity and naiveté, as it is only on rare occasion that any of what is assigned gets done.

3. Honour Roll: A long list of students that was able to maintain above-average grades in each of his or her courses. This means that they attended classes almost regularly, didn't give their teachers enough trouble that the latter felt the need to punish them with low grades, and actually did some of the homework they received. In other words, they did the bare minimum and got away with it.

2. Graduation: A necessity to be able to get one's driver's license. Also a reason for parents to praise their kids and give them gifts and money. Most importantly, an excuse to go to a  huge party, get completely smashed, and do a variety of unmentionable things with a variety of unmentionable people.

1. Education: A euphemism for the system that allows parents to go to work every day without having to worry about taking care of their kids. Also what, a decade ago, helped the progression of civilization. Now: nonexistent. 


A word to the wise: home-schooling with a private teacher who actually has a good, well-rounded education is soon going to be back in style. 


Pragmatically yours, 
Aya