Real Talk

"She's so young with so much pain/there's so many things Shante wishes she can change/
So what she does is spend hours of the day/meeting new friends in her own little place/
Just today she counted and 300 friends/most of them young, but yet some were older men/
But it's ok/Shante says that's safe/her own little place to get away, her myspace"

-Flame
"Myspace" off of the album, "Our World Fallen"

Peace and blessings,

I was in class a few weeks back and came across a very interesting article. The article explored the potential causes for adolescents choosing to participate in risky health behaviors, such as substance use, sex, and so forth. The author, Laurence Steinberg (2007) presents a neuroscience perspective on adolescent risk taking, which argues that choosing to engage in risky behavior is largely depends on which networks in your brain are more salient during a given period in your lifetime. In other words, the argument is that there are times in our lifetime when the socioemotional network (SEN) in our brains, which operate primarily on emotion, arousal, and impulse, is more salient than the cognitive control network (CCN), which primarily deals with thinking things through, weighing the costs of our decisions, and thus regulating our behavior. This is what is believed to being going on in adolescence (Steinberg, 2007). One of the findings which supports this perspective is that in general, antisocial peer pressure is most very influential in pre-adolescence and mid-adolescence (i.e. around puberty), where the gap between the SEN and CCN is the largest, in favor of the SEN. Therefore, because peer pressure can appeal to one's emotional arousal (i.e. a person getting "hyped" up when your peers are encouraging him or her to do something), it's no surpsrise that many of the risk behaviors adolescents engage in are also often shared by their peers. As people move into late adolescence and adulthood, the CCN becomes more and salient, helping one to make decisions that take the costs of one's behaviors into consideration (via logic, reasoning, reflection, ect...) (2004, cited in Steinberg, 2007). The implication from this article is that because since the mere presence of peers provides rewards (e.g. encouragement, arousal, approval) for one's behavior, then this social influence will be more important in an adolescent's decision to engage in risky behaviors than any other rewards the adolescent would factor into their decision when alone (Steinberg, 2007).

Given that I am in the social sciences (education and human development), this article was of great interest to me because it presented a perspective on pre-adolescent and adolecent behavior that I have not been exposed to. What really interested me as a developmentalist is the idea that during adolescence, whether or not adolescents are making decisions in a solitary context (i.e. alone) or social context (i.e. in the presence of peers) can have a profound impact on the decisions adolescents will generally make. With the advancements in technology and the mass incorporation of these advancements into just about every aspect of many societies, it seems like the distinction between the solitary and the social has been blurred. For instance, with the development of the internet, and most recently Myspace, Facebook, and Youtube (just to name a few), one can be in a solitary context (e.g. in one's room by oneself), while at the same time communicating and participating within a social context via the internet (e.g. video chatrooms, being apart of various Myspace and Facebook networks and groups, etc...). This idea of simultaneously being in a solitary and social context makes this issue of technology and society an issue of great importance. As an avid internet user, I personally do not have an issue with things such as Myspace, Facebook, and Youtube, because I use all three. However, I wonder about what having this kind of social access does for younger children and adolescents, especially when they are being exposed (via observing the behavior of others, the TV, etc...) to certain themes, images, and behaviors at a younger age. I know what my mentality was during pre- and mid-adolescence, and let's just say that my having access to these social mediums back then would have been "all bad." Like with anything else, I think that these technological advancements can be beneficial in may ways. However, if not used properly and if unchecked, these mediums can be detrimental as well. Everytime I sign on to my Myspace page i'm presented with images and adds that I don't need to see. And i'm just signing on to check my messages! As more people are becoming connected through these mediums, it is important that we are conscious or and careful of how we use them, and especially how the youth are using them (or whether or not they should be using them at all). Most importantly, we must stay prayed up that God gives us discernment as to how to use these mediums to further our relationship with him and for the betterment of our fellow brothers and sisters, especially for the youth. If not, then we must ask ourselves: Are these technological advancements really "advancing" our society?

Below are a couple of articles I came across related to this issue. Also below, is a live performance and audio track of the song "Myspace" by Flame, who addresses the Myspace phenonemon. What do you think? Take care, stay blessed, and speekonit...


1)

A teen who made a fake ASA Coon page on myspace

2)

Schools and libraries respond to the Myspace phenomenon

*Steinberg, L. (2007). Risk taking in adolescence: new perspectives from brain and behavioral science, CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE, 55-59

Labels: Flame, God, internet, myspace, society, technology, Youtube

Pic and info below courtesy of

African American Registry

Peace and blessings,

A friend of mine sent me an e-mail about

Dr. Phillip Emeagwali

who is referred to as the "father of the internet. The following info is from The African American Registry. Soak up that knowledge and speekonit...

"Philip Emeagwali was born on this date 1954. He is a Nigerian computer scientist, and internet pioneer.

He was raised in the town of Onitsha in South-Eastern Nigeria. Called "Calculus" by his schoolmates, Emeagwali mastered the subject at age 14, and could out-calculate his instructors. He had to drop out of school because his family could not afford to send all eight children. But he continued studying on his own, and after getting a general certificate of education from the University of London.

At the age of 17, he received a full scholarship to Oregon State University where he majored in math. After graduation, he attended George Washington University and was received two MA’s, one in civil engineering and the other in marine engineering, and a Master's in mathematics from the University of Maryland. He later achieved his doctorate from the University of Michigan in civil engineering (scientific computing).

During his academic years (1974), Emeagwali read a 1922 science fiction article on how to use 64,000 mathematicians to forecast the weather for the whole Earth. Inspired by that article, he worked out a theoretical scheme for using 64,000 far-flung processors that will be evenly distributed around the Earth, to forecast the weather. He called it a HyperBall international network of computers. Today, an international network of computers is called the Internet.

Dr. Emeagwali's greatest achievement was his work on The Connection Machine. This instrument utilized 65,000 computers linked in parallel to form the fastest computer on Earth. This computer can perform 3.1 billion calculations per second. This is faster than the theoretical top speed of the Cray Supercomputer. Though he did not "invent" The Connection Machine, his work on it won Philip Emeagwali the Gordon Bell Prize of 1989. The parallel computer was twice as fast as the previous year's computer. The Connection Machine was a great advancement over previous designs built by IBM's design teams of Thomas J. Watson, Jr. and Fred Brook.

Apple Computer to use his multiprocessing technology to manufacture its dual-processor Power Mac G4, which had a peak speed of 3.1 billion calculations per second; IBM to manufacture its $134.4 million supercomputer, which had a peak speed of 3.1 trillion calculations per second; IBM to announce its plan to manufacture a 65,000-processor supercomputer, which will have a peak speed of 1,000 trillion calculations per second; and every supercomputer manufacturer to incorporate thousands of processors in their supercomputers. Another measure of his influence is that one million students have written biographical essays on him, thousands wrote to thank him for inspiring them.

President Bill Clinton called him a powerful role model for young people and used the phrase "another Emeagwali" to describe children with the potential to become computer geniuses. Emeagwali considers himself to be "a Black scientist with a social responsibility to communicate science to the Black Diaspora." He has a dual sensibility of being deeply rooted in science while using it as a tool to remind his people in the Diaspora of where they have been and who they are. He also describes his work as a "public intellectual.” He uses his mathematical and computer expertise to develop methods for extracting more petroleum from oil fields.

During his career, Emeagwali has received many prizes, awards and honors. These include the Computer Scientist of the Year Award of the National Technical Association (1993), Distinguished Scientist Award of the World Bank (1998), Best Scientist in Africa Award of the Pan African Broadcasting, Heritage and Achievement Awards (2001), Gallery of Prominent Refugees of the United Nations (2001), profiled in the book Making It in America as one of "400 models of eminent Americans," and in Who's Who in 20th Century America. In a televised speech, as president, Bill Clinton described Emeagwali as “one of the great minds of the Information Age.”

His wife, Dale, was born in Baltimore, was educated at Georgetown University School of Medicine, conducted research at the National Institutes of Health and the University of Michigan, and taught at the University of Minnesota. In 1996, she won the Scientist of the Year Award of the National Technical Association for her cancer research. They both live near Washington, D.C. with their 11-year-old son."

Labels: Connection Machine, Father of the Internet, internet, Phillip Emeagwali

Peace and blessings,

I saw this today and found it interesting. A woman was looking for her brother and posted it on myspace. Within hours, someone contacted her and that lead led her to her brother's body. This is an example of one of the benefits of being part of an internet community. Pray that God provides comfort to the victim's family. Take care and speekonit...


http://us.video.aol.com/video.index.adp?pmmsid=1828943

Labels: God, internet, myspace