THE EFFECTS OF THE LATEST CELL PHONES (70)

                Over the past 20 or 30 years, technological developments have brought significant changes to our lives. Yet there remains some disagreement as to whether these changes favorable. Especially, the developments of cell phones have considerable effects on people. Although the attest cell phones are seen as appealing to people, there are a lot of positive effects as well as negative effects.

                In the first place, one point which is believed to be absolutely pivotal is the fact that there are lots of positive effects of the latest cell phones. One of these positive effects is convenience due to the fact that people can use their cell phones everywhere. Besides, thanks to cell phones, people can contact each other easily. In addition, cell phones contribute to the improvement of personal security by using fingerprints or entry codes. Therefore, it can be said that there are several positive effects of the latest cell phones.

                When it comes to the second point, at the heart of the matter lies another contributing factor: there are numerous negative effects of the latest cell phones. To be more specific, these negative effects are related to people’s health; people who use the latest cell phones always suffer from addiction, stress, the risk of cancer, and insomnia, according to research carried out by the World Health Organization. In addition, there is one different point concerning this issue: this is traffic accidents. It is an undeniable fact that most traffic accidents are caused by drivers who are on the phone. Therefore, the latest cell phones have numerous negative effects.

                By way of conclusion, whether the latest cell phones are favorable or not is a controversial issue. It is obvious that there are both negative effects and positive effects. Being convenient, increasing personal security and supplying contact can be listed as the positive effect, on the other hand, addiction, increased stress, the risk of cancer, insomnia and , the increased the risk of traffic accidents are seen as the negative effects of the latest cell phones.

The Crippling Effects Of Meat Consumption

Eating meat has become so trivial that humans usually don’t regard meat free meals as a main meal. Only a few decades ago, meat was a luxury product; nonetheless, today everybody can easily consume it. Paradoxically, meat is the most inefficient way of feeding humans. When we analyze it on a global scale, it is noticed that our meat filled diet is literally eating up the planet. In that case, it might be a good idea to consider the environmental effects of meat consumption.

First of all, there are numerous environmental effects of meat consumption. Humans keep many animals for food. Currently, about 23 billion chickens, 1,5 billion cattle, and 1 billion pigs and sheep are being raising across the globe. Thus, we have transformed earth into a giant feeding ground. 83% of the world’s farmland is used for livestock. That’s 26% of earth’s total land area. If we include the water needed for plants such as pasture, meat and dairy production accounts for 27% of global freshwater consumption. For instance, about 85% of the water consumed in the USA is used for the livestock industry. Another intriguing example is that 2500 liters of water is used to produce a hamburger. Unfortunately, meat production is like a black hole for resources. As animals are living things, most of their food is used to keep them alive. Apart from these, meat contains only a fraction of the nutrients from fodder crops. Cows, for example, convert only about 4% of the proteins and %3 of the calories of plants. More than 97% of the calories are lost. To create one kilogram of steak, a cow needs to eat up to 25 kilos of grain and uses about 15000 liters of water. Animal products are guzzling up tons of food but they only make up 18% of the calories humans eat. According to projections, we could nourish another 3,5 billion people if we just ate the stuff we feed to animals. About 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans are created by the meat industry, as much as by all ships, planes, trucks, and cars combined. As far as only cows are concerned, everyday, they emit 567 billion liters of methane, a kind of gas causing 86 times more global warming than CO₂. There is also an indirect effect of meat consumption on the environment in that humans destroy rainforests to create pastures, which causes erosion and thereby floods. Moreover, the level of CO₂ in the atmosphere increases because of this.

There is another aspect to meat consumption: ethical problems. Globally, we kill about 200 million animals every day and about 74 billion a year. Furthermore, more than 6 billion animals are slaughtered hourly for meat production. After all, it could be argued that we’re doing them a favor. They cannot exist without us. We might eat them in the end but we also provide food, shelter, and the gift of existence to them. Unfortunately, we aren’t very compassionate gods. A lot of our meat comes from factory farms which are huge industrial systems housing thousands of animals. The factory farms are engineered to be as efficient as possible, and therefore, they have little regard for the quality of life. Most pigs are raised in gigantic windowless sheds and thereby never get to see the sun. Sows are kept in pens too small to turn around. Dairy cows are forced to breed continually to ensure thir milk supply but they are separated from their calves after birth. To fatten up beef cattle for slaughter, they are put in feedlots and confined to pens where they can’t roam to make it possible to keep them  tightly together without dying of diseases. As a result, they put on weight more quickly. The majority of antibiotics we use - up to 80% in the USA -   are for livestock. That helps in the short term but fuels antibiotic resistances. As for chickens, we can say that they are the most unfortunate animals in the context of this matter. They are kept in such vast numbers and so close to each other that they can’t form the social structures they have in nature, so they start attacking each other. To stop that, their beaks and claws are cut. Cockrels  are deemed worthless since they can’t lay eggs and aren’t suitable for meat production. For this reason, within minutes after birth, they’re usually gassed and shredded in grinders. Several hundred million chicks are killed this way each year.

All things considered, the obvious conclusion to be drawn is that meat production has deleterious effects on the environment. Most of them can be ameliorated through technology. However, only if we don’t take action to solve ethical problems will they be likely to continue for along time. It shouldn’t be said that we cannot do anything to eradicate them. For example, the waste of 4164 liters of water, 20,5 kilos of cereal, and 25 m² built-up area is hindered by a vegan every day. The final decision is yours.

                                                                           CEM KOCA

IMPOSTOR SYNDROME

               

   ‘Have you ever felt like the things that you achieved or the position that you’ve reached doesn’t belong to you?’ or ‘Did you feel like you were playing fake and someone was going to unmask you? If you feel  that way, you might be experiencing impostor syndrome.Impostor syndrome, also known as imposter phenomenon, is the psychological condition of a person who always feels doubtful about his accomplishments and considers himself as a fraud despite the contrary evidence.According to Ellen Hendriksen, who is an author for Scientific American and psychologist at Boston University, Impostor Syndrome comes in two common types which are ‘ I’m a fake’ and ‘I got lucky’.

 The type I’m a fake is based on the most common characteristic of Imposter Syndrome which is the feeling of incompetence.The individuals who are categorized in this type often feel that what they achieved was not the result of their effort or intelligence; It was luck or something else.Therefore, they usually live with fear of being unmasked or discovered by others. Amy Cuddy, who is a professor at Harvard University now, experienced this situation for a long time and told her story on Ted Talk.She said that her IQ level had dropped after a car accident when she was 19.As a result of it, she had lost confidence in herself and what she had succeeded in even though her academic success indicates the reverse.One day she explained this situation to her professor by saying ‘ I do not belong here and I’m playing fake, one day someone will reveal that I’m not capable enough to be here’.Her professor advised her to fake it until she make it; In time,she really became what she wanted to be and changed the sentence with ‘Fake it until you become it.’

 The second type of Impostor Syndrome is ‘I got lucky’.Individuals who experience this type mostly relate their success to chance or something else not their hard-work,effort or talents.With that, because these persons think that they became successful and achieved high positions in their career by luck,they usually feel pressure to work harder than others not to lose their position whether they need to work or not.As a consequence of this continious hard-work and trying to achieve the best they can, individuals who are in this category have more tendency to be perfectionists.Moreover, most of the people who are in this group are academicians, students from well-known universities and successful managers.It means, having concrete evidence as indicators of their success or getting rewards in their fields doesn’t convince them to believe they are sufficiently good at what they do.

 According to the psychologists, the best way to overcome the imposter syndrome is talking to  others who experience the same feelings. The reason is, it helps to acknowledge your feelings and understand your strengths and weaknesses but above all, you will realize successful people around you who are considered as the persons in unachievable positions or much better than others are sharing the same feelings;this realization may convince you to accept yourself as a person with weaknesses, not a someone who always has to be perfect. 

                                                                                              Sueda  Dinç

HOW TO IMPROVE CONCENTRATION

                                                                                                               

With the development of technology, we started living in a fast world. In other words, we are quickly jumping from task to task and we are not accomplishing each task fully. There is a serious consequence affecting us; we all have a common concentration problem in the modern world. We, of course, need to keep paying attention in order to learn and remember things, but the essential problem is how to make ourselves more attentive and focused.We first learn to focus by making ourselves do it repeatedly until it becomes a habit, a way of thinking.The ability to stay concentrated on what you’re doing and ignore distractions is extremely hard, but there are some specific steps for improving attention.

Unfortunately, exposure to technology is bad for concentration. Technology is surrounded by many distractions especially associated with visual media.If we manage to keep away from distracting technology related tools such as a laptop, iPad, cellphone and TV, our mind will focus on the task instead of wandering. In addition, we need to grab the present intensely, not the past or the future. We can correct past weaknesses and mistakes and reduce their likelihood in the future; however, we cannot know the future and re-do the past. For these reasons, the present  has  a major role in staying focused. For instance, if we make a daily schedule, we can easily plan our day in terms of activities, events, study blocks and we get focus on a subject.

Another step is meditation which concentrates on our natural flow and controlling our breathing. We generally use meditation for avoiding some negative thoughts like stress, but regular practice mediation also helps us to be mentally focused. It involves sitting in a lotus position while trying to regulate awareness by focusing on one thing, like breathing, but also clearing the mind of other thoughts. With practice, the ability to meditate improves and it enables us to establish  stronger relationships between brain function and mental focus.The more focused we are, the more successful we can be at whatever we do. And, conversely, the more distracted we are, the less well we do.

In conclusion, keeping our concentration high is not an easy task in today’s world, but if we apply some specific steps, we will concentrate better. Avoiding some distractions like technology, focusing on the  present and practicing meditation aid concentration.

                                                                                                              RaziyeYağız 

THE CAUSES OF SHYNESS

Man has undoubtedly a lot of emotions and various characteristics. One of them is shyness. Shyness is an emotion that affects how a person feels and behaves around others. In other words, shyness can mean feeling uncomfartable, self-conscious, nervous, bashful, timid or insecure. People who feel shy sometimes notice physical sensations like blushing , feeling speechless, shaky or breathless. Shyness is the opposite of being comfortable with yourself. When people are shy, they can hesitate to say or do something, because they are  unsure of them and are not ready to be noticed. Even though there are several causes of shyness, reacting to new things and genetics can be claimed to be the most important two.

To begin with, reacting to new things is known to be the primary cause of shyness. New and unfamiliar situations can bring about shy feelings like the first day in school, meeting someone new or speaking in front of a group for the first time. Shy feelings can be mild, medium or intense like other emotions  because all of them  depend on the situation and the person. Someone who usually or often feels shy might think of himself as a shy person. Shy people may need more time to  change. They may choose to stick to what they know or what’s familiar. On the other hand, shy people generally hesitate before trying  something new. They often prefer watching others before joining a group activity.Indeed, teasing and being bullied are also known to be causes to shyness. Shortly, shy people think of others eyes before their own, while they are doing something for the first time.

Furthermore, genetic factors seem to be the second cause of shyness. People’s genes determine their physical traits like height, eye color and body type.  But genes also influence certain personality traits, including shyness. For example, if a child has a shy parent who is the mother, the  father or both, he  probably has a genetic tendency to be naturally shy. However, everyone with a genetic tendency to be shy does not develop a shyness temparement, because life experiences also have a role. Some types of experience can build up in a  person’s thoughts and follow him or her all the way up to adulthood. Consequently, these types of experiences prevent him from being socially accepted. So sometimes, people can experience  a case of anxiety or lack of confidence due to experiences. These cases have also been shown to cause shyness(to be causes of shyness). In brief, one’s genes and experiences have a vital role in the development of syhness.

All in all, reacting to new things and genetic factors are said to be the most common causes of shyness. I think, the word  ‘’ you are born shy’’  is  really silly and really dangerous, and the fear of failure is a surmountable situation. If you want to get rid of shyness, you have to start to overcome your negative self-image.

Burak Özçifçi

A ROMAN STYLE COLLAPSE

Throughout history, collapses have occurred many times. No matter how great they are, no civilization is immune to the vulnerabilities that may lead societies to the end. The Ottoman Empire, The Maya Civilization and/or The Roman Empire are three of those civilizations that were the super-powers of their time. No one, during  those times, could forecast their  collapse especially when they reached the peak of their  power. Now, modern western society is the dominant power in the world. It can be compared to a stable bicycle whose wheels are kept spinning by economic growth. Should that forward propelling motion slow, values shaping the society- democracy, individual liberties and social tolerance- would start to teeter. Regardless of how great the things are in the present moment, the situation can always change. While it is impossible to predict the future precisely, history and mathematics can give us some hints about the long-term continuation of western societies. In view of the fact that the economic growth of Europe has slowed down lately and  the number of conflicts between the neighbours of western nations has significantly  increased, collapse now is a threat for the western society , however, it is not too late to take precautions because there are still some actions which can be taken to prevent a total societal collapse. 

To begin with, there are several factors that can lead to global or localcollapse. Ecological strain and economic stratification are two of the most important factors besides the impact of humans  on the environment, climate change and relations with neighbours. The ecological category is the more widely recognised path to potential doom, especially in terms of the depletion of natural resources such as forests, fossil fuels or groundwater, all of which can be worsened by  climate change. On the other hand, economic stratification may lead to collapse on its own. Elites push the society to instability by hoarding huge quantities of wealth as well as resources. They leave little or none for commoners who actually support them with their labour force. Consequently, the working-class crashes because the portion of wealth allocated to them is insufficient. This process is followed by the collapse of elites due to the absence of labour. The inequalities which can be seen today point to such disharmonies. For example, the top ten percent of global income earners are responsible for almost as much total greenhouse emissions as the bottom ninety percent combined. In addition, about  half of the world population live on less than three dollars per day..There is a limit to how long this situation can last. . If this is overshot by too much, collapses become inevitable. The World’s poorest countries will be among the first affected by the effects of collapse. Syria can be an example of this. They enjoyed high productivity  rates for a time, which fuelled rapid population growth. A severe drought combined with groundwater shortages left large numbers of people unemployed and desperate. After that, existing ethnic tensions increased, creating fertile grounds for  violence. Furthermore, poor governance tipped the country into a civil war in 2011.                                                                                                                  

Apart from the Syria case, according to Homer-Dixon,the increasing occurrence of sudden or unexpected changes in the world order such as the 2008 economic crisis, Brexit or the election of Donald Trump is another sign that the world is going into/ entering a dangerous zone. Some hints might be acquired from the past for how the future will be. The process of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire is a good example of this. By the end of the 100 BC, Rome had spread across the Mediterranean. They should have stopped there because transportation by sea was economical but transportation across land was expensive and slow. But they felt empowered to expand to other regions by land. That caused costs to run up exponentially. As stated in thermodynamics, it requires energy to maintain any system, and human society is not an exception. By the 3^rd century, Rome was adding new things such as a double-sized army, a cavalry, courts, subdivided provinces just to maintain its status quo and keep from sliding backwards.

Up to now, western society has largely/ for the most part  been able to postpone similar precipitators of collapse through fossil fuels and industrial technology.  Investing in complexity as a problem-solving method is all very well but it reaches a point of diminishing returns and vulnerability to collapse. Paralleling to Rome, westerns societies’ collapse will be preceded by a retraction of people and resources back to homelands. As poorer nations continue to disintegrate amid conflicts and disasters, enormous waves of migrants will stream to more stable states. Western societies will respond to this with restrictions and the banning of immigration. They will heighten border security. Meanwhile, a widening gap between rich and poor people will push societies to further instability from inside. Europe will feel the pressure first on the grounds that it is close to the Middle East and Africa- the heart of conflicts. The   US will likely (is likely to..) hold out longer because it is surrounded by ocean buffers.  Western society is not going to face a total collapse but they will lose their friendly nature and values shaping their lives because inequity is going to explode. Randers asserts that democratic liberal society will fail while strong governments like China will be the winners.

After analysing  the process briefly, it is not difficult to say what could be done to prevent collapse. Before that, it is also important to examine why nations did not take any precautions and why they could not  understand what was happening. It is simply because of the conflict of interests between the short-term interests of the decision-making elites and the long-term interests of the society as a whole. That is, business elites were doing  advantageous things for themselves but they were to the detriment of the  whole society. Overall, turning the present unsustainable course into a maintainable course is simply the solution of that problem. That is, making rational choices, such as reducing the inequality and population growth, is the key to eradicating this problem. Using science to guide decisions, paired with extraordinary leadership and exceptional goodwill, human society can progress to higher levels of well-being. In brief, all major threats we are facing today are problems entirely of our own making. Again, we are the ones who will eradicate this. We should not forget that this is a challenging process. If we do  10 things correctly but 1 thing wrong, we may face a total collapse. We should choose what to do and implement it after thinking twice.

                                                                                                                         ENİS KAAN BİRGİN

Can Suffering Make Us Stronger?

Most of us experience a lot of grief in our life. Whether we are well-off or not has no meaning in the contex of this matter because there are many rich people feeling unbearable sorrow. As one can see, grief is part and parcel of life. It, therefore, should have a meaning concerning human life, shouldn’t it? This situation has naturally been a controversial issue among people. While some of them, including me, assert that affliction is vital for the perfect human being, some others are against this due to a variety of reasons.

To begin with, suffering enables people to gain inner strength. Nietzsche, a German philosopher, said, “That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” This is exactly true because people can learn many things from their mistakes and thus become more vigilant as Buddha said, “Your greatest enemy is your greatest teacher.” Moreover, suffering refines our character. For example, we can have great patience if we endure suffering. There are numerous humans feeling distress across the globe. It goes without saying that most people in the world ignore them. Suffering makes us more sympathetic to the distress of others as it usually raises our awareness. Additionaly, since people think that nothing experienced in life is unnecessary, they usually develop more philosophical and spiritual attitudes to life thanks to affliction.

On the other hand, opponents of the above mentioned arguments state that suffering may make us vicious. There are a multitude of hard-hearted people who had experienced a lot of  suffering before they became cruel. Had they not experienced so much grief, they wouldn’t be brutal now. As there are numerous compassionate people who experienced suffering, opponnents aren’t the case. Thus, what is the difference betwen the good and the bad? Viktor E. Frankl, one of the most important psychiatrists in the 20th century, was incarcerated  in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Luckily he survived in the camp and therefore was released. He wrote a book about his experiences  there and named it “Men’s Search For Meaning” There is a real story in the book. Frankl wrote, “When we were released, we started to walk towards down-town, and then had to pass through a field. A friend of mine didn’t hesitate to trample on the vegetables. I asked him why he behaved this way, he said to me he  had experienced so much suffering that he wouldn’t be compassionate towards anything.” In that case, why didn’t Frankl trample on the vegetables? He explained this situation as follows: however effective environmental factors are concerning being cruel or compassionate, ultimately, which characteristic we will have depends on our decisions. In other words, we are capable of being good or bad. Suffering, therefore, is a catalyst making the good more compassionate and the bad more cruel.

All things considered, the obvious conclusion to be drawn is that only if we endure hardship and suffering will they make us stronger. Moreover, we can be more successful in life thanks to them. Yaşar Nuri ÖZTÜRK, the most important thelogist in the 20th century according to The Times Magazine, asserts in his book “Reconstruction” that suffering is the driving force behind creativity and mental development. Apart from these, I am of the firm opinion that if you never experience suffering, you aren’t truly living.                         CEM KOCA