Introduction Online gaming has today become a prevalent force in the youth communities of the world. Once regarded as a niche market populated by anti-social nerds, online gaming has since blossomed into a multi-million dollar industry.
However, as with virtually everything popular, the world of online gaming has its fair share of problems also.
Among these problems lie the issue of addiction. One could argue that with everything enjoyable comes the danger of being addicted to it; there are people addicted to food, to cigarettes, to illegal drugs, and even more unmentionable things; why not something as easily accessible as online gaming?
Addiction to online gaming is fairly easy to understand in terms of cause and effect.
A good game has elements in it such as item-finding (the process of repeating a quest or killing monsters etc. in order to attempt the procurement of useful, rare, and highly sought after items) or the repeating of a particularly enjoyable activity such as leading a group hunt (some of which can last for a few hours at one shot).
These elements then serve to entice users into repeating them over and over again, whether for the virtual materialistic rewards of rare items, or for the thrill and high of being a member of an elite hunting party.
Once a user comes to rely on these elements for satisfaction, it becomes a very real possibility that he or she focuses almost solely on such elements daily, and in time give up other aspects of his or her past life in order to devote even more time for his or her virtual satisfaction.
These then, are very real problems faced by the ever growing community of online gamers, and these problems are growing by the day.
Indeed, it isn't hard for one to understand just how addictive such games can be when one hears of the case of a toddler who died of neglect while her parents were engrossed in playing Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft, a game highly criticized for being addictive to the point where many of its users degenerate into mindless, lifeless gamers who's existence is soley focused on the game itself. |
Discuss the impact of drug abuse on youths.Contributed by Russelltj
Although illegal, drugs have still managed to stay around and in this day and age, people, especially youths have found drugs very available. My topic is to discuss the impact of drug abuse on youths, both physical and mental hazards, and also the impact it has on the teens’ school performance.
Resource Used: (2006) The health effects of teen drug use. Retrieved April 7, 2008 from http://teendrugabuse.us/teendruguse.html
The resource I used was very informative, even though it was not professionally done, it was above average and it covered the physical and mental effects the drug has on the youths, such as paranoia, hallucination, violent behavior, serious coughs, wheezing, frequent colds and others. It also included the effects it took on the kids’ school performance, like steady dropping of grades and even dropping out of school, it had all the information that I needed for my research. The website was sponsored by two well-known companies which made the content of the website credible. The facts were accurate and there were no grammatical, spelling and typographical errors. With a navigation bar, the website is very user-friendly, easily explored, written in layman’s term with scientific names available making it understandable by all readers.
In my personal opinion, certain drugs are as dangerous as the user wants it to be. Sure there are very strong drugs that pose a definite addiction problem and violent behavior, drugs like cocaine and PCP, and can do more harm to the user than other drugs, but all drugs taken in large amount of doses is considered drug abuse, illegal or not. For example, there are cases that kids get “high” through taking a large dose of cough mixture, something that is very available and helps people with their sickness can get you ‘high’ when taken in a different dose. It is the user’s choice and responsibility to understand the health hazards. Same goes for the illegal drugs, it is the user’s responsibility to know what he/she is doing and know how much to take.
Discuss the developments in Internet Social Network Services Contributed by Kenneth Tay
Introduction Internet social network service, a service which have gained immense popularity over the recent years. Internet social network services refers to websites like Friendster, Facebook and Multiply. From simple webpages which allowed you to look for friends, upload photographs and write testimonials for others, the technology for internet social network services have grown to having applications to allow streaming of music, playing both web-based and non-web-based games with other users, video and instant messaging.
These internet social network services allow great ease of searching for old classmates, meeting new friends and also updating on the current trends of your friends.
I have found a website which gives current and upcoming developments in the technology of these internet social network services.
Resource used: Mashable! the social networking blog (2006). Retrieved April 10, 2008 from World Wide Web: http://mashable.com
Summary of the Resource The resource shows the ins and outs of these internet social network services. With some articles even stating about how these websites manage to survive despite fierce compeition among one another.
An example quoted in the article, “If you have quite a few friends on Facebook, FriendFolio, which has its official launch tomorrow, wants to be your guide as to how much they’re worth. Launched by London-based application builder BAPPZ, FriendFolio does on the Web precisely what investors in the real world cannot do, which is: buy, sell, and trade friends. (At least not overtly, anyway.) That’s right, no more equality for all. None of that utopian, world-is-flat garbage. The developers behind FriendFolio consider if Facebook users’ right to place one another on a marketplace gauged in dollars and cents and strategize their way to higher-than-thou status."
A new application for FaceBook would be allowing you to trade your friends. Although this may sound ridiculous, it actually allows you to get to know more people.
I personally feel that this website, Mashable, has alot of information about developments that even users of the internet social network services may not know about and is thus, useful. |
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| Discuss the impact of terrorism on the world economy contributed by Matthew Khong
It has been argued that terrorism should not have a large effect on economic activity,because terrorist attacks destroy only a small fraction of the stock of capital of a country. How true is that? The web resource in a form of a report i used, seeks to show and prove to others how terrorism can directly affect the global market, by using a series of case studies, and by accounting calculations that will determine the GDP of a country's economy.
Resource used :Abadie.A and Javier.G (2005, October). “Terrorism and the world economy, homepage.” Retrieved March 25, 2008 from World Wide Web: http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~aabadie/twe.pdf
The resource i used in my study and understanding of this topic as very well published, as it gave readers informative and subjective overviews of the economic situations the global market is facing. After reading it, i concluded that the purpose of the web resource was to inform others what is currently taking place in the world economy. I felt that this web resource was useful and creditable as it was posted onto Harvard university's online library resource.
The report basically covers facts and figures of the effects the economy took, when it plunged into a downturn in 2001, when the terrorist act took place in US, where the world trade centre was brought down by planes crashing into them. The facts and figures were taken from various important organizations as cited, and are very likely accurate, and true.
My take on this topic after going through so much research is that, terrorism does affect the global market even if it is not being carried out. factors such as black markets, restrict the potential of the economy to take flight, as crude oil, which can be found mostly in terror-stricken countries are sold at a much cheaper price to the locals in return for them to resell it at a price much higher than what they got it for. This affects and upsets the trade industry, as most of the money generated from trade alone comes from this natural resource. Terrorism is a big threat, not only to mankind himself, but also it preys on many others in these situations. So in conclusion, simply put it. They are just like locusts. Wipe them out, and enjoy good harvest. |
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Discussion on the developments of AIDS/Cancer research
Contributed by Shane
Educating - Raising HIV Awareness - Building Community
URL : http://www.aids.org/
Introduction
| | AIDS has been a deadly killer for generations and yet humans are not able to find a cure for this virus. How does this affect you? Must you be a victim to be affected by the effects and harms of AIDS? People around always thought if i dont have AIDS, i am fine and i won't be affected by this killer which is killing millions. I believe it is a good topic to research as it teaches me new things and educate me about the danger and harm AIDS can do to a person’s life. I feel that all teenagers should learn more about this killer virus and its effect on society. | Resource Used : Aids.org. (2007). “Educating – raising hiv awareness – building community.” Retrieved March 25, 2008 from http://www.aids.org/
I learnt alot from the website as there is alot of good FAQs in the website. The website gives good links to other pages which provides alot of resource for the user to learn about AIDS and its harm. The links are up to date and informative. It is a good website to learn alot of information from, it can be a starting ground for people who have no idea on what is AIDS and the developments on it.
I feel that the data on AIDS has no limits, imagine scientists have been researching it for generations and generations since it first came out. The amount of data collected would be huge! But there are alot of things to learn from database of AIDS. There are times which i think it would be even harder to study this then a degree on a certain subject itself. |
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