Cross Culture relationship , Naif Alshareef

Naif Alshareef 


                                                



                                                     Cross culture relationship 

      One of the consulting  website provide an article about cross culture relationship. The article discuss main problems and difficulties related to the topic and provides some tips and directory that should be taken into consideration by the couple. First, the article starts with a background information about what is culture identity. According to the article culture identity is abstracts ideas that cant been seen. It shape our life , the way we think , our vales and give us a perspective to the world. Then the article mentions mentions  some issue related to cross culture relation like religion differences ,losing identity, conflict between the couple over small things , and values.

     Then the article explicit some of the aforementioned issue like life style disagreement, religion differences, loss identity , and language barriers.Some example for the issues mentioned above: life disagreement about money and chore distribution between the couple. Also religion differences may result some conflict between the couple like life values ,and believes,raising children, and lack of family support.

     Finally the article gives some advice for cross culture relation and how the tips work and help the couple. 

     Actually i see the article very interesting to me as an experience i have been through. cross culture relationship become common with this small relation. even though the article focus on one issue but when i read it actually it open my eyes to other issue like how our culture shape out thoughts and see the world. I always wanted to see the think and understand  the world from the other perspective.from my point of view and experience, i can say the best way to solve the complicated issue of cross culture relationship is tolerance , patient , understanding and educating the couple by the problems. I have been in three cross culture relationship. and I have faced most of the problems that have been addressed by the article. For example , sometime even i speak clearly in English my partner said  i can not understand you. I figured out it was the way we communicating is different and how we obverse the ideas. Also we have disagreement even in small things like cleaning the house, money , which restaurant we have to go. I can say that both partner have critical role to make the relationship successful by understand both culture, respect , be tolerance to accept new ideas. 

   source:www.counselling

Can you control your dreams? - Jennie Viratham Poonsawat

By Jennie Viratham Poonsawat

From Can you control your dream? by Elizabeth Landau, CNN

It is rare for people to be able to control their dreams even it can happen with children more than adults. Lucid dream allows dreamers to control the plot and the ending of the dream just like when they play games. Deirdre Barrett, editor of Dreaming: The Journal of the International Association for the Study of Dreams and  psychologist at Harvard University and the Cambridge Health Alliance , suggests that there are several ways to have a lucid dream for example, reminding oneself before going to sleep about the lucid dream. In fact, according to experts, this kind of phenomenon can happen scientifically. For centuries, humans have known about lucid dreams; Tibetan Buddhists began practicing "dream yoga" more than 1,000 years ago for attaining a purer form of consciousness through lucid dreams. Sometimes, we can check whether we are dreaming or fully awake by visualizing oneself doing something in a dream, if there is no consequences then it is just a dream.  One of the famous movies by Christopher Nolan, "Inception" also relates to lucid dreaming and reality checks. In the movie, each dreamer has a "totem" to separate dream from reality like a metal top that always spins in the dream. The characters go too far then they get confused between dreams and reality, it is a sign of mental illnesses like schizophrenia. However, Barrett claims that in real life, the confusion does not appear to be a kind of illness but more likely a dream journal. But, if a person cannot distinguish between a dream and reality, he or she should consult a therapist due to the mental condition. It does not mean that the person has mental disorder but if there is a confusion like this, it will be hard to live normal life. Even so, Gary Schwartz, professor of psychology and neurology at the University of Arizona, states that it is possible that some people might get too obsessed with the lucid dream and think that it is their real life, but the case is rare. Therefore, it will be safe for ones who practice lucid dreaming to be aware of reality and dreams.

I have seen the movie "Inception" and I got confused because there were many dimensions in a dream so I didn't know which one was a dream or reality. Therefore, I watched the movie again and I realized that the clue was the "totem" which allowed the characters to distinguish between dream and reality. Afterwards, I looked up on the Internet about the kind of dreaming in the movie that was when I found out about "lucid dreaming" . This article makes the concept about lucid dreaming clearer so now, I understands more about what lucid dreaming is and how to do it.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/12/loughner.lucid.dreaming.arizona/

 

 

Video Games Can Impact Kids for Good or Ill? By: Riham Abuzinadah

May 12, 2014

I read an article about violent video games is they are good or bad for kids. It is mentioned that Children who repeatedly play violent video games are learning thought patterns that will stick with them and influence behaviors as they grow older, according to a new study. The effect is the same regardless of age, gender or culture. The lead researcher says it is really no different than learning math or to play the piano.

In my point of view, playing video games can impact on the academic skills of a child and their social skills as well, and most importantly, their view on the real world. There is a lot of violence in these games that affect children's attitudes, behavior and relationships. Video games should be banned for children meaning kids below the age 16 to prevent these tragedies from happening. In addition, it’s not only about violence; it is also about what it does to children’s body, if they play they play to long and never stop until they sleep, it effects their eyes. So, their eyesight will get weaker and their body will always feel very tired. It also loses their interest of doing other things, going outside, spending time with their family, doing school stuff and also loses interest of learning new things.

Furthermore, when children only stay indoors, they do less exercise and because of addiction sleep less. Kids used to go outside to play on their bikes or in the sand, they had a friend to whom they would play board games or simply with their toys, but this is not the case these days. Now its all video games, every where you look that is all we see. Children have got to the point where they cannot function without using one of their pieces of equipment.

Finally, It's half the parents' fault because they buy the kids game systems, and they let them in the store to buy it. Consequently, they should not get mad at the children if they bought it for them. Family should handles each game on a case-by-case basis, monitoring the content to ensure their children is protected. Besides, Parents should make decisions based on facts as the maturity level of the child and the mental stability and how they might apply to their children. Some well-grounded kids will be able to handle the games without any adverse results, while others may be influenced. Parents should know their kids.

http://psychcentral.com/news/2014/03/26/video-games-can-impact-kids-for-good-or-ill/67632.html

Do video games do more harm than good or vice versa? by Hussain

In the article "Positive and Negative Effects of Video Games" the author discusses the idea that video games could be jointly harmful or beneficial. Despite that fact that many specialists strongly assert that violent games could attribute to engage young people in violent crime, many experts point out that video games could have many virtues.

A study conducted at University of Wisconsin declares that video games are able to alter people mentality in doing things. Video games have a plethora of merits that is not available for our kids at schools. One of these merits is video games provide a stimulation for the real world, so children could practice as were they in a realistic world. Several thinking skills could be reinforced. Children will not only deal with instructions to get required information for each task in a game, but also they will have to analyze problems and find appropriate solutions. Some games required using managerial skills, and players have to manage their sources wisely in order to pass certain levels in some games.

 Likewise, some games enforce players to develop their multitasking skills and they would have to cope with a variety of tasks at once. Another study at the University of Rochester links individuals' abilities to make faster decisions with action video games and indicates these video games could be an efficient tool for military training purposes.

By contrast, video games have numerous of disadvantages. The most remarkable negative effects of video games is increasing violence in some games, containing too much violence, are affecting on players behavior among society and they react aggressively. A study published in 2001 confirmed the previous notion. Exaggeration in playing and being addicted to videos games would isolate children and they would not be active in their communities. Furthermore, some video games might incite children and adopt unacceptable values.

The author suggests a number of recommendations that could help parents to control their children behaviors toward video games. For example, monitoring the children as were they doing other activities such as watching television. Set some instructions for your children video games usage and limit the time of playing when they became careless about their homework and also the author suggests being aware of what are the appropriate video games for your children.

Misa: The Suggetions Of Language Development by Natural Selection and Evolution

Reference from: Why Language and Thought Resemble Russian Dolls
posted by Gary Stix on May 8, 2014

 

In this article, Michael Corballis, a professor emeritus at the University of Auckland, is interviewed about his book, The Recursive Mind, which is about how the human language allows for recursion. Recursion is the language process to refer words to what appears previously. For instance, we can say and understand [He [[standing over there]] is [[[a boy] who was talking with me yesterday]]]; in this sentence, the object of “he” is connected with other items, naturally mirroring what “he” is without mentioning what he is. As an additional example, recursion functions in programming, as “Ctrl+Z” means “redo”. Noam Chomsky, who is a father of modern linguistics, believes that this process can be seen only in human beings, not in other animals; moreover, he recognizes this as “great leap forward” contrary to the theory of natural selection by Charles Darwin.

Corballis says that recursion is important in that one can create entities of theoretically unlimited complexity by it. To put it simply, we can make a sentence complex as much as we want, with this grammatical beneficial process. Recursion is a fundamental element of the modern linguistics. However, Corballis has queried Chomsky on this point. In Chomsky’s view, language is an essence of our internal thought, a mental monologue, and not a means of communication, and the structure is consequently a byproduct of the use. Yet Corballis wants the evidence to support the existence of the structure, which has been unclear. He also talks about the credibility between the reality and Chomsky’s view that the recursion such as seen in internal self-talk is not by natural selection and evolution unlike incremental steps as seen in Darwinian evolution. Corballis contrarily believes the recursive principle has been developing gradually though the constant evidences to support gradual language development have not seen in the archeological record; so that, it can be seen that recursion is “a great leap forward” only seen in humans. Nevertheless, apes and dogs can learn to respond to spoken words, which suggests they have innate and mental ideas. Even we humans, develop the abstract nature of language from silent representations that have been “conventionalized” for many years by culture rather than biological components. Language depended on an adaptation toward rising social complexity and manual gesture, with the iconic structure which has been replaced by vocal gesture. Then, may recursive behaviors precede language and have they led to the appearing of language? Chomsky says that since recursion applies to I-language, which is the language to think rather than to communicate, language to communicate emerged after the “great leap forward”. However, he does not mention about it in right order. In Corballis’s opinion, recursive thoughts preceded language in broader way. As seen in creating map mentally with language, while I-language is used with internal symbols, creating map or navigating may be related to the external world more directly than the internal symbols.

Corballis has been writing about his idea further from the Chomskyan notion; to sum up, he suggest that recursion thinking precedes communicative language like Chomsky, but linguistics and behavioral evidence of human and animals suggests that recursion happened little by little by natural select and evolution.

In my opinion, Corballis's idea is correctlly fited to the evidences which have been observed in human beings and animals. In Chomsky's ideas, recursion can be seen only human beings, and it's hardly related to the language ability of other animals; consequently it happened all of a sudden. However, through my experiences, animals also have recursion; for example, birds can detect food by my peculiar voices. Recursion is to some extent supecialized to human beings, but the root is not only from "big leap forward" but also gradual natural selections and evoltion, just as human has the same root as animals.

7 Healthy Foods Turned Out to Be Unhealthy

Hisham Alshehri
By My Diet Website

7 Healthy Foods Turned Out to Be Unhealthy

There are many foods that known as good food for the body, but some of them are not really healthy. If you are on a diet or struggling to lose some weight here is some food that could be not the best for you and it is known as a good foods, and some alternative food that you can do to lose weight and eat healthier. The first food is Muesli, it is became more poplar to eat sugary cereals or fatty fried for breakfast and they thought it is a get vitamins on the morning. This idea come from the marketing of muesli is a healthy and give the body the good nutrition. The second food is Banana chips, and usually any food related to fruits or vegetable seems to be healthy. However, banana chips are frying deeply and each one contain about 10 g of saturated fat and about 150 calories. This high amount of calories can causes cholesterol to raise up, raising the risk of cardiovascular disease, and increasing the likelihood of getting diabetes. On top of that it worth nothing because it has a fewer vitamins than that can be found in the fresh banana. The third one is tuna sushi, a classic food that known as a healthy and good food, but it could be dangerous for health. While many people eat tuna sushi as low fat food and calories, it could have excess of mercury. Try to avoid eating tuna sushi more than six ounces per week because it contain high amount of mercury and that develop mercury toxicity which can leads to weakness, sleepiness, weak memory, high blood pressure, anxiety and abdominal pain. The fourth type of unhealthy food is energy bars which became more poplar these days. It seems to tend to enhance the brain and help diet system, and also you can buy it in many health stores. Most energy bars have at least 500 calories which can be worse than candies. That amount of calories equal a dinner or lunch and it will not makes feel full. In addition, it contains a sugar that tends to be shockingly. The fifth kind is trail mix, it contains a lot of nuts and dried fruits, and usually people use it as helpful for diet and healthy, but actually mostly it is contain much sugar and covered by nuts, corn, and fried banana chips. Serving a couple of trail mix could contains up 600 calories, much amount of fat, and sugar. If you want trail mix, try to find one contains all from nuts and some dried fruits, or try to do it at home which is not that hard to make at home. The sixth type is the salad that served in restaurant. While salad is healthy, but sometimes it can turned to be not such as burger. That because of the high amount of fat and calories that come from mayonnaise, oil, and fatty flakes of Parmesan cheese. Last type of healthy food that could be unhealthy is reduced fat yogurts. Reduced fat yogurts are tend to be taste not good, so many companies choose to add more sugar to compensate the reduced fat and give taste better.  

In my opinion, all of these foods that mentions in this article never thought that is bad for our health, and many people are unaware of that. These kinds of foods became more poplar nowadays because people are busy with their jobs and study, and its much faster to buy it.

http://www.mydiet.com/7-healthy-foods-that-turned-out-to-be-unhealthy/?utm_campaign=english&utm_medium=ppc&utm_source=taboola&utm_content=articles&utm_term=listverse

5 Easy Ways to Make Your Mother Happy

Hisham Alshehri
By Alex Garden

5 Easy Ways to Make Your Mother Happy

We couldn't reach our goal if there is no support from our parents. Mother is the most helpful person of us to reach our dreams to become true.  Besides she taking care of us, mother also is the first person who taught us about this life and most important rules. The only thing the mother wants to see in her children is to be successful. Here in this article, Alex tells us best and easiest ways to give back some of her favors by making her happy. As usual, some people think that the best idea to make your mother happy is to give her cards, or flowers .It is very good idea because women love the flowers especially if they are from her children, and it is a good way to describe the feeling with flowers and make her happy, but also there are more other idea can be more effective.  The First way is to arrange an adventure or a trip. The mothers don’t like to sit in the house on chair all the day, the mothers like to go and hangout to change their routine of sitting in home. Moms love to have fun and hangout, so you could take her hike, taking some beer, and listen to music on the road. You can also surprise her right before the weekend by arrange a trip to the beach for example. Also, you can go to a different place that you and she didn't used to visit or a place she always wants to go but she couldn't before. Second way of making the mother happy is whistle up a surprise. Try to understand your mother about the things she enjoy to do and the things she likes, and find the times that she is usually free such as Sunday afternoon. Then arrange a good surprise such as a class of cooking if you can guess that your mother likes cooking. As Dr. Amy Przeworski say, the mother will be excited if you arrange something that she likes and surprise her.  Third way is to share with her your favorite things. Moms like to be engaging in the things that you interested in. You don’t have to let her know everything, but you could tell her your favorite hobbit such as reading. The forth way is make some times for her, your mother really wants to sit with you alone and have some moments with you. One moment by one moment lead to strong connection. Fifth way of making your mother happy is to reschedule if necessary. If you live far distance from your mother, it is not bad to tell her to arrange other time to meet her and your mom will understand if you have an inability to spend a day with her.

I’m totally agreed with the author about his ideas. The best way to give the mother back the favors is to make her happy and help her. Gift and flowers they effected on the mother and make her happy, but the mother really needs her son to be with her, help her in her older ages, and make her happy. The ideas of Alex are very amazing and they can effect very deeply in the mother. I will add one point which is to be in touch with her always and tell her your last news even if you live far from her you can keep call her.

http://menshealthmags.com/best-life/5-easy-ways-make-your-mom-happy

Crazy habit--Wendi Fan

In the article "Shopping for Clothes" Curtis and Spencer talk about their fashion style and the clothes they like to buy and wear. There are three main points they mentioned in the dialogue. The first and foremost is that whether spend much money on clothes or not. Both of them don't take a lot to buy clothes, because they have enough clothes to wear and most of them won't be wear out easily. Sometimes they will buy something they really like to recycle the current clothes. The second one is about the clothes style they like. Spencer has so many shoes to wear in different case, while Curtis has endless T shirts. Therefore they can show others a different style every day. The last thing is about shopping habit. Spencer likes to buy many different colors but the same things.

The topic reminds me of a crazy phenomenon in China. When I worked in China, almost all of female around me had the habit of shopping online. From toothpaste to kitchen pot, from coat to underwear and also including furniture, we can buy everything from internet. Kinds of promote activities make us to surf net shops every day, especially on Chinese traditional festivals. To save only￥5 when purchasing one more thing make us lost much. When we check the spending list at the end of the year, we found that we had losing so much money on clothes. The amount surprised us a lot, because we even cannot imagine how much money we deed earned one year! Then the fact that almost everyone did so relaxes us entirely, since main online shopping websites such as taobao, Jingdong Mall and Chinese amazon were full of net citizen. Some products you should buy it in limited time, even in 30 seconds, you should finish all the purchase processes within the time. Actually we will send admire expression to the successful girl, because it is really hard to get what everyone wants to in a national wide. This really likes an exciting race. Intermittent network, slow express delivery and the huge transaction amount make me realize that online shopping has become a crazy habit for Chinese. What a stupid habit it is! Now I think about it, this action just likes internet games, we spend a lot, otherwise usually get something useless. Limited time and cheaper goods make us to fail to think it over. Maybe it is the function of advertisement, or the business designers have grasped female consumers' psychology.

Source from http://www.elllo.org/english/1251/1300-Spencer-Curtis-Clothing-Quirks.htm

New Trick: Pups Can Follow Human Voices to Food - Jennie Viratham Poonsawat

By Jennie Viratham Poonsawat

From New Trick: Pups Can Follow Human Voices to Food by Stephanie Pappas, Senior Writer  

Dogs are one of the smartest animals especially when they are puppies. The puppies know how to follow their owners' action to get food like the direction of human voices, pointing finger as well as human gazes, in other words, they understand human gesture. These little ones become a part of human life, they are like friends to human. It appears that dogs are more capable of reading human gesture and feelings when they live with human because the dogs will learn from their owners, the closer they are, the more things dogs will learn.

In a study by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, dogs were tested on the type of communication. The experimenter used the voice to indicate food instead of using  gesture or gaze. The researchers placed two boxes in front of a wooden barrier, one with food and one without, and the experimenter stood behind the barrier and turned the face towards the food-filled box, saying, "Oh, look, look there, this is great!"  It appeared that more than half of the dogs chose the correct box which contained food even they could not smell the food in those boxes. The researchers conducted another study to see if this smartness of dogs are innate or learned, the study included 16 puppies of  8-14 weeks. The puppies went through the same test in the first study and the result showed that these young ones performed better than adult dogs, they found the food at an average of 8.1 out of every 12 tries. Although, puppies made mistakes at the first times, they learned and could catch on very fast especially for dogs who have good interactions with human.

This article shows how smart dogs especially puppies can be. Normally, dogs are considered very important in human life like a friend and they are also loyal to their owners. I have two dogs in my house, one Chihuahua and one Pomeranian so when I read this article, I kind of understand this smartness. Dogs are clever and learn very fast, sometimes, it takes only a few days to train or to teach a dog. Now, I realize how dogs are capable of understanding human emotions when their owners are happy, sad or angry because they can listen to the tone of voice, look at the gesture as well as the gaze.

http://www.livescience.com/45398-puppies-follow-human-voices.html

 

Impacts of Social media - Ashwag Gashgari - Week 2

In the article "Social Media - A Good Thing or a Bad Thing?," Ali, cites that any new technology has positive and negative sides, and it is really depend on your using to this technology, he also notes about the general impacts of social media; for instance, how business companies use some of the social medias as a way to promote their product; in the same time, it effect badly to the companies when their employees distract with these forgoing sites and he also remarks that these sites in hand lead to addiction.

 In addition, he mentions some of the advantages of social media on relationships: how social media make it easier and possible for people to communicate with their friends who were out of touch, such as high school friends, friends you met them in vacation, and even with friends across the worlds, and also how can we use these social media to express our feeling, hobbies, or even trips with others.

Moreover, he explains the other side of social media which lead many of people to be more isolated and less communicating with others.

From my view in point, I believe that this article is interested to me, since, it is related to my major Computer Science, in addition, it is really important to see the forgoing impacts of the technology that dominate it our life, because now people can't live without technology; it became one of our fundamentals. For me and most of the international students, it became a need so we can communicate with our friends and families in the other side of the world, I agree with the author when he said that it makes us more isolated and less communicated in the real world; due to the fact that, any gathering even if it was a party, wedding, or funeral you see most of the people busy with their cell phones rather than spending time talking face to face, so we become more comfortable talking behind the screens, however, any thing has its own advantages and disadvantages you choose your own path and how it can be used (2012, August 08).

the link: http://socialmediatoday.com/syed-noman-ali/608781/social-media-good-thing-or-bad-thing

Obesity in Children - Ashwag Gashgari - week 3

In the article "Causes and Consequences of Childhood Obesity", Daneman, remarks that, childhood obesity is sharply increased in the past decades, this is a significant issue, because obesity in childhood raise the potentiality to be obese adults; in addition, it has connected to higher health problems in the future, and also it has linked to future psychosocial problems. Moreover, he states some causes of obesity and he mentions that obesity gains because the combination of many causes, some of them are genes and environments, studies show that genes play a role in the obesity, and with the less physical activity and the bad food habit it would increase obesity. However, children don't have an awareness or control on their habits, they just follow their families system.  

Furthermore, he mentions some ways to prevent obesity, starting by changing the whole family system by eating more healthier food, exercising more, spending less time watching TV, and disturbing the a awareness to the societies, and because of the huge number of families who are too busy to cook or even don't know their good choices, or live in a bad neighborhood which will prevent them from exercising or playing, the percentage number of obesity in children raising dramatically. 

Finally, he ends his article by discussing some programs that help to eliminate or reduce obesity in society, and yes it will not be easy and it will need a massive effort, but we could change our habit and spread the a awareness among people, as Daneman (2007) have explained, the process of decreasing the percentage of the obesity in children is seems hard or even impossible "But collectively, we have achieved other massive societal changes that seemed impossible at the start" (para .14), as the author notices that people should have an awareness of the essence of obesity in our children life, and try to find the causes, the future consequences, and fight or find solutions to this disease.

In my opinion, I found this article useful and connected to me, due to the fact that I was an obese child and I grew up to be an obese women, people especially parents should make attention to this problem because most of the obese children grew up to be obese adults like me, it really affect my life and I suffered from it and I believe it was one of the causes for my Asthma, and I tried a lot to lose weight and be more healthier, however, I failed many times, so I refuge to the sleeves surgery and I lost until now 69 pounds, am not encouraging people to attempt surgery but I am trying to show the message here to start have an attention to this problem and try our best with our children.

the link|:

http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/en/news/columns/paediatricianscorner/pages/causes-and-consequences-of-childhood-obesity.aspx

Naif Alshareef 

Five stages of Second Language acquisition 



   In one of the article published online by Concorida univeristy " 5 stages of second language acquisition" the writers explains how is it difficult for learners of second language to learners speaking and writing comparing with the native language. The learners may face anxiety at the beginning.

    The author also Provides five stages to acquire the second language and address the theory of the famous linguist Stephen Krashen 

    The the first stage which is the silent stage. This stage the learners  starts to learn new vocabulary and talk with basic structure and practice self-speaking.The second stage is early production. at this stage the learn gain more vocabulary and speak with  basic correct grammar.The third stage which is speech emergence. at this stage the learners learn more from the reading and speak more phrases and communicate better. the Forth and fifth stages is more fluent and needs couples of years until the second language learner become like naive speaker.

  As i studied linguistics and i am a big fan of the linguist Stephen Krashen, I started to  observe this theory on my friends who came to Riverside and begin to learn English as beginners. Actually i see how the theory is accurate . However, i also can see how the first language culture affects some of language acquisition. For Example, some students can go through the first two stages faster than other students of because  of the first language  which their culture has talkative environment.Although it is true it takes long period of time for second language learners to be fluent, it differ from learn  to another. some learners has social skills which make them learn faster.


source: http://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/news/five-stages-of-second-language-acquisition/

Should Companies Allow Social Media at Workplace? by Hussain

In the article "The Debate about Blocking Social Media in theWorkplace" Shel Holtz, specialist in communication and technology, states that companies should not band social media at workplace due to several reasons. For example, banding social networking at workplace would cost companies a lot of money. Another reason is when staff can access social media, there will not be any negative influences on their productivity. Further, there are benefits to condone using social media at workplace because business tends to rely on the internet in the future. Holtz    argues that there no benefit if employers band social media at workplace because everyone today has smartphone, so the band will not solve the problem and it will cost more money. However, Holtz mentions that company should concentrate on employees' productivity. A study was conducted by Brent L.S Coker, a lecturer at the University of Melbourne (2011), shows that employees with social media access are more productive than those employees without social media access. Holtz points out that there are always some employees who waste some of their work hours even if they do not use social media and those are exceptions. Supervisors need to treat these exception.

Productivity is a crucial factor for firms in order to maximize its earnings and senior managers of businesses have serious concerns about potential issues of using social media which could adversely affect business operations. Therefore, senior managers do not advocate and resist using social media at workplace because social media hinders employees’ productivity which leads to some loses for firms. However, Holtz's view is opposite as he mentions in his article, there is a study shows positive influences on employees productivity, using social media at workplace.

From my point of view, one study is inadequate to generalize the idea that social media has positive effects. We need intensive studies to measure social media effects in wide ranges not only in certain work environments but also in various types of work environments and fields. For example, in service sectors perhaps social media plays effective roles because employees would communicate better with customers through social media. As a result, employees' productivity could increase and these employees would take social media advantages. On the other hand, in gas and oil sector using social media probably do nothing to increase employees' productivity and also it could adverse result. I remember my friend who is working in gas's company when he told about how it is risky to use cellphone at workplace. It could cause a large explosion. Therefore, I would not agree with Holtz about social media because we need to determine what kind of workplaces that social media would enhance their work environment and their productivity.

Police: No foul play seen in Texas roller coaster death/ By Riham

May 4, 2014

By: Riham 

Police: No foul play seen in Texas roller coaster death 

I read an article on CNN.com about tragic death of woman while riding the Texas giant roller coaster at six flags, Texas. Witnesses say she fell during a steep turn. The Dallas Morning News confirms that the woman had expressed concern to a park employee that she was not properly secured in her seat. The security bar did lock and she did raise a complaint about not being safe, but the park employee said it’s safe. Some witnesses say that she was overweight maybe the security bar did not lock because of that. The Texas Giant was originally designed in 1990 as an all-wooden roller coaster. It was redesigned with a steel track and reopened in April 2011 to mark the theme park's 50th anniversary. The roller coaster is 153 feet at its highest point. According to a statement released by the Arlington Police Department "At this point of the investigation, it does not appear there was any foul play or criminality associated with this tragic incident”. The ride has been closed for further investigation.

Many members of my family and friend like riding roller coaster, and I have been many times to six flags, California. This article makes me have concerns about the safety of riding roller coaster. I think they should be more careful not only about the high limit for the riders but also about the weight limit. However, whether she was overweight or not. She died and it was a tragedy.

In addition, There are risks anytime you choose to ride a thrill ride... this tragedy should never have happened but, as we all know, humans were involved and 100% safety can never be assured as a result. If you choose to ride, then you choose to expose yourself to at least a minimum risk, but losing a loved one in an event that was supposed to be fun must be completely shattering. Our modern world has evolved through science, rational thought and investigation. Also, some of the people want to try to make it like it had nothing to do with the ride, even if she did had some medical emergency before she fell, what does that matter? Medical emergency or not, the rides are supposed to be safe no matter what; they want to try to preserve the ride by trying to bring in some random medical emergency nonsense.

Finally, I would like to say that 90% of the people ride the roller coasters just to prove to themselves (and also others) that they are brave and "enjoy" these rides like others. I strongly believe that they fake it, and there are better ways to enjoy life.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/20/us/texas-roller-coaster-death/index.html#disqus_thread