Emmalyne – Social Problems

Youtube was created in 2005 by three formal PayPal employees and is a website whereby people can upload and watch video clips. People do not need to be registered to watch videos on the site, but registered users can upload videos to share and those who are 18 and above can watch videos which are not suitable for the young.

Youtube can changed the use of Internet completely, and how people spend their time on the internet. One can find practically anything and everything on Youtube in the form of videos. Of the videos Americans viewed online, 30.6% of all videos viewed are at Youtube, and the second ranking site, Fox Interactive Media videos make up 4.4%. There is a huge gap between the percentage of the first ranked and the second, which goes to show that Youtube is highly popular amongst internet users. The same trend has been seen all over the world as well. Online viewers also spend alot of time watching Youtube videos, an average of 195 mins per month.

Youtube has become a platform for Artistes to post promotional videos, and for businesses to advertise their products as well. Sean Diddy Combs, an artiste and businessman, has chosen to launch his fragrance, Unforgivable Woman, campaign on Youtube as he felt that it was a great platform to reach out to many people. It is one of the many business corporations that have chosen Youtube as a platform to advertise their products.

Furthermore, some singers, for example, one rock band, Journey, has used Youtube to search for a replacement singer when their lead singer fell ill. Teenagers have also been posting videos of themselves singing or playing different instruments to showcase their talent. One example would be Marie Digby, a teenager started to post videos of herself singing in 2007, and has been quite popular and has 100,000 subscribers and her homemade music videos have been viewed over 8.2 million times. Due to her talent and popularity,  she has been signed on by Rudor Music and has recorded an album of her own.

However, even though it has been very beneficial for the people who make use of Youtube for their own benefits, many users have posted videos that are obscene and vulgar. Even though there is a minimum age requirement to view such videos, I feel that it is not enough censorship for the younger users. It is very easy to set up an account and state ur age as above 18 as there are no checks done to ensure that the user is really of a suitable age to view such contents.

Furthermore, there are other spin offs of youtube such as Xtube which is an adult video hosting website. It states that users have to be 18 and above, but they do not do anything else to make sure that the users are really 18 and above.

The younger users are easily influenced and such videos are not suitable for them. I feel that more has to be done to ensure that the younger users stay away from such content. Parents need to do their part to educate their children and check that the children do not watch such videos that are obscene, violent and not suitable for young children or the younger users. It is important to filter such videos watched by the younger users and younger children.

While watching the movie during last week’s lecture, I realized that the spread of disease nowadays and the actions taken were so different from the past. Thus, I would like to compare two epidemics that happened in two different periods, the smallpox virus in the 1950s and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2002.

            Smallpox is a virus that is infectious and is caused by two viruses, Variola major and Variola minor. Smallpox is said to have started since 10,000 B.C in Africa. During the 20^th century, smallpox has caused a death toll of about 300 to 500 million deaths and in the 1950s, about 50 million cases of smallpox occurred in the world each year! The vaccination for smallpox was found only in 1976, which is almost 12,000 years later.

            Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is a respiratory disease in humans and happened in November 2002. It stated in the Guangdong province of China. There are 8,096 known infected cases and it has caused 774 deaths. The vaccination was found in July 2003.

            We can see here that there are distinct differences in the rate of spread of disease, the time taken for the discovery of vaccination, death toll, and the scale of the disease.

For the smallpox virus, it was spread mainly by merchants who were constantly traveling from one part of the world to another to trade. Their main mode of transport was by land or sea. Therefore, the spread of disease from one place to another was slower. However, along the way, they have many stop points and the number of people they come in contact with was more too. The SARS virus was spread by the people who were traveling from the Guangdong province in China to Hong Kong, which has an airport for international flights. Thus, the spread of virus to the other countries was much faster as compared to the smallpox virus.  In the modern day, people are more mobile and the amount of time spent from traveling from one part of the world to another was much shorter and they take a maximum of a day or more to travel to far off places. However, in the past, the amount of time spent to travel from one part to another takes months or even years.

Another difference would be the amount of time needed to create the vaccine. The SARS virus was able to be contained and eradicated in less than a year due to the technological and medical advancements, but for the smallpox virus, it was only eradicated in 1976, which was about 12,000 years from the first breakout of smallpox. The time taken to create a vaccine has direct relation to the number of deaths caused.  The shorter the time taken to create the vaccine, the lesser the number of deaths. 

Globalization is the main factor in the drastic difference we see from the smallpox epidemic and the SARS epidemic. Technological advancements has helped greatly in the finding of the vaccine in such a short period of time. Even for the other epidemics such as the avian flu, it was able to be contained in a very short period of time and not affect as much people. However, technological advancements in the transportation industries, especially the aviation industry, has also aggravated the spread of the disease. It has caused the virus to be spread at a much faster rate to many countries. In future, the duration of epidemics might even be shorter when researchers are able to find vaccines faster in this world of rapid technological advancement. 

Origins of Urbanization

Urbanization has been happening ever since the 18th century due to industrial revolution. At that time, which was the beginning of industrial revolution, only 3% of the world’s population were living in city areas. In the 1900s, there were thirteen cities that has populations exceeding 1 million. Other than Tokyo, all the other cities were in Europe and North America, which are mostly the western countries. Now, almost half of the world’s population live in city areas and the largest cities in the world are Tokyo, New York, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Mexico City, Osaka, Manila, Mumbai and Jakarta. As we can see, majority of the top ten most populous cities are in Asia, and not in Europe or North America.

The causes of urbanization has been largely linked to economic reasons and to improve one’s standard of living in the past. Majority of the movement is from rural areas to urban areas. Cities are portrayed to be full of better economic activities and people from less developed parts of the country would want to migrate there as the wealth of the country is centralised there. It would be a good opporunity for them if they are able to find a job there. Furthermore, cities have better facilities and amenities that they do not have in the rural areas.

Is urbanization a boon or bane then?

I feel that urbanization is a bane for many cities socially. Urbanization would inevitably increase the number of people coming into the country, be it from the rural areas or the other urban areas. This would result in overcrowding of the city area and there is a constant flow of people into the cities, but there is only so much space a city has. The city would not be able to provide enough job opportunities and even housing or basic sanitation for the people. This would mean that many who come to the cities in hopes to seek better employment or job opportunities would be left jobless and homeless.

One example I can give is Mumbai, India. Mumbai is one of the megacities. many rural migrant in Mumbai are unable to find adequate work and thus they cannot afford decent housing. According to the World Bank, about 54 per cent of Mumbai’s resident live in slums. Thats about close to 8 million people living in slums. Other cities in India, such as Delhi and Calcutta, are also experiencing the same problems as well. Almost everywhere with a spare piece of land in Mumbai is turned into slums, and it has become unsightly as the slums are just beside train tracks and highways and even sidewalks.

These rural migrants are lowly skilled and are most likely not able to find jobs that pay alot. Thus, they would be trapped in this viscious cycle or poverty and they would not be able to higher their standards of living unless they are able to improve their skills or educational attainment. Slum conditions are poor and the residents there do not even have basic amenities such as clean water, sanitation and lighting, thus the residents have poor quality of life.

The city has to deal with this pressing problem as the number of slums would increase and the overall quality of life of the city would drastically drop if they do not take action. Since 54% of the Mumbai population is living in slums, it is important to take immediate action. The slum areas are also breeding ground for diseases such as tubercolosis. The city should first provide the slum residents with the basic amenities to ensure that their health is taken care of and they have a close to decent standard of living. The city needs to take action fast as Mumbai’s population would constantly grow and if they do not solve the problems of the slums now, it might be to late in future when the problem becomes larger scale.

Identity is who we are and it has been constructed by various elements, that are historical, geographical, biological and so on. These elements shape us to be who we are, and allows us to form our own unique identity. How exactly is one’s identity formed?

The formation of one’s identity is the process whereby an individual develops a unique personality which is regarded as a persisting entity in a stage of their life. These characteristics are what defines the person and allows him to be recognized by establishing a reputation for himself.  Identity formation allows one to see himself as a separate individual from the rest through individuation.

There are many types of identity, such as cultural identity, ethnic identity, nation identity, religious identity and gender identity. These types of identity are similar as an individual identifies himself based on the group he is in, depending on the characteristics of the groups. He might have picked up characteristics from the different groups and make them his own characteristics and thus forms his own unique identity.

In a country like Singapore whereby we have different ethnic groups and religious groups present, it is likely that Singaporeans are influences by the different ethnic and religious characteristics as we have constantly in contact with people of a different race or religion. We are lucky that in Singapore, people of different race and religion do not discriminate each other and we do not have wars or riots due to hatred for one another. Furthermore, there are very little cases on sex discrimination as women are given equal opportunities as men in terms of education and job opportunities.

However, there are many countries that are still experiencing such discrimination due to race, religion and sex. The most prevalent form of discrimination would be sex and race discrimination. One example would be the United Kingdom, where there are 22,000 complaints of discrimination on grounds of sex and race in 2005. It is important that the people who are being discriminated against step up and make a claim and fight for their rights. Many who are discriminated against do not know where to make a claim and some are afraid and scared to do so. Therefore, everyone should be informed of the forms of discrimination and identify themselves. The more common form of sex and race discrimination happens during recruitment. Many companies discriminate by simply stating in their job vacancies advertisements the requirements, which would already discriminate those who are equally as qualified in terms of educational attainment but to not meet the requirements, such as sex and language. Many are also discriminated in terms of promotional opportunities in their jobs.

Countries should ensure that their people are entitled equal rights by setting up organizations or departments which deal with these matters. For example in UK, an Equal Opportunities Commision was set up and leaflets are distributed to increase the awareness of discrimination. Many countries can do the same as well to try to minimize the problem of discrimination.

Discrimination is a result of identity and it is inevitable as people are ethnocentric and they would tend to discriminate others who are of a different culture, race or religion from them. It is not something that can be changed easily as it is due to one’s mindset. However, much can still be done be minimize the impact of problems resulting from the formations of identity, such as discrimination.

In a country like Singapore where we are given equal rights regardless of our race, religion or gender, we often do not think much about the issue of human rights as it is not something we will experience in everyday life. We are given equal opportunities based on meritocracy.

The U.N. has drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, but there are countries who oppose to this movement, such as China and the United States. China sees this movement violates its sovereignty, and does not consider China’s cuilture and history. United States also views this movement as a violation to its sovereignty and worry that politically motivated actions would be taken against them. Since the two major countries have refused the movement, how then are we supposed to ensure that the people in these two countries, China and the United States, are given equal human rights and are not exploited or violated?

Several independent non-profit organizations have been set up to help these people who are not given equal rights, and help to educate the people about human rights, and prevent it from happening. People need to know about human rights, and the rights that can be empowered, fight for justice and thus stop the abuse. Two such organizations, WITNESS and Youth for Human Rights International, are founded in Los Angeles and are independent, non-profit organizations that do these.

WITNESS is an organization that makes use of video and online technologies to educate the world on the violation of human rights and help these people to fight for justice. It was founded in 1992 by musician and activistn Peter Gabriel and the Reebok Human Rights Foundation. WITNESS partners help to fight for the rights of indegenous people and work toward ending the gender violence and the use of children as soldiers and for environmental protection where human communities are in dire conditions. They would help to campaign and bring about change in the community. WITNESS’s campaigns have helped to make several policy changes in places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal, Mexico, Sierra Leone and the United States.

Youth for Human Rights International is another organization holds events to raise awareness of human rights. It works with various professionals to encourage youths to learn and champion human rights. The organization’s aim is to familiarize the youths everywhere with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights so that they know and insist on their rights. It also organizes seminars for youths so that they can come together and discuss the various issues regarding human rights. It has also published a UNITED Human Rights Handbook to aid in the familiarization of human rights amongst the youths.

These two organizations makes use of different ways to help raise awareness of the human rights problem in the United States as well as all over the world. It is important for the people to first understand the rights that they are entitled to before they realize that they are being violated, and thus they can fight for justice and fight for equal human rights. Many people are violated because they are ignorant or not well educated on their own rights. People of higher power thus exploit these people and deny them their rights. More of such organizations should be set up as to decrease the cases of human exploitations and abuse. It is important to educate and help the children as they are the future leaders of tomorrow and they can achieve so much more if they are given equal chances for education, and are not exploited to work in factories or as child soldiers.

Terrorism is commonly known as inflicted fear in victims and the use of violence for political reasons. Acts of terrorism are usually large scale and tend to hurt a lot of people in the process, physically, mentally and emotionally. The scale is important as to create a huge impact.

I never knew what terrorism was in the past until the September 11 attacks in 2001. I remember I was 12 then and was watching the live reports on the attacks on CNN. That was the first time I got to understand what terrorism was. For most people in Singapore, terrorism would have been an unknown concept because we usually take the peace we enjoy here in Singapore for granted. 911 was the most large scale attack I’ve known and it introduced the concept of terrorism to most people who were ignorant in the past.  

There are many forms of terrorism present. The one that most of us are familiar with would be the use of violence and explosives to kill the victims. Another form of terrorism would be biological terrorism and cyber terrorism. I would like to elaborate more on cyber terrorism.

Many people would think of terrorism as violent acts and such but there is another form of terrorism that is unlike the one we are familiar with. This form of terrorism is cyber terrorism.

With such rapid technological advances in the world today, and the growing number of internet users, the internet has become the fastest and easiest mode of communication and transmitting information to one another. Many are able to access the internet with the use of satellite devices and the internet covers more than 150 countries in the world. Therefore, using computers and electronic networks as a base for terrorism would increase the scale of terrorism tremendously, which is what terrorists aim for. The terrorist are able to send viruses to the computers using the internet and even hack into government computer systems.

As portrayed in the movie, Die Hard 4 .0 (Live Free or Die Hard), the cyber terrorists get highly confidential information by hacking into the FBI’s computer system and led to a breach of the FBI facility’s computer system. The terrorists are able to manipulate the stock markets, causing it to crash. Furthermore, they are able to control the traffic and cause major car accidents and the injury of many innocent victims and shut down the power plants throughout the United Sates. This has allowed them to successfully inflicted fear on the victims.

As we know, whatever we see in movies are highly exaggerated. However, we are moving towards a world where almost everything is computerized and technological advancements are rapid. Terrorists too are catching up with technology and manipulating it to their interests. Thus, it is not completely impossible that such a scenario might happen in real life.

The impacts of cyber terrorism would be very different from that of the traditional terrorism. The damage cyber terrorism does to the attacked areas would be worse. Cyber terrorism allows the scale to be increase tremendously, and the terrorists need not be on the site itself. It would have tremendous economic, social and political impacts on the world.

Juvenile delinquency is a problem that almost every country faces, and Singapore is not an exception. Of all the crime committed, juvenile delinquency is one that we are able to prevent and needs the most attention. These youths are committing crime though they are only adolescents and are still not mature enough to decide what is right or wrong. 

According to the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, the statistic collected shows that there has been a decrease in the number of juveniles arrested from 2006 to 2007. But the number of juveniles newly placed on probation has increased. Generally, there has been a downward trend in juvenile delinquency. However, we cannot be complacent and should try to help these troubled youths.

So what are the causes of juvenile delinquency?

I feel that one of the main causes is that parents are spending too little time with their children. In this increasingly competitive world, rising inflation and rising standards of living, it is no longer possible for only one parent to work and provide for the family. Thus, most of the middle income families and the lower income families have working parents, and their children are left to the maids, their relatives or childcare centers to be taken care of. When these children are troubled, they have no one to turn to as sometimes, their maid, relatives, or teachers at the childcare centers are not people they are able to confide in. The only other avenue would be their friends, who would understand them. However, if the child befriends bad company, then he would be greatly influenced and might resort to crime to relieve stress or to forget their problems. Turning to crime might also be a call for attention by these youths to their parents.

Another reason would be the increasing availability of information and the media. Youths are influenced greatly by what they see in the media and what information they get online from websites. Nowadays, violence is seen as cool and this ‘coolness’ has been portrayed in movies such as Kill Bill. In Kill Bill, violence is portrayed to be heroic and ‘cool’. It also promotes the use of violence to solve problems. However, these are not values that the youths should have. They might learn from what they see in movies and use it in real life.

What has the the government done to help these juvenile delinquents? 

Currently, there is the community-based rehabilitation and institutional rehabilitation programmes for these juvenile delinquents. The community-based rehabilitation consists of the guidance programme, probation and statutory supervision. This form of rehabilitation gives the juveniles a chance to make amends and resolve against re-offending. Institutional rehabilitation might result in the juvenile being admitted into a Home or Approved Home Order for up to 3 years to undergo institutional rehabilitation.

I feel that more should be done to help these juveniles. Parents should increase their awareness of juvenile delinquency and help to prevent it from happening. This would be a better strategy. Parents should be encouraged to spend more time with their children instead of asking maids, relatives and childcare centers to take care of their children. As long as the parents give the children enough attention, they would be less likely to resort to crime due to influence by bad company and using it as an act to seek attention and care from their parents. The problem of juvenile delinquency should be solved at the root, in order to see significant decrease in the number of juvenile delinquency cases.

During the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, the main roles of a woman is just to stay at home, tidy the house, take care of the children, basically running the household. Women were not told to work or have a career as that was something thought to be masculine in the past, and that was the traditional family pattern in the past.

However, due to the war, men had to fight for their country in the army and the women were left on their own to take care of the children and the household. Basically, they had to be the husband and wife, father and mother to the family. Women then begun to work and become the breadwinner for that period of time. They did not have a choice. It was then that the women realized that they too, are able to do what men are able to do. That brought about a large change in the role of women in the society later on.

Now, in the twenty-first century, it is a norm for women to work. In Singapore at least, and most developed countries, women are given equal rights as men to pursue their education. There are many woman who want to pursue their career and become successful in it. However, at the same time, women have to look for a partner, get married and have children. Having children would mean that the women have to choose between their career and their children, or learn to balance the both. For some, they have no choice as the household requires both husband and wife to work in order to maintain their quality of life. For these women, who make up the majority, they have to juggle between taking care of their children and working. It is more advisable for mothers to take care of their children instead of fathers because biologically, women are made to care for their children and children would want their mothers to take care of them. Most women thus have lesser time for themselves, or even no time at all. Their schedule is often filled everyday with work, and when they get home, they have to do the housework and care for their children at the same time.

What are the disadvantages and advantages of the ’supermom’?

Here are some of the disadvantages i feel for the rise of the ’supermom’. These working mothers would have lesser time for themselves as they are constantly working, either at home or at work. They would rarely have time for themselves to do whatever they like to. In a way, it adds alot of stress on the mothers as they need learn to plan their time in order to do their best in these two aspects. Furthermore, for these working mothers, most of them either leave their children with their mothers, domestic helper or childcare centres. This would mean that the children would not be able to spend enough time with their mothers, and that they mothers are not able to teach their children values or basic skills in life. A child’s first few years are very important as they learn the basics in these years. This might cause the child to feel unloved or alienated from his mother.

However, there are advantages as well. Women are now able to support their family like their husbands and provide income as well. With rising inflation, and higher standard of living, it is not possible for a sole breadwinner in the family, unless he or she is able to earn enough to support the whole household. Furthermore, women would gain more power in the  society and there would be lesser cases of gender discrimination and inequality.

What if this is the future of assembly lines? 

What would happen in future when robots replace human beings in such low skilled repetitive jobs? 

It won’t be long before such low-skilled jobs will be automated and robots would replace human labour. Robots are cheaper in the long run as compared to human labour. Using robots would mean that there is no need for bonuses, health insurance, medical leave or loss of productivity. Furthermore, robots are able to work long hours which is something human beings are not able to do. 

When that time comes, the low skilled laborers would be left jobless, and it would be unlikely for them to find another job because in this globalized world, such low skilled jobs would be scarce. These workers would have problems maintaining their quality of life and even their survival would be problematic. 

Division of labour definitely has its pros, such as the increase in efficiency and lower costs of production. However, with these advantages comes disadvantages as well. As most of these production lines are owned by profit maximizing capitalists, there is a high possibility of the capitalists exploiting the cheap labour and production costs, and increasing profits for themselves without passing on this wealth to the laborers. These laborers are stuck in this vicious cycle and they are unable to get out of it as they do not have much disposable income or savings most of the time. They are unable to go for retraining or higher their educational level due to this and are only able to do such low paying menial jobs. When capitalists replace these laborers with machines, they will be caught in poverty. 

The government can do their part by helping to implement retraining schemes for these laborers to help obtain higher level skills to allow them to enter the knowledge-based industries or higher skilled manufacturing industries.

Another issue would be that of child labour.  The International Labor Organization defines child labor as “work situations where children are compelled to work on a regular basis to earn a living for themselves and their families, and as a result are disadvantaged educationally and socially; where children work in conditions that are exploitative and damaging to their health and to their physical and mental development; where children are separated from their families, often deprived of educational and training opportunities; where children are forced to lead prematurely adult lives.” These children are exploited as they are paid very low wages, or no wages at all. They are also forced to work very long hours daily, thus leaving no time or finances for education. These children are forced into the vicious cycle of poverty as they have to work from a very young age and do not have the oppotunity to learn. Education is a very important part of a child’s life and it is essential in order to get a higher paying and higher skilled job which would help to improve their living conditions. Without education, they would only be able to work in such low skilled jobs with very low pay which is sometimes not even enough to make ends meet for them. I feel that parents should be educated about the harmful effects of sending their child to work at a very young age, and that the young children should be given a chance to learn basic life skills and survival skills and also be taught how to read and write. It is important for them to have such skills in order to survive in this globalized world, and not be left behind.