Week 5 - Harry Manacsa

Image: Maybe there's some benefit to wired over wireless connection.

My cousin was convinced to buy his six-year-old daughter an iPad so that she may learn her multiplication tables from an app; to that I say I was perfectly fine learning from hand-written flashcards. He didn’t tell me if their school encouraged it, nor whether if my niece can even pull it out during class. And what if some students’ parents can’t afford to buy them an iPad, and it ends up hurting their kids’ self-esteem? I say all this to say that, growing up, I was fine doing without new technologies in the classroom. In fact, the common cores are more standardized to the lessons I was taught; so, there should be no greater improvement by technologies in an elementary school.

            In college, laptops are a must for convenience. Ethernet cables, though, might be asking for too much. There would be too many wires in the library, in our houses, and in lecture halls. And the problem of over-admission in Davis is so apparent, yet we forget that this issue only makes my above points worse. We cannot directly attack Wi-Fi’s electromagnetic fields (EMF), as is done in this weeks’ readings. It asks for us to give up the comforts and conveniences that make our existence and sanity in a globalized world doable.

The same logic applies to microwaves. Most people can’t give up microwave dependence, especially with the plethora of microwavable foods now available—which makes it harder to find alternative foods. The working-class can’t buy fresh foods if they’re always working and cannot consistently go home to prepare them; hence, frozen microwavables are a life-saver. On that note, fresh foods are always more expensive, requiring more ingredients. In my observance, the people who can truly make these lifestyle changes are the wealthy, who have the means to buy alternative foods (and tuition for private schools, where student-teacher ratios are significantly smaller) and the luxury of time to prepare these meals.

Overall, it’s important to think about the position of where we are in life before we single-out a culprit. It is innately human for us to seek the most convenient route, so we should identify how to meet those goals without sacrificing ease.

Question: Where is the line between religion and spirit realm? Yes, I understand that they intertwine with one another, but how many should we recognize in our search for cultural sensitivity?

Image Source: https://i.stack.imgur.com/CDziP.gif