The Social Impact of Electronic Communication

You probably receive an average of about 5-10 emails a day, and if your anything like me you probably take a quick glance and delete them unless something catches your eye. A large majority of us are seeing these emails throughout the day on mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets. Without even thinking about it we’ve gone from a form of communication that was simply looked at as a cheaper free version of the postal service to an instant communication tool used for a variety of reasons ranging from personal to business, and even pleasure. So what type of impact do all these instant avenues of communication have on us? According to a recent study by CDW IT Monitor (http://www.cdwitmonitor.com/nationalMonitor_may12.php) suggests that the use of smartphones and tablets in the workplace are increasing efficiency and productivity while lowering overall costs. But if you take a moment to think about it, does it not make sense? Of course you can be much more efficient on a construction job site when you can use an app to simply track all of the deliveries and their arrival times, or use a tablet to work through design issues with other construction bosses that may not even be on the site. In virtually every job I can think of I believe I could find a beneficial use for these new forms of communication. Nathan Eddy wrote an article for eweek.com (http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Tablet-Smartphone-Use-Increasing-Worker-Productivity-CDW-779688/) where he broke down the CDW IT Monitor report (previously linked above) and in his article he states that the top three most common uses for tablets in the workplace are sales, replacing printed material, and workgroup collaboration.

Smartphones and tablets may obviously affect our working lives, but what about our personal lives? Being more instantly connected has had both its benefits and downfalls to our society. Some will say that we are creating a void in our personal relationships with others and that this rift is making interaction between people harder. Yet others believe that it has allowed us to be more expressive of our true feelings, albeit in some cases a little too truthful. Whichever side of the fence you stand on in regards to the issue one thing is seemingly not going to change, and that is that it is here to stay and getting faster and more connected every day. In my opinion I feel that we as a society need to learn how to use these technologies to adapt to the new social structures that are being created daily. I firmly believe that as time goes on most of us will adapt and learn that what we say is viewed by other people and not just floating around in space like a private journal; and some will have to learn the hard way but in the end all will learn. There is another dark corner in this room that only seems to be getting darker as we advance our communication abilities, and that is the old “texting and driving” issue. Many of us grew up when cell phones where first on the rise and at the time you could make a call while driving. It was dangerous then, but then text messaging hit the scene and it became a huge issue. Texting and driving was about as dangerous as it could get on the roads because your eyes where averted while typing. I fear that because a smartphone has more options for communication such as IM and email that they are even more distractions on the road. Eric Zeman who wrote an article on InformationWeek.com (http://www.informationweek.com/mobility/smart-phones/smartphones-tied-to-25-of-us-car-crashes/231001237) 25% of all US car crashes are from smartphone use while driving. It could be poor education in regards to use of phones while driving that is responsible or people just never hearing about the dangers in the first place. Many smartphones now either have apps available or come with them loaded already that allow drivers to use voice recognition to send the phone commands, this allows the driver to keep their hands on the wheel at all times and eyes on the road. It may be that these are the tools that need to be brought to light in a much larger scale.


CDW Corporation (05/15/2012) http://www.cdwitmonitor.com/nationalMonitor_may12.php

Eddy, Nathan, Tablet, Smartphone Use Increasing Worker Productivity: CDW (05/16/2012) http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Tablet-Smartphone-Use-Increasing-Worker-Productivity-CDW-779688/

Zeman, Eric, Smartphones Tied to 25% of US Car Crashes (07/8/2012) http://www.informationweek.com/mobility/smart-phones/smartphones-tied-to-25-of-us-car-crashes/231001237

Analysis of the Requirements for a Recent Program or Game

Guild Wars 2 is a stunningly beautiful game that gives us a glimpse into a fantasy world that is awe inspiring beyond words. Whether its terrain, game characters, apparel, or structures the detail used to finely craft every inch of this virtual world is exceptional. If you have no clue what Guild Wars 2 is or what it looks like I would suggest checking out this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hVAW3bcMBQ) posted by IGNentertainment when the game first came out, it is full of wonderful footage that shows the game off. What could I possibly say that could make that sound any better than it already does? The answer; almost anyone with a computer can play it and it looks extremely good when scaled down for lower end PC’s. Allow me to explain why this is. To begin you have to understand that Guild Wars 2 began production almost 10 years ago, and at the time they began developing on cutting edge technology. Fast forward a decade and technology has advanced but the game has its foundations set in older technology (such as directx 9), and because of this older generation machines can handle running the game much easier than you would anticipate. It’s also important to note that due to the type of game it is (MMO or Massively Multiplayer Online) the resources required to run it are larger than that of other types.

So what exactly are the specifications to run this game? According to ArenaNet’s support page these are the minimum requirements to run Guild Wars 2:Windows® XP Service Pack 2 or better
Intel® Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz, Core i3 OR AMD Athlon 64 X2, or better
2 GB RAM
NVIDIA® GeForce® 7800, ATI X1800, Intel HD 3000, or better (256 MB of video RAM and shader model 3.0 or better)
25 GB available HDD space
Broadband Internet connection
Keyboard and mouse

Let’s take a look at these specs and analyze exactly how old your computer can be and still meet the minimum requirements. The minimum requirement for the OS (Operating System) is Windows XP Service Pack 2. Since Windows XP there has been 3 new OS’s from Microsoft, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. Virtually every computer running Microsoft Windows today is using XP or higher. To break the processor down easily we’ll simply say that the game requires at least a dual core processor. Dual core processors are pretty common by today’s standards, in fact most smart phones have dual core processors and just recently there have been a couple of smart phones featuring quad core processors on the market. Graphics cards are a bit trickier to analyze so I’m going to use the brand I’m most familiar with ATI. I actually owned an old ATI X1800 about seven or eight years ago so I decided to do a search quick and see if I could find how much they are going for today, it was a couple hundred dollars back then. What I found when I searched a couple of websites was a placeholder on Newegg.com (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102655) where they used to sell the graphics card but since have discontinued it. Most modern computers built in the last decade will have about 2gb of RAM and at least 25gb of hard drive space. When you break it down I can probably say that I had exceeded the minimum requirements to run Guild Wars 2 almost a decade ago; however today is a different story.

IGNentertainment (09/12/2012)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hVAW3bcMBQ

ArenaNet, Guild Wars 2 Windows System Requirements (09/09/2012) https://en.support.guildwars2.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1119/session/L3RpbWUvMTM1MzMyNTY0My9zaWQvSmtRanRGYmw%3D

Newegg.com, ATI Radeon X1800 (11/18/2012)  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102655

Analysis of a Specific Medical Advancement

Several years ago I remember first hearing about stem cell research, and at the time it was not a very hot topic. However it did not take long before it became the spotlight of biotechnology and the hottest topic of debate between the scientific community and many religious or spiritual organizations. In case you have been living under a rock for the last decade I’ll quickly explain what stem cells are exactly and why they found themselves at the center of such a heated debate.

Cells are the building blocks of our bodies and must constantly be replaced with new ones as the old ones die and fall away. Our bodies have to constantly produce skin, blood, hair, and muscle cells on a daily basis and they accomplish this daunting task through the use of stem cells. Stem cells are the cells in our body that have the ability to either split into two separate stem cells or become two cells of something like hair or skin. Every single one of us has and uses stem cells in our bodies every day, but there is another type of stem cells and these are the ones that have been the most debated. Embryotic stem cells are similar to the stem cells that we create, however they are only found in babies that are still growing because unlike our stem cells they have the ability to not only split into hair, skin, muscle, and blood cells but any type of cells in our entire body. This type of a stem cell can be used to repair previously un-repairable body parts such as limbs or major organs. If you are interested in watching a video that can better explain the science behind stem cells I would recommend watching this video by EuroStemCell (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-3J6JGN-_Y) on youtube. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding embryotic stem cell research in the last several years. Some believe that it is considered playing the role of “God” and that we should simply not be experimenting with this type of research at all. Others admittedly do not know much about the subject but recall others saying that the only way to get embryotic stem cells is through unborn babies, in particular those from abortions. This is not the case however and in fact most embryotic stem cells come from umbilical cord donations which have a very large amount of embryotic stem cells. Yet a majority of the scientific community stands behind their research and feels that it is vitally important to push this biotechnology out of the clinical trials phase and into the medical market place.

The advancement of stem cells in the medical field has been and continues to be a long hard road. No matter where you stand on this road morally or theoretically the evidence is beginning to pile in favor of these procedures at a rate that simply cannot be ignored. Wired.com published an article in 2003 (http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2003/03/57944?currentPage=all) about a boy who was involved in a nail gun accident that caused him to undergo open heart surgery, after the surgery his only options to live where either a heart transplant or become the first patient to use stem cells to attempt reconstruct the hearts destroyed tissue. The procedure took 4 days to incubate the stem cells in his body and then a week after they were transplanted on his broken heart wall he was all set to go home and finish recovering. This type of success story has played out over and over again over the last decade. Several years ago China legalized stem cell use for medical treatment and there are a ton of documented cases of successful use that is readily available with a little bit of searching. Many of these cases are almost unbelievable at first such as people who have been paralyzed for most of their lives going to China for treatments and returning in as little as a few months walking on their own.

EuroStemCell.org (06/14/2011)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-3J6JGN-_Y

Philipkoski, Kristen, Stem Cells Heal a Broken Heart (03/07/2003) http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2003/03/57944?currentPage=all

Technology Trends of the Early 21st Century

A trend by definition is “a general direction in which something is developing or changing”. I don’t know about you, but for me just about anything I can find in my house that runs on electricity or a battery and either lights up or makes noise I can find something older and more primitive that helped shape what it is today. Much like the past has shaped the technology we are using today so are we forging the path ahead of use for the future. Can you remember some things that you used to use a little over a decade ago that you no longer use, but are instead using improved versions of? Remember watching VHS and DVD’s? We still watch movies and television shows, but now we do it on Blu-Ray players or stream them online using services like Netflix. Did you get a flat screen television in the past? Remember how cool it was that the screen didn’t conform to the shape of the tubes that produced images you were watching; now to think of a television that is below the standard 720p-1080p definition is somewhat painful. How about sharing the good old family landline to call up your friends and meet up for an evening out, do you remember doing that? Cell phones have replaced landlines as we used to know them to the point that according to an article posted on cellphones.org; 50% of the younger generations have never even used a landline!

As the definition dictates a trend will develop and change never dying out but adapting to use new technology and become more useful and efficient. Going between cellphones.org’s wonderfully laid out statistics sheet for differences between cell phone use in 2000 versus 2009 and mobiThinkings statistics on current cell phone usage for 2012, I was able to put together some rather interesting facts if you’re willing to follow me here. In 2000 an average of 1 out of 10 people had a cell phone, and in 2009 that number jumped all the way up to 6 out of every 10 people owned cell phones. In the most current statistics polled 8.67 out of every 10 people own a cell phone; if you round it up that leaves 1 out of every 10 people without a cell phone. However just to be on the safe side we will say it is 8 out of every 10 people, but with the rate of change between 2009 and 2012 being about 20%; following this rate of change by 2015 we will be very close 10 of 10. However the rate of change seems to only increase and not decrease. What does this mean? I’d like to think that it means that cell phones are coming close to the same place that landlines where at the turn of the millennium and that something bigger is on the horizon, but only time will tell.

Interestingly enough, when cell phones first began to see a rise in use everyone was uncertain about how the radiation from them would affect our health. Now we can look back at that old myth and laugh as we carry our cell phones on us virtually all day and all night. Medical technology has been on a trend in the early 21^st century also. Christian Nordqvist wrote an article rather recently for Medical News Today regarding the trends in life expectancy in humans. In the early 20^th century the average life expectancy was 31 years old and in 2010 the world average was at 67.2 years. That is a rather drastic jump in life expectancy, considering the average’s up to 52000 years prior fluctuate between 20-30 occasionally going a bit higher and lower but never very far from that range. Much of this can be attributed to the advances and strides that we’ve made in medicine over the last several years, we are able to be more consistent with lifesaving treatments and medicines that ever before in history.

So where does this leave us? By my calculations this leaves us on the highway to the future cruising in a hot red convertible with the top down on a hot summer day. We are moving into the future at a fast pace and we should all take the time to be aware of it so we can embrace it and help build upon it.

Cellphones.org (2/19/2010) http://cellphones.org/blog/whats-happened-with-cell-phones-this-decade/#axzz2BKCN8H00

mobiThinking, Global Mobile Statistics 2012 Part A (5/23/2010) http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats/a#subscribers

n.p. (2012, October 2). "People Worldwide Living Longer, A New Challenge, Says United Nations." Medical News Today. Retrieved fromhttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/250989.php.