Blurry Boundary

Nowadays, I learned about “taking work to home” during the class. Technology has made it available for people to take work to home. I think this offers more of disadvantages for people than advantages. Because it is possible now, people feel obligated to work at home, and this makes the boundary between home and work blurry. It caused more conflict between family obligation and work obligation.

When I was a president of my club in 2014, I had similar experience of taking work to home. “I couldn’t finish it because I had to go home” was no longer excuse for me. I spare extra time to finish whatever work was given to me. Also, because of the fact that I had my mobile phone, I always needed to answer my phone. I was neurotic at that time about my phone. Once I was eating dinner with my sister and I had to answer every phone call I had. While I was answering the calls, my sister finished her dishes. I felt so sorry for her.

From my experience, I believe the technology just made everyone to work anywhere and anytime whether if they want or not. This is the cause of weakening family bonding.

May 5, 2016 by ellysblog2016 Leave a comment

Eating alone with friend

One of my friends is a power blogger. She is so obssesed with blogging that blogging always comes first. When I eat out with her, I have to order the dishes that look great rather than delicious. When the dish comes out, I have to wait until she takes satisfactory pictures. When I eat with her, she’s busy checking out comments on SNS. Watching videos regarding SNS from the class and gaining popularity reminded me of her. What is it all about? It made me feel like I was eating by myself. It was ironical that I was eating with my friend feeling all alone and my friend was with me but not with me.

May 1, 2016May 5, 2016 by ellysblog2016 Leave a comment

Cyberbullying

Bullying has existed eversince. Cyberbullying is something technology has newly brought. Cyberbullying is controversial because it can cause more harm than just bullying. I have an experience of being bullied and this includes cyberbullying.

When I was in 7th grade, myself was against five other girls. It was such big pressure that there were five girls who hated me yet I needed to face. Yet, cyberbullying made it worse. If it were only face to face, I didn’t need to mind them once I walk away from them. But in terms of cyberbullying, it lasted longer. Even after school was over, I still needed get text messages from other girls, I also felt pressure to reply them. They excluded me from their group chat. They also publicly offended me online which really made me embarrassed.

Bullying itself already means pain and depression especially to teenagers who really care about others. But it gets worse if bullying continues 24/7 due to technology. It seems that everyone’s reluctant to set rules and regulation about cyberbullying since it’s so new. However, cyberbullying results terrible outcome. It is urgent to set clear rules regarding cyberbullying.

April 28, 2016 by ellysblog2016 Leave a comment

Changing bias

Illustrative of couple representing online dating

When I heard that online dating is in fashion, I couldn’t really agree with that for I have not seen single married couple who met online in my life. Few days ago, I was invited to one of the church elders’ house. It was my first married couple who started their relationship with online dating.

“S(wife) and I met online. When my first wife died, S was widow too. We talked on the phone for three weeks and we started dating offline.”

I believed that relationship that started with online dating cannot last long. I also thought only young generation would approach to online dating. However, knowing how much they appreciate each other and they started online dating when they were early 50s changed the bias I had toward online dating. It was good experience to meet them, ask about their online dating and change the perspective I had.

April 16, 2016 by ellysblog2016 Leave a comment

Powerblogger

Some of my friends in Korea run their own blogs. In Korea, blogs are big. Bloggers upload billions of posts everyday in different fields: beauty, food, fashion, exercise, home-deco, music etc. Koreans rely heavily on blogs when they search for information. When bloggers become “power blogger” by going beyond certain amount of subscribers and views, they are offered of countless sponsorship. I have a friend who is power blogger. She gets her nail done for free, skincare for free,  invited for fancy dinner, clothes for free etc. I thought about running my own blog because I envied her, but it was just too much work. Taking picture of everything she sees and writing comments about it seems too burdened to me. I guess this is another industrial area that technology has brought.

<Korea blog website>

April 15, 2016April 27, 2016 by ellysblog2016 Leave a comment

Technology in Awkward Situation

When I was in high school, I got into an elevator with one of my friends. She and I knew each other but we never made it too close. After saying hi, it became really awkward with her. I felt like suffocating. So I put my hand into the pocket, got out my mobile phone and started to pretend as if I have many texts to reply back. As soon as I did so, she took hers out and did the same. I thanked technology for keeping both of us look busy.

I thought that technology is what makes people awkward because it grabs everyone’s attention and make people not talk to each other. However, considering this incident, technology is too familiar that it could be a substitute for any situation. I think it just became part of life and habit for everyone.

April 7, 2016 by ellysblog2016 Leave a comment

Too Much Technology

 

I watched this video clip on YouTube. When it was supposed to be family time, they did not speak a single word. Instead, they were staring at their phones and tablets. So mom took away all the electric devices. For the re of the time, they remained silent.

This implies technology grabs not only kids’ attention but also adults’. So technology is really everywhere for anyone.

Another thing I noticed is that even after mom took away their electronic devices, they couldn’t have a conversation. If I were the mom, I would throw conversation topics or set different environment instead of only taking phones away. I would bring all my family out for dinner, plan baking time together, or go on a picnic.

I feel like modern family needs more than just staying away from technology.

April 7, 2016 by ellysblog2016 Leave a comment

Parental Monitoring

I learned that there are three types of parents monitoring: restrictive monitoring, active monitoring and deference. Professor. Kiester explained these three steps are like sequence that occurs in order. I remember my mom restrictively monitoring my siblings and me and ended up in deference. Although I don’t remember my mom being actively monitoring, I’d like to reflect back and apply each stage to her.

When I was young, my siblings and I were only allowed to play computer two hours a day. There was no exception. When I wanted to create a new account, I had to use my mom’s  social ID number since I was underage. She made sure what kind of website I was using. This strict rule went on until I became 7th grade.

Because I needed computer for academic purposes, and that I had my own mobile phone, her regulation just disappeared. And by this time, I memorized her social ID number, I could create a new account without her permission. I also became more familiar with the Internet than she was. I guess my mom kind of lost her confidence in restricting technology.

Looking back at how my mom set regulations, I think the parental monitoring sequence totally makes sense to me. And also because my sisters and I had positive predictor to convince my mom, I believe my mom could end up in deference.

April 1, 2016 by ellysblog2016 Leave a comment

On-line Privacy

While I was taking the class, somebody or the professor brought a question about parents monitoring what their children do on computer. One of my classmates answered “My parents thought if I didn’t let them know what I was doing, they thought I was doing something inappropriate.”

Although my parents never said this, had my parents said the same thing, I’d strongly go against them. Every one goes through puberty and I was one of them. I only needed little privacy but it wasn’t anything inappropriate. I chatted with my friends about what song we sang in karaoke (teenagers are legally allowed to hang out in karaoke in Korea), how we spent our lunch time, who is the boy I like, etc. It was just my personality to keep it to myself. Although my mom sometimes sneaked into my window through terrace to make sure I am not watching porn, I am glad my parents had strong trust compared to other parents.

Some parents are just too concerned that their children may lack the ability to cope with inappropriate contents online. But I want them to know that children are learning through experience and they are so much stronger than parents may think.

 

March 31, 2016 by ellysblog2016 Leave a comment

New toys

There are new toys that did not exist when I was young: robot, electric devices, machine that can sing and dance etc. Parents buy them expecting these would attribute more creativity for their kids. However, I believe this can negatively affect children.

When children are young, they do symbolic play. For example, they would pick up their shoe and pretend as if it were their mobile phone. It is their phone in their imagination. This imagination is what is needed and what makes children creative. However, well made toys can actually be everything children need. This makes children stop imagining.

So I would definitely think about what is really good for my children and be very careful about buying them toys.

March 27, 2016 by ellysblog2016 Leave a comment