Our Ted Talk speaker today is a government major by the name of Tim Urban. Tim Urban will be speaking about procrastinating and explaining why we procrastinate from his point of view. In a non-procrastinator head there’s only the voice of a rational decision maker, procrastinating does not exists. The procrastinator on the other hand has two voices they tend to listen to those voices are the rational decision maker and the Instant gratification monkey. The instant gratification monkey is the voice that wants to stir away from any hard, boring, or long time consuming things. When the rational decision maker starts doing its job the monkey is always there disagreeing and changing the plan. In the ted talk Tim stated, “The Instant Gratification Monkey lives entirely in the present moment. He has no memory of the past, no knowledge of the future and he only cares about two things easy and fun” (Urban). Easy and fun are all the things that a human needs to live by besides having a goodnights rest and being well fed according to the monkey. These things may have worked in tribal time but were in modern day where we actually have to work hard and make rational decisions to live a happy successful life. Rationally thinking helps you make some of the best decisions in your life, Tim stated “We can visualize the future, we can see the big picture, and make long term plans” (Urban). The rational decision maker just wants us to do whatever makes sense to be doing right now.

Although rational decision making seems like the best thing we should be doing, it isn’t called for in every single situation. For example having dinner, going to bed, or on leisure time; you don’t need to think too hard and that’s when rational decision making and the instant gratification monkey overlap. They overlap because they both finally agree on something that works for the both of them. When it comes to securing your future and being successful you’ll most definitely consider listening to the rational decision making voice. Tim then went on to say, “Sometimes they agree but other times it makes more sense to be doing things that are harder and less pleasant for the sake of the big picture” (Urban). This is also when conflict starts to happen, due dates and paper work are starting to catch up and the monkey doesn’t want to give up having fun for the boring work. Things get a little shaky and the panic monster comes out, Tim stated, “The panic monster is dormant most of the time but wakes anytime a deadline gets too close or there’s danger of public embarrassment a career disaster or some other scary consequence” (Urban). Being that the panic monster is the only thing that scares off the monkey, it cause the procrastinator to procrastinate the entire time until their deadline.

Are the children in this new generation more advanced or social because of the internet? In my opinion I believe they are more advanced for the simple fact that they grew up with the Internet right at their fingertips. The internet is filled with information and games that can help them learn quicker and process easier. Not only can the newer generation process the information quicker but they can also learn multiple things at once because of technology. I also believe they are much more social than the older generation because of things like Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook etc. The older generation including a small portion of mine didn’t have any of that growing up. If we wanted to meet people we did it the old fashion way which was meeting through school, church, or family member friends. The internet is crippling the newer generation to where they have to do little to nothing to find information and actually learn the process. On the other hand the internet is also creating geniuses, some of the main things that are crippling them are also beneficial to them. Two of the main reasons that are quite noticeable would be them not getting the physical feel of learning the information such as writing it down to understand and/or actually trying to solve problems instead of looking them up.

However, because of the great sources and learning games that are out here for kids; they become hooked and eager to learn. I have younger cousins who were born in between the years of 2000-2011 and they sometimes expose me to different things on the internet rather it be educational or a simple short cut to get on or off sites. The younger generation and their conversations are becoming more advance every day. They can actually sit and hold a conversation with maybe one or two sidetracks happening. There are about 80% of kids that range from the ages of 12-17 years who are into social media. This is proven by a research done in 2005 by Pew Research Center (PRC) and could have possibly grown more over the years. The 80% of kids that are actively on social media are a lot more social than the 20% that aren’t involved with social media. In the article Mason stated, “Nowadays, most of kids aged 2-3 years have familiarized themselves with internet, and playing cell phone and video games. Technology has advanced, and children have acquired lot of knowledge (Mason, 2012).” The internet became a part of everyday life for the newer generation, there is not much they find interesting to do that does not include social media. Not only has it been proven that their social skills are amazing but their learning skills are phenomenal as well. Children today are evolving fast and are smarter than children of the same age in the last generation. The internet and social media has severed a great purpose for the current generation and the ones that are to come.

A study that was led by Michigan State University psychologist Linda Jackson, PhD, showed that the kids that are using the internet for school has improved standardized reading test scores. Also there were other researchers that came across information that explained how using the internet has taught children to be more self-directed learners. In the article it stated, “By engaging their brains in more complex tasks at a younger stage in their lives, toddlers are improving cognition and critical review skills, and displaying a more advanced understanding of both virtual and real worlds.” Says Linda Jackson. “The Fifth Dimension, show that children who participated in the program had greater advances in reading, mathematics, computer knowledge, following directions, and grammar and had higher scores on school achievement tests, compared with children who did not participate.” (Subrahmanyam 2013). When it comes to the youth being more advanced and social than the older generation, it is very much true. Being that the youth can not only learn from someone like their parents or teachers but they can also teach themselves new things. Surfing the web and finding games that are not only fun but beneficial to their knowledge is already a leg up on the older generation.

In conclusion, over the course of the years many things have changed from the kids in the generation to the internet and technology. Children today are a lot more advanced and are rapidly developing useful skills that are putting them a little further than their time knowledge wise. Some of the skills I am referring to are skills that are required for them to understand language, numbers, to reason, problem solve, learn and remember. There have been numerous facts proven including the ones that I have stated previously that proves that the younger generation is more social and advance.

In chapter 8 of “Just Mercy” the topic is on juveniles being prosecuted and tried as adults for murder crimes. Bryan Stevenson is telling us four different juvenile’s stories; from their up-bringing to their situations that caused them to be prosecuted. All four stories had something in common, either they came from broken homes, poverty, mental issues or were traumatized somewhere down the line. Each juvenile (which by the way are all African American), committed a crime and got the maximum punishment even though they were all under the age limit. Although these crimes were not intentional they were still put on trial and was sentenced the time. Fourteen year old Trina (later turned 16), thirteen year old Ian and thirteen year old Antonio were sentenced to life in prison with no parole. The title of this chapter is called “All God’s Children”, to me this means regardless of their poor choices they are all still God’s children who deserve a second chance at life. Also considering the fact that they are still learning and growing. The last kid, fourteen year old Gregory Stinney was executed for a crime he didn’t even commit. Greg thought he was helping by telling a man at the search party where he had last saw the girls before they disappeared. Being that he’s an African American boy, they assumed that he had something to do with it and sent him to death row.

A main topic/issue in this chapter is how children are being tried as adults and receiving life as a punishment. Although the crimes they have committed are unforgivable to the victim’s family and friends, sentencing kids to life in prison is a little harsh considering the fact that they are still very young and learning. Another important topic/issue in this chapter is how troubled households can lead children to prison. Each child’s tragic ending stemmed from problems at home, whether it was mental abuse or physical abuse. If most kids came from positive homes with both parents who support them and paid more attention to them there would be less kids committing senseless crimes. Also another topic is male guards raping/sexually assaulting female inmates in the prisons, in the article it stated “Not long after Trina arrived at Muncy, a male correctional officer pulled her into a secluded area and raped her” (Bryan Stevenson pg150). The officer walked away freely with his punishment only being the loss of his job, not even a criminal prosecution.

After spending eighteen years in jail Ian finally worked up the courage to call Mrs. Baigre and speak about the incident. In the book it stated “On Christmas Eve in 1992, he used his call to reach out to Debbie Baigre, the woman he shot. When she answered the phone, Ian spilled out an emotional apology, expressing his deep regret and remorse” (Bryan Stevenson pg153). In that moment I knew that Ian actually had a heart and a conscious, he wasn’t this cold hearted criminal that everyone saw him to be when he was thirteen. Being that Ian committed such a crime the justice system believed that he would remain the exact same way he was when he was thirteen and they decided to lock him away forever. I believe in second chances especially when it comes to someone who owns up to their mistakes and actually has learned from them. I am in no way saying that he doesn’t deserve any kind of punishment at all, I’m just saying there should have been steps before he reached life in prison especially if the victim did not die. Even Mrs. Debbie Baigre herself believed that his punishment was too harsh In the chapter it stated, “After communicating with Ian for several years, Baigre wrote the court and told the judge who sentenced Ian of her conviction that his sentence was too harsh and that his conditions of confinement were inhumane” (Mrs. Baigre pg153). That was a huge favor that Mrs. Baigre had done for Ian but she truly believed that he had learned his lesson. Most people probably wouldn’t have given Ian the time of the day considering what he had done. She even took time out of her day to write a letter to request his release which takes a strong kind hearted person to do so. Also the fact that Ms. Debbie saw the good in him despite all the damage that he has caused in her life was amazing to me.

Today’s Ted talk topic is on how social media makes us unsocial and how it’s disconnecting us from a lot of things. Our speaker in this ted talk is Allison Graham, Allison Graham is going to explain to us the effects that social media has on us and how we can make a change. In 2001 a poll was taken and it asked how many close friends does an average American have; the results came up to be 10 really close friends. About 13 years later they took the same exact poll and this time the results were the average American only have 2 really close friends. As you can see the increase in years of using social media people became less social causing a decrease in friendships and making new friends. There are three steps to solving this social/disconnection problem that we have upon us; the three steps are spotting the problem, what caused the problem, and fix the problem. A study showed that we check/touch our phone about 150 times a day broken down between messages, calls/voice mails, and social media. Allison also added how she see people out places with their family, on a date, or even at a function and wonder how they are able to enjoy themselves when they don’t even take time off their phones and live.

At this point our problem is pretty clear, we pay more attention to our phones than anything else that’s going on around us. Majority of the world lives life through social media in the ted talk Allison stated that we upload 1.8 billion pictures a day to Facebook, that’s a little over a 6 of the population. Most people pretend to be this perfect person or to live a perfect life and to keep anyone from exposing them they try to live a low profile life and not make any friends. In some cases they are so wrapped up in the social media world that they don’t have time to make friends or maybe they just don’t know how to make friends and that’s the disconnection problem we have. Also because of social media and our phones we have shorten our vocabulary, Allison then stated “when we abbreviate our vocabulary what we risk is losing the nuances and subtleties and intimate parts of our personalities that make up our very rich American vocabulary.” (Allison Graham) On social media we use words like lol, omg, otw etc. causing us to not think as hard. Have you ever had that moment where you forget how to spell the simplest words? Your phone is part of that reason why. Allison then went on to say “with shortening things we lose and run the risk of not being able to fully express ourselves and communicate as we move forward and that losing vocabulary equals a potential loss of being able to express ourselves.” (Allison Graham) Although there are still many people who don’t believe that our phones and social media is the cause of this disconnection, these facts have proved that it has indeed changed us in many ways.

Our phones and social media have become our biggest distractions in life. For example, we can be on our way somewhere and leave our phone home. Some of us if we could we would turn back around even though we were half way there to a very important meeting. For the other half who couldn’t turn around, us not having our phones would be on our mind all day. Most people could not even have a productive day without their phones; they would be a little thrown off. Because people can’t seem to stay off their phones for 5mins, texting and driving has become the number one cause of deaths especially by teens. In the Ted talk Allison used texting and driving and the normal speed as an example, “If you’re driving 55mph and you look down at your phone for five seconds you just now have driven the length of an entire football field completely blindfolded.” (Allison Graham) Just imagining that seems very scary to me and it sounds extremely dangerous. A few years ago the cause of most car deaths were because of drinking and driving. If we want to prevent these distractions and disconnections we have to encourage each other to put our phones down and live in the moment. Encourage each other to put our phones down for at least an hour a day and eventually we can extend the time until the point where we don’t need our phones to have fun.

Lethal injection is “the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person for the express purpose of causing immediate death” (Wikipedia.org). Lethal injection falls under the category capital punishment and is often compared to euthanasia and suicide; they all are intentional deaths. Lethal injection consist of three drugs that are supposed to kill a person immediately without any pain or suffering; these three drugs include Barbiturate, Paralytic, and Potassium solution. Sodium thiopental or sometimes pentobarbital are used as the anesthetic, they are both short acts of barbiturate. Barbiturate is the first effecting drug that puts the inmate to sleep and gives them the inability to feel any pain. This drug immediately effects the body within the first 30 seconds and even quicker sometimes if you add more doses of the drug. The typical amount that is highly used is 0.35 grams and that amount alone will make you unconscious within the first 30 seconds. After the injection, 15% of it has already reached the brain along with other body parts within 5 to 25 minutes.

The next drug is called Paralytic and is often referred to as pancuronium bromine or pavulon, this drug blocks the acetylcholine from working, paralyzing the muscles and cause respiratory arrest. The acetylcholine functions in the brain and the body, “binding of acetylcholine to receptors on the end plate causes depolarization and contraction of the muscle fiber” (wikipedia.org). They use about 0.2 mg/kg of this drug and with that dosage it paralyzes the person for 4 to 8 hours but the consumer will be dead way before that. Potassium Chloride is the last drug used in lethal injection, it stops the heart from pumping. The proper amount they use for the lethal injection is 100mEq, it has to be given slowly because it takes a while before the other drug to get into the cells.

There are several issues with death by lethal injection and one of them is being uneducated/unfamiliar with lethal injection. When lethal injection first became a thing, many of them were not doing their homework; in the article it stated, “Department of Corrections personnel “did not conduct any independent or scientific or medical studies or consult any medical professionals concerning the drugs and dosage amounts to be injected into the condemned” (Galeopposingview). Knowing what you are doing is very important especially when dealing with something that is as dangerous and life threating as lethal injection. The executioners often overlook and/or ignore the inmate’s physical characteristics like “the body weight, age, and their past drug uses” (GaleOpposingView). Overlooking something is another issue we have and being that we are humans this mistake may happen often. Dealing with lethal injection you have to be very observant, cautious, and well aware of what you are doing; if not things can end very badly for the person who is taking in the injections. Injecting too little of the first drug can cause the inmate to regain consciousness when the last two drugs start to kick in. The second drug will make the inmate paralyzed but not invincible to the pain. The inmate will now have to sit and suffer; this is what makes lethal injection inhumane.

Leonidas Konaries is a doctor who was very concern about the usage of lethal injection. He and colleagues analyzed multiple cases in three different states (California, North Carolina, and Virginia) and later reported thiopental and potassium does not always do its job. In the article, it quoted “individuals undergoing execution have continued to breathe after the injection of thiopental, and their hearts have continued to beat following injection of potassium” (Konaries). Death by lethal injection is not the sanest way to die, in the book “Just Mercy” it briefly mentioned lethal injection and was looked at as inhumane, risky, and a cruel punishment.