I Lasted For About 3.5 Hours - Taking A Break From Technology Experiment | A Grade 9 Blog Entry

    Recently, in class, I've been challenged to take on challenges where I see how long I can last without touching my phone and any other electronic devices I own. The intention of this challenge is to intentionally get bored and see if I can get some innovative ideas and an idea of where my future lies ahead of me. If you get bored enough, you can obviously come up with phenomenal and creative ideas. The more depressed you become the more imaginative, creative, and healthy you become. I can say that I’m not as excited to bore myself during quarantine however, I want to find out how long I’ll last, how many times I Pick up my phone, and do I tend to disconnect myself from other people while staying on my electronic devices?

    Going in on Friday, the day on which I had started his challenge, was difficult. I only lasted 3 hours and a half to be exact. This is partly because I had lots of online assignments from online school due to the lockdown. However, by completing this challenge I learned a bit about myself, I also was able to answer the questions above. I found out that I'm constantly "connected" or in touch with others because in this difficult time I can say that I miss those whom I can not contact physically. I picked up my phone about 14 times, which to say the least is something I'm not proud of. I also found out that I have a constant need to always check the time and to check my social media. Needless to say but in times when I felt moody or bored I felt the need to go to sleep, but I successfully was able to remain awake. But a huge change I saw in myself was that I felt like I had the need to do something productive, don't get me wrong here, I'm 80% productive throughout the day, but I really felt the need to accomplish one of my goals or a certain task that I needed to accomplish. I ended up doing a couple chores, they weren't fun, however, I felt productive and happy. But then my mind started to wander around like it always does when it's boring. Note to self: Under any circumstances do not listen to your bored self, let's just say that I almost burned the house down, and don't ask how I got myself into this mess. But in a way I felt productive, I didn't know how or why, but I guess it's just the feeling of getting off of social media.

    In conclusion, this challenge was really challenging to do, I actually recommend it, I also got
my imaginative mind to make up silly stories about fictional characters. Even though I almost burned the house down, it was really fun and different. But would I ever try this again? Yes, I actually will do this every while if I don't have any other tasks to do. I have benefited from lots of means of entertainment, and that was something I was proud to come up with.

A Covid-19 Ted Talk - My Response

The subject of this TED Talk is COVID-19, which is established from the outset. When focusing on the rhetorical appeals of ethos, logos, and pathos, I was able to identify how the speaker employed each one. She began by using ethos to establish her credibility and demonstrate to the audience that she was a credible source. She appeals through her expertise in public health for 20 years, participating in global health journalism, writing on global health for newspapers and online sites, and discussing having published a book on the global health issues holding a Master's degree in international health. She also describes some additional reasons for appealing to her audience during this highly attended speech. 

Afterward, the speaker uses a combination of pathos and logos in the discussion. Using icons, she provides basic knowledge of the coronavirus, what it is, and how it travels. She also went into depth as she further explained how the actions of human beings would be the cause of constant pandemics and illnesses. She also provides some details regarding global warming and the need to avoid activities such as hunting, as it is what puts us in contact with wild animals and the viruses and diseases they transmit. Throughout the TED Talk, she uses pathos as she poses leading questions and gives an example of how developing nations can not withstand survival with any potential global pandemics or diseases. She does this to attempt to get people to have a positive response to make them consider taking care of themselves and others to avoid the further spreading of the virus outbreak.

I discovered that this was not the first time the coronavirus appeared while watching this TED Talk. However, this video busted one misconception I had assumed to be valid. We don't need to wear masks. As we all know, people have been panicking about buying necessities like alcohol, hand sanitizer, gloves, tissues, and masks. Because of this, the doctors and sick people ignored these things to use. The video, therefore, stated that healthy individuals don't need masks and therefore should keep them in stores for nurses and sick people to use. The speaker also mentioned some things that we could do, two of which were to stop scratching our faces and stop biting our nails. These are the two habits most people need to focus on and will take into account and consider.

Ultimately, there's one more thing I need to think about it's quarantine itself. All are encouraged to do this to help stop the spread of the disease. But how is it going to happen? Many people will, of course, stay home and be too scared to go outside. However, there are a lot of lazy people who presume that everybody else remains inside and they're safe to go out. With this approach, many people are likely to become even more oblivious about the guidelines and will continue to go out, spreading the virus. Therefore, I believe that self-quarantine is something that would be achievable for all people across the globe.