Virtual Exposure Amongst Teens,Adolescents And More

Hope you liked my last post. This post will have the same format as my last post.Less talking and more scientific facts because honestly i did not know much about this subject so i had to do some scientific research. Then it will have a different tone unlike my other most kind of talking to my readers posts.

We all do know that virtuality is way more beyond than internet surfing, shopping, researching and so more. Those were the days in which things are considered as simple. In this modernised era; technology develops and evolves as fast as a parasite from  a science fiction movie. We may assume that the lead figures of this dynamic is indeed internet and social media. With the excessive use of this privileges now the naturality of our lifes are merged with virtuality not just for ourselves, but with all around the world. Everyone has the potency to reflect their will upon us by utilizing these dimensions in their respective ways. Now the things which are used to give us hardtimes can be conquered as easily as defeating the enemy team in FIFA by setting the difficulty as amateur. We may wonder ‘’’then whats the big deal, thats some good quality stuff’’. But we must never forget that with this great power, comes great responsability as well since if we don’t know how to control such power; it can sure lead to negative outcomes in terms  many dimensions. In this last part of our blog; we’ll be discussing the negative effects of todays media on us in the borders of mental health and physiological integrity.

     Depression is a state of emotion guided by low mood and characterised by anhedonia and several physiological statutes such as deficiencies in sleep, eating, sexual activity, learned helplessness and many more. Researches done by countless academicians prove a significance bond between social media and depression, sometimes it may be psychopathological. Especially during adolescence and young adulthood, a longitudional study done by Primack, Swanier, Georgiopoulos (2009) proved that participants who are not depressed shown symptoms in line with depression in their follow-ups when TV exposure and total media usage were the independent variables,however there were no significance in videos, gaming and radio. It may be considered as too general but there are more specific ones. Research done by  Andreassen, Pallesen, Griffiths (2017) indicated that being female, low age, being single, lower education, being a student and narcissism are associated with higher scores in social media addiction. It is quite worrying to see such evolution in terms of specificity.When someone who reads this started to consider ‘’Thank God at least there are no medical consequence’’, you’are wrong. Excessive utilization of social media and dependent variables as ADHD and OCD, the outcomes are significant as well as being male is associated with video game addiction on the other hand being female is associated with social media addiction, sadly being single indcated both dysfunctional amounts of gaming and media surfing. Such an immerse game-changer i young age may carve up our personality to its recent status with granting a dark side. Study done by Kırcaburun and Griffiths (2018) lighted out that being male is positively correlated with online gaming/gambling and negatively with online shopping and social media surfing, narcissistic traits are more likely to be correlated with higher social media usage; Machiavellism had a significant relationship with higher gaming, online sex and gambling, and the dimensions of sadism and spitefullness is pretty much characterised with the online gambling and online sex side of the virtual world; it may be said that people with darker side of personality is more vulnerable to have a dysfunctional virtuality utilization. The physiological aspect of this dynamic especially shows itself in sleep quality amongst individuals in terms of a unhealthy deprivation. Study of Woods and Scott (2016) exemplifies that when adolescents are evaluated in terms of their investments to social media in time and emotional dimensions experience inferior sleep quality followed by anxiety, depression and lower self-esteem.

     Another interesting topic to consider here which is in line with todays sexism and sociocultural pressures on females; acquiring the perfect body image, getting the maximal amount of gratitute came to an importance on a histrionic level and sadly when the applied pressure does not meet the reality of individual, it leads to severe characteristic damages. Unfortunately media is fostering the fire of this problem with gas instead of dampen its power. Photoshopping the models which are solely way beyond the dreams of an ordinary individual, when it is combined with the sociocultural expectancies of other individual factions such as peers, family, finding partner and many more variables the consequence reveals its final form. Research of Monro and Huon (2005) depicts that when females are exposed to body-related material; we saw that anxiety of appearation comorbids with idealized image and the very existence of a significance between self-objectification and idealized body in terms of its presence and absence.

     By handling this info in our hand and gave it a look from the higher ground, we can come to the deduction that with the increased ease to have an acces towards the virtual world granted with excessive privilege and speed; the amount of time consumed is respectively incereased which leaded to significant alterations in our software and hardware. According to the survey of Pew Research Center (2013) in Usa since 2005, social media usage increases non-stop. Not suprising, the one’s behind the mask are of course facebook, linkedin, instagram, twitter, pinterest and myspace.There might be an interesting solution to apply to this situation. One can only rise with having a better and transparent insight of themselves.Mindfullness which is an aspect of Buddhism can be specified by the process of an engagement in terms of optimized awareness that must be true and direct in our life moments. If we are considering the old-school Buddhist way, we’re not really aware of our ‘’now’’ therefore it leads to become preccupied with future, not being peace with past. By the research of Shonin, Van Gordon and Griffiths (2014) mindfullness as a spiritual awareness may grant us the vision to make our maladtivities more visible. We can track our time to be sure we’re not overdosed, telephone’s can be our friend that helps to give a call to our ‘’friends in meat and flesh’’. Of course going outside is not always associated with activities with friends, sometimes experiencing the solitude is the best way to fortify the bridges to our inner harmony. A walk, sports, cinema and many goods waits for us in outside. Dwelling in countless accounts in countless social media factions is also not really something functional. We can also utilise a day programme that is used to write our ordinary 1 week that helps to train ourselves.So what are we waiting for? Lets just recalibrate ourselves.













Cyberbullying on LGBTQ

Have you ever been cyberbullied? I have never been but this subject is very interesting and i would like to discuss it for my new blog post. To be more clear i would discuss about cyberbully impact on LBQT yeah i know its the title therefore you can read it anyway. Before you start reading i want to state a thing. This will be more like an essay type post because there is a lot of thing i want to share with you with researchs and facts. You might expecta a different tone unlike my other posts. Enjoy it.


      Before diving into the abyss, let’s start with a metaphor. Our life’s are our own war. However, we as unique warriors that keep fighting for our rights, purposes have varying equipments in our respective arsenals. Which makes things quite interesting. Such as we can rush through in our battles without a drop of anxiety while we sit in our auto-pilot tank with infinite ammo. Whereas some people dont have such privileges. Lets call them ‘’troopers’’. Yeah,thats how things work for some of us. Some plays the game in easy with high reward at the end; but some of us play it in hard mode with moderate levels of reward. You may be wondering ‘’what is the correlation between a war with hardtimes and lgbtq communion?’’. Well congratulations because you just found out the answer. In todays modernised world where everthing is as far as a mouse click while we sit in front of shiny screens lgbtq communion is one of the biggest hunt for people with cyberbullying experience. In this blog, we ‘ll analyse the effects of social media pressure on lgbtq communion and supporting our claims with the necessary literature review.

According to the research done by GLSEN (2013) ; results prove that lgbtq community has a significant level of bullying %41 of participants received both online/in person bullying, %18 in person, whereas %9 report bullying online. When the level of bullying on various levels such as in person, phone call, text message, online, other types of harassments are compared with non-lgbtq youth, it is visible that lgbtq community is significantly more likely to be the target of bullying. When the outcomes are concluded on several variables; it is found out that lgbtq participants who are more bullied online are likely to be associated with lower GPA, self-esteem and depression.

Sadly; homophobia is a phenomena that turns hatred into a piece of cake. Homophobia does not solely occurs on schools or in online. It is not a childs game. Even elderly people can take a part in it. We all know that the well known chips company ‘’Doritos’’ has launched a specific rainbow colored chips in order to raise awareness. As usual, homophobia took the scene and this time, it was doritos who were condemned to walk the plank. Countless twits and facebook reviews burst out with anger, grudge, wrath aimed towards them.

Figure 1. An example of feedbacks towards Rainbow Doritos.Adapted from Queer Voices, from HUFFPOST by Nichols, J. M. (2015, September 9). When Bigots Freaked Out About Rainbow Doritos, This Man Had A Brilliant Response. Retrieved January 12, 2019, from


Further researches done by COGAM(2016); results indicate that there exists more than the half of students who claim that they have been witnessed anti-lgbt cyberbullying due to external perceptions that are being associated with ‘’being’’ or ‘’looking’’ like a LGBT member, to continue with this consequence a significant portion of %24 also claims that they know someone who had became a victim of this situation. Statistics also shown that LGBT community are more likely to spot cyberbullying to themselves than heterosexual community which supports the evidence that bullying is a fact that these so called 2 factions seem to agree with in terms of its very existence. When the ratios are compared with the differently oriented members within the LGBTQ community gay people are more likely to be victimized than bisexuals and lesbians. The are lighted out that on an overall basis LGBT members are more likely to be cyberbullied that heterosexual groups with a significant ratio of %51 to %45. Frequency of cyberbullying indicate that bullying is more likely to last for months equal to days when it is compared to weeks and years which points out that overall time interval  is mainly around 2-12 months. When it comes to the methods of cyberbullying insulting messages took the lead and followed respectively by humiliation by visuals, impersonations, videos, unknown and situations are occuring most in social networks followed by messaging apps, blogs, video websites, telephone and unknown.

So far, we understood that lgbtq members are the main trophy in internet bullying. However we must not forget that everyone can be victimized by this process. Hinduja (2010) states that ‘’ Youth who experienced traditional bullying or cyberbullying, as either an offender or a victim, had more suicidal thoughts and were more likely to attempt suicide than those who had not experienced such forms of peer aggression. Also, victimization was more strongly related to suicidal thoughts and behaviors than offending. The findings provide further evidence that adolescent peer aggression must be taken seriously both at school and at home, and suggest that a suicide prevention and intervention component is essential within comprehensive bullying response programs implemented in schools.’’

According to the research done by Dehue & Bolman (2008); what makes cyberbullying effectve and hard to solve is the fact that it occurs as an anonymous activity primarily done within one’s home and people are more likely to react it by ignoring it or counterbullying the bully and sadly parents are underestimating the traumatizing force of their children on another children.

So far we have analysed the inner dynamics of bullying over lgbtq communion and its consequences on environmental basis. AAP (2011) offered several solutions on a social perspective in order to raise awareness for igniting the hope to reduce cyberbullying implications over victims of it: it is vital that pediatrics should encourage parents to educate their children about this topic and become more adapted to the ways of technology an deven utilizing the online supervising techniques, promoting healthy behaviours.

Altogether we heva gone through the physical manifestations of internet as a negative source of influnce over humanity. It is unhealthy to differentiate as lgbtq and others since one day, it may happen to us. Since there are no significant deterrents in legal dimensions, this problem devours anyone in its path like a whale. Thats why till the break of dawn, at least we as global civils who are aware of the beauty harmony and unity; we can at least report such people to make a difference.In each second as thinking that it wouldn’t change anything, there might be another victim. Only if we could stand against cyberbullying as an equal or preferably a superior force, we can witness significance.







Artificial Intelligence: Friend or Foe

           Hey people hope you’re all doing fine and welcome to my new post about AI which stands for artificial intelligence. Don’t worry cause I won’t be talking about the old sci-fi movies where the AI actually becomes a threat for humankind. However could really that be possible in the future where AI actually is a potential threat for humans and future societies.

          Apparently it seems dangerous for Elon musk the chief executive of Tesla and founder of the space x, you probably know him anyway, and while I was listening to his ted talk there was one thing he said that I found absorbing. Elon Musk actually used sentences to point that AI is actually a severe threat to humans such as”artificial intelligence is mankind’s biggest threat” he said during his talk at MIT, yeah sounds like he really against those advanced artificial intelligence and I was saying one thing he said during his speech that could humans actually accept that there is a smarter thing around them.

               There are many examples could be given once AI gets improved could it beat humans in many ways? Actually sounds kind of scary to knowing that humans could replace machines. For many the repetitive tasks could be done quickly and faster by AIs which could be considered as a good thing, for example I wouldn’t mind to have some AI assistant that could do daily easy tasks for me, sounds fine to me but what would happen actually if AI gets much much better than human capabilities to do advanced jobs given to them. Would that make you lose your job and would have been very frustrating to be replaced by a robot or a machine? Heres also a link for you. If you like to listen what Elon musk thinks about in more dept h  .

                    I don’t want to look like I’m biased regarding digital communications I could say that ai could harm the discussion in society. For example, during his ted talk Harri Valpola the CEO of Curious AI, tells a story that while he was waiting for train the train gets delay and he looks around the people, some of them were checking their mobile phones he says probably because they were , and there were other people get to employee at the platform and asked questions and the ones who got communicated with a real person seemed satisfied he says and adds that sometimes its good to talk to humans for your problems because some services nowadays are only accessible by mobile or online.

           Following his talk I think that too technology use for almost every problem we face potentially decrease the communication we have with outside, in other words with increasing digital communication I think we lack connections with real persons.
          To sum up, first of all I’m not against AI, I would like to state that at least to some extent it could be beneficial to handle your everyday repetitive tasks but the day those artificial intelligence reached a level that surpass our knowledge and capacity that seem like but it could be harmful in some ways such as lack of communication and makes more lazy for even doing simple things I think it is a very open discussion if AI is a danger or a very crucial element to our future. Thank you for reading my post and don’t forget to check out my other posts.

Social Media: Distractive or Helpful


             It is possible to say that many people find social media platforms quite distractive especially if you’re at job or school it could be very distractive. However, that doesn’t mean those platforms could actually be very convenient in terms of improving education via improved digital communication. Since those applications or platforms enhanced chat features a lot such as video chats or classic messages now makes super fast connections between people via the internet.                   Let’s take a look to Skype one of the most common video chat, and it’s actually quite old and how could skype be very useful in terms of education I would like to explain it more depth in terms how digital communication is actually improving our learning abilities. For instance, in terms of Skype, Howard Rheingold, virtual communities and social media teacher at Stanford and UC Berkeley states that he was able to reach out to a classroom full of students and was also be able to share his experiences with them and answering their question without being there physically.

           This example actually supports the idea that improved reaching abilities through social media to others also improving teaching as well as learning in a way. It is not just about being able to education and learning through social media but also, psychologically it helps students to be adapted to university. For instance, universities use social media platforms to create a place where students get acclimated to their courses and faculty through online interaction(Yu et al.,2010).               In relation to digital spaces where people can communicate with each other and engaged with others is also a motivational aspect for young people to learn by digital communication with others through social media. (Mason and Rennie,2007:199).
             Universities digital content could actually be seen as a huge step up in terms of fast accessibility
To assessments or lectures or even to a discussion forum to ask questions to others to get relevant answers. Now an increase of new social media platforms such as Youtube EDU and Academic Earth also helps universities to deliver their online content to students who could seem like a huge convenience in terms of learning since students can access to many contents about their faculties almost everywhere via the internet. Moreover, even online lectures are actually a thing now.
          While some think that social media is good for education in terms of digital communication and motivation through interaction via those platforms, there also research that could be seen as a warning against the abuse of social media. For instance, according to Junco and Cotton(2013) students abuse the use of Facebook by using its other activities that distracts them while doing schoolwork and it has a negative impact on learning since they are distracted.
          Social media could be distractive but could be very educative and encouraging tool in terms of education, then again, to be honest, it really depends on who is using it, if it was me it would be more distractive than educative but maybe its different for you. Thank you all for visiting my blog please check out my other posts as well. Have a nice time see you all for another post.

Gaming or Gambling ?

              Do you ever play games, online, offline, mobile or computer games? Does not matter what kind of game you’re playing or what platform you are using, if you describe yourself such gamer then with the evolution of new era games and the developers will try as hard as possible to make you pay some extra money.

           Extra money? Why did I say that? Well unfortunately even if you pay for a game that does not mean you have full access to games features. I assume at this point you already started to think about in-app-purchases or some unlockable characters or items for your favourite game!!! Yeah, I know it could be very frustrating. I mean don’t get me wrong I honestly think gaming is one of the most entertaining things ever and I have been huge gaming since I was a little boy. Ok don’t bother and ask me if you like playing games that much why does it bother you pay some extra cash for them.

           I want to answer this kind of self-asked question for my very precious readers. First of all, I should say the facts I will give is not for EVERY game in the world, but I will try to be as specific as possible with facts I will give to show I’m just not whining about paying some extra cash for the gaming industry. According to Daniel King’s presentation to the Victorian Gambling Foundation Conference back on 15 August 2018.

       There are many facts shown to prove that gamers pay excellent prices to unlock special characters or get advantages in the games they play. For example, the game called star wars battlefront 2 was priced 99$ at the time and players could unlock the special character Darth Vader either by paying 60.000 crystals which you have to grind the game for approximately 40 hours or by paying 250$, I mean seriously Darth Vader himself is more expensive than the game itself, sounds crazy to me, imagine an in-game character ‘s much more expensive than the game offer himself to players. Fans were not happy. Of course, you don’t have to pay, and you can grind the game for 40 hours to just play with your favourite star wars character. If you’re lazy take out your wallet and pay 250 extra instead. Such a bad time to be a gamer and a Darth Vader fan.

             If you think this is crazy, let me tell you something, this is just the beginning, and new gaming industry lead the players to gamble. I assume you noticed this presentation was made for gambling conference. Why? Because the gaming industry leads players to gamble.How?

           How could gaming possibly lead you gambling? Let me show you, people. First of all my examples will be very specific examples because of course not every game does that. For instance, for over a decade FIFA games have a mode called ultimate team where people buy packs and get football player cards to either build a team or sell those players taken out from packs to each other, so basically, the game has its market within itself.

           This doesn’t like gambling maybe yeah but until you pay real money to get those pack faster than the in-game money which makes you play hours and hours to grind it. So why paying real money to get those packs is gambling and why not paying to unlock a character is not. Well first of all you are guaranteed to get that character once you pay for it unlike buying packs since packs don’t guarantee you to get better players such as Cristiano Ronaldo, or Messi who has higher stats compare to other players, and you might even get very useless player cards that you can’t even sell to other players because they won’t want to buy a useless card with lower stats.

          So to sum up, no matter how much you pay, you aren’t guaranteed to get the best player cards in the game which is gambling. If you like to go through the whole presentation visit this link file:///C:/Users/ebasa/Desktop/gaming/gaming%201.pdf

        So what do you think is gaming really gamble? Would you pay more for a character than the game itself? Hope you’re leaving my post with interesting questions and pieces of information in your head. Hope you enjoyed my post please don’t forget to visit my other posts and be ready for new interesting topics I will be discussing on my blog. See you, everyone.


       Hey everyone, it’s Gundar, and I will be sharing my personal thoughts on how mass media impacts the modern world we live in supported with facts. If you are interested in learning something new about the advanced technology and how it affects our society such as artificial intelligence and cyberbullying, then I could tell you are at the right place. I intend to be as informative as possible for my readers so hope you enjoy my posts and at the same time access to new information. Thank you for reading my very first post which was so exciting for me to write and publish it for you !!!!