The High-Tech Devices Can’t Replace the Parenting Means of Parents

So, there goes, the “verifications” of that, electronic, babysitter, by the neurology professor, how early exposures to high-tech device is harmful to young babies’, minds, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

There’s, the over-abundance of high-tech devices in this country right now, the children would flip out without their, cell phones, there was the news of a ten-year-old young boy, whose father took away his cell phone, and he reacted by spraying his father’s eyes with alcohol, and there were those students, who’d played with their cell phones in class, that got their cell phones confiscated, and committed suicide.

The National Taiwan University of Education’s survey found, sixty-percent of infants as young as a year old are hooked on the cell phones, as high as ninety-percent of two-year-olds are using the cell phones.  Not to mention how the high-tech gadgets damage the eye sights (the toddlers eye balls are not yet fully developed, the exterior of the neural fibers, the myelin sheaths hadn’t covered the nerves completely yet), this had a higher correlation of causing ADHD.

The emotional development in young children is reliant on face-to-face interactions with real human beings, from the facial expressions, the tones of voice, and body languages, to learn to decipher the emotions through the feedback responses, while the electronic devices are one-way, it can’t achieve this necessity of development in children’s brains. H. Chagani of Michigan University’s medical school in the research of orphans brains from a Romanian Hospital treating orphans found, that the windows of emotions are shutting down the earliest, at around the age of five, and by this time, if emotional management hadn’t been achieved yet, then, it will, never happen.  The opposite of love is not hate, but, indifference, when the needs of the child gets ignored, it would severely impact her/his emotional development, and, an emotionally unstable person, no matter how highly intelligent, or how agile at work, nobody dares hire her/him.

I saw a baby in a stroller crying nonstop on the MRT, and her mother only kicked the stroller with her feet, with her eyes, glued on her, cell phone, didn’t even raise her brows to see what was going on with her own, young.  Later, a fellow passenger finally had it, bent over, picked up the pacifier that’s fallen from the infant’s mouth, and stuck it back in, then, the cries, stopped.  What’s more surprising was, that this mother, still didn’t raise her head, to see why her baby wasn’t, crying anymore.

what we’re, looking at, right, now…

photo from online

How vital are the immediate emotional responses from the parents?  If a mother is diagnosed with postpartum depression, treated her own young with the aloofness, ignored her/his emotional needs, although the infant is only twelve-months old, the neural connections in the baby’s emotional response area are already, abnormal.

The epigenetics research found, that our earliest experiences will get as deeply in as our DNA, to affect the activations or nonactiveness of certain, genes.  There was an experiment involving shocking baby mice of less than ten days old, at this time, when the mothers are close by, the baby mice’s brains do not secrete the stress hormones, because the hormones can, block the proper developments of the brains; but, if the mother rats were, removed, then, the baby rats’ stress hormones would immediately come out, with the “fight or flight” response, activated.  After ten days, the brains became, fully developed, and it would not matter if the mother rat was around or not, when the baby rats were electrocuted, they would secrete the stress hormones every single time they got, shocked.  The response from the parents is too vital in infancy, this is the source of that needed sense of, security.

Last year during the pandemic, the PM of Singapore, had the instructors teach the classes without their masks on, so the children can see the facial expressions.  The studies in Michigan University’s showed, that using the high-tech devices to calm the three to five year olds, although this showed as effective, but only temporarily, but in the long-term, it only causes the children to be even more difficult to, manage, and the tantrums would be way worse, because the high-tech devices had, replaced their means of, adjusting themselves in their own, emotions, an unused loop would, be used for an alternative, purpose then, and they wouldn’t know how to, manage their own, emotions as they get older.

and this too! Photo from online

The children needed to be taught, and we learned to manage our own selves, through being, managed by, others, when there’s no control from the outside, there cannot be the control on the inside that would get, formed.  The parents should not please the children, parents aren’t the children’s, friends, but their, role models.  The parents must earn the respects of their own, young, because, we don’t do what those whom we don’t respect, tell us to do.

Blocking the trends, we only get swallowed by the trends, the only way to tackle this, is by teaching the children to gain self-control, to have, the disciplines, as disciplines, are always, the keystone of, success.

And so, this is how high-tech gadgets can be, damaging to the minds of young children, and yet, we would much prefer, to park our children before a high-tech device (cell phone, iPad), my cousin’s son started tapping at any reflective surfaces that he see, and that was before he could walk without falling down, or talk, and that’s just, bad, because it’s, way easier, to park those tiny asses in front of a screen, so you parents can, run around, to get all those, errands, done, and you still don’t have ANY clue, that what you’re doing, is harmful to your own, children!

Dad, Can I Use ChatGPT to Do My Homework?

Yeah uh, these, modern day technological advances, are making sure, that the kids do NOT turn in their own work, which means, that they won’t be using their BRAINS at all, and that would then, ultimately lead to???  Yeah, a bunch of BRAINLESS idiots that became the “losers” (instead of leaders???) of TOMORROW, and the fate of all mankind gets, FUCKED up!  The artificial intelligence program (is it now???) that made the leaders of tomorrow into, LAZY IDIOTS, taking away their ability to think FOR themselves! Off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

My middle-school age daughter came home a few days ago, told me, that all her classmates had ChatGPT to do their assignments for them, and asked if she could too?

I was stunned at the moment, and all I could tell her was, “I’ll…think……about………it…………”

The instinctive dialogue, made the users who are using ChatGPT feel like they’re talking to a friend, or asking a teacher a question, more importantly, it’d helped resolved the problems that the users may, have, analyzes the conditions, and offer a workable resolve, this is how ChatGPT can attract more than 13 million users per day.

Now, the children are raised digitally, plus every student has an iPad, the push forth of the digital learning policies, and this means of learning, will take over the elementary, the middle school years soon, and the parents and instructors will be split into two minds: do we worry about how the kids can get the answers to the problems from ChatGPT or are we, happy, that ChatGPT can be used, as a helper in learning?  With using ChatGPT risked, lowering the logical thinking ability in children?

Here, I have summed up FIVE positive ways that the adults can see ChatGPT:

First, the adults need to learn: the twelve-year national education mandates stressed that the students will acquire the ability to learn on their own, to find their own means to learn things, and the parents, educators, growing with the technological advances, would be, the BEST way to teach as role models to the students.  Therefore, the instructors, the parents need to get acquainted with the program of ChatGPT, the principle which ChatGPT is based off of, the scenarios where the program is used, so they can understand, under what circumstances, their young go t ChatGPT to get the answers.

Secondly, focus more on the process of learning, encourage the children to enjoy the process of knowledge acquisition, to explore, to discover, to think, instead of trying to get the answer only.  Reminding the children, that ChatGPT is merely, a tool, that it’s not a database of answers they need, that they need to use the program to understand the problems, and use their own thinking processes, their creativity, to come up with the answers.

Third, focus on the honesty in learning: reminding the children, that copying someone else’s answer is immoral, that it would damage their reputation.  And guide them, to know that using ChatGPT to find the answers is okay, but they have to use their own understanding, and creativity, to restate the answers they get from the programming.

Fourth, teach them the techniques of usage: teaching the children to effectively use ChatGPT.  For instance, help them clarify the questions they wanted to ask, select the fitting key terms for the searches, and, know how to tell if the responses from ChatGPT is accurate and real and factual.

Fifth, restrict the usage: set up the limits and restrictions that your children will use ChatGPT, only allow them to use the program to resolve a certain type of problems.  For instance: you can use the outlines given by ChatGPT when writing, but you can’t use the program, to get the entire essay written for you.

The tools aren’t good or bad, it’s all up to the users’ states of mind, as a tool to help learning, ChatGPT can increase the efficiency of learning for students, making learning more convenient, but, at the very start of how to operate the program, the adults need to guide the children how to use the program correctly, through the parents and teachers using the program alongside the children, helping them with acquire the right, morally responsible values of use.  ChatGPT is a tool that has a huge effect, it can assist children in their learning, then, through the children’s own abilities for thought, creativity, and judgments, to help them resolve the problems.  Artificial intelligence cannot, and should NOT replace the children’s critical thinking skills, creativity, and, their learning to socialize, to interact with the world around them.

And so, this is a program (I think!) that’s devised, to answer ALL our questions for us, and, if the kids are allowed to use this program to do their assignments, then, why the @$%# would they still have use for their brains?  I mean, just ask ChatGPT (like how we adults, just “ask Google” too!), and ye shall, receive!

Wow, so ChatGPT IS god of the 21^st, Century then???

The Invasions of Sexually-Illicit Songs from TikTok Made Their Ways into the Schools, the Parents Worried that Their Children May Model After Them

The parents SHOULD be worried, because, children learn by watching, and now, as these, high-tech means of transmitting information became what’s trending, there was that suffocating (or was it hangman) challenge that some kid died in from before, remember???  Off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

The Audio/Footage of Social Media Has Violence & Sexually-Illicit Content, the Experts Suggested that Parents Should Be Companions in Their Children’s Use of TikTok Instead of Banning it

In recent years, the video clip platform of TikTok from China because an issue of national security, the public agencies started banning the program, the Department of Education also got called to discuss the matters, not only since the coming of on TikTok, FB, also YouTube, not only were there matter of privacy on hand, the issues of the contents of the video, the audio clips being “too adultly content” made all the parents sweat, worried that their young may model after what they see.  And even though the children are banned from using their cell phones during class hours, but after school or when the parents and teachers weren’t watching, it would be easy for these, inappropriately adult-aged contents get in.

“Baby, let’s have a toast…at this time, I was surrounded by older girls, and, each one served me a glass, how can I not get drunk”, the recent trending preschool kids singing and dancing to the “Ace of Spades”.  A lot of the parents, when their young children get home and started humming and singing the words aloud, they’d gone to check the song, and that was when they were shocked to realize that these age-inappropriate tunes had, seeped into the schools.

The students aren’t just into TikTok, FB, Instagram, as well as YouTube too, all had contents of sexually illicit sorts, the inappropriate languages too, and all of these too maturely adult contents made all the parents stressed, worried that their own young may model after the behaviors that they watched.  There were the YouTube parents who’d posted the warnings on the social media platforms, worried that their children may have access to the age inappropriate, too mature contents in schools or online.

The mother of a second grade child, Ms. Wu shared with the paper, that she’d allowed her child watch the cartoon of Peppa Pig, and her young child told her it was too scary, she couldn’t understand how or why, later, she’d found out, that the cartoon was made into a bloodier version, and streamed online, and the cartoon had become a conversation topic for the children at school.

A certain elementary school instructor in Hsinbei City pointe out, that the students started, smacking of heads by the best friends in their off period, there’d even been the use of the name calling each other stupid, dumbass, and the children who were watching the footages were laughing along, and, most of the teachers can’t keep the children away from these age inappropriate videos, the parents may not have any power over what their children are viewing, and even if the bans are placed, there’s the uncertainties of yet another age-inappropriate social media group that might get started

The occupational therapist, Yu told, that there were young children who’d talked to her about the topic of “TikTok” in their sessions, but the contents involved life-threatening dangers, and if the children can’t tell what’s real and what’s made up, it would be unimaginable to think, what will happen if they’d modeled after the behaviors that they were, watching, she’d called out to the parents to help set up the right means of usages of high-tech devices, and set up the awareness of how to tell if a media is good; but do NOT ban the children from all high-tech devices, programs, to avoid the problem of social interactions in the children’s, lives.

The Department of Education stated, that to help the students to tell which contents are appropriate, it will be using the forums to teach them to differentiate good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable behaviors on TikTok, and focus on the influences of the children’s emotions in encountering these footages, to differentiate what’s real and what’s fake, to prevent cyberbullying, and other lesson plans, so the teachers can teach these lessons in class to the children.

Yeah, there’s no, absolutely NO way any of us, can keep these invasions at bay, as these things are, getting into the lives of your young children, and, if you ban them from using the high-tech devices, trust me, they will just, find that hole to squeeze into, and still find ways to log on, to watch whatever it is you’re banning them from watching, and so, the best way to help your children stay safe online, is by educating them to differentiate what’s real, what’s not, teach them what they can do, if they see something that doesn’t seem quite right, that’s, alarming to them.

Using the Plug-ins to Set up the False Trades, Many Students Got Involved with the Money Laundering Spree Using the Online Games to Get the Coins in the Games

Yeah, that’s some, EASY money, all right, and yet, as you get caught, you get, CUFFED too, so totally NOT, worth it at all!  Scams and scam artists who are in their teens, from the Newspapers, translated…

The publicly traded game company, Gravity three years ago became an agent for the Korean game that’s gained widespread fame, the EOS RED, it’d, gotten a ton of players playing the game, and later, there were the discoveries of the players’ downloading the plug-ins of the game, using the system BUG to scam others to buy up the upgrades of coins, causing the company to suffer billions of dollars in losses.  The Taipei District Attorney’s Offices followed the leads, caught a total of thirty-six players who were scamming the game coins, of them, most were students, the D.A. charged them all with fraud yesterday.

The game received the comment of the “most dangerous MMORPG cell phone game” by the Korean media press before, back in 2020, the company, Gravity became an agent of the game here in Taiwan, the game claimed that the weapons can’t be bought by the gaming coin credits, that you would have to get them by force in the wild!  The systems of rewards made the kills open to view, this is a real sort of free trade!”, and yet, there were the players who’d taken advantage, using the external plug-ins to scam the coins, this made the gaming company, Gravity, intolerable of it.

The investigations by the D.A.s office found, that someone who’d played the game found the bug in the game, and designed a plug-in especially for the iPhone users, and shared it on the gaming forums.  The players would then download the plug-ins on their own, and falsely purchased the coins, then, cancel the purchase, but the canceling of the purchases would get caught by the plug-in, and get sent to the Apple Store’s payment systems, the system of the game wouldn’t receive this notice, and so, it would pay the coins that were, falsely, bought by the, players.

A lot of the players were able to spend nothing, and tricked the systems to pay them a ton of coins, they were able to get upgrades on the equipment in the game, some had even opened up two, three dummy accounts to get more coins for free.  Because what’s sold in the gaming coins is unproportional with what the game actually made in sales, the company found that there were many players who’d used the above plug-in program to scam the systems, causing the company to lose thousands of millions of, dollars.

But, the players are all over the world, and, those who used the plug-in app, their accounts can’t be traced, and, a lot of these IP addresses are from out of country, which makes this even hard to crack down, it took the district attorneys close to a whole year, to find the exact identities of thirty-six of the Taiwanese players.  And because of these, a lot were students who are still in school, and couldn’t pay for the damages, they can’t fulfill the settlement amount stated by the gaming company, so the district attorney’s offices indicted them all.

And so, this, is how easy you fall prey, to temptation, because you see someone got something good (coins, treasures, etc., etc., etc.) using this external plug-in, so you thought, hey, if others can, so can I, and that sends you on the path to crime, and, once you get on that road, there’s, no turning back, and you got charged, and, chances will be, because you are still students, and CAN’T pay for the damages in the amounts that the gaming company is asking you for, you will serve time, and that’s going to be on your, permanent, records, so totally, NOT worth it, but hey, you still can’t blame these younger generations, because their brains AREN’T fully developed Y-E-T, they can’t see the consequences of their own actions, when they act on it, that’s developing in the 20s, 30s, into our, 40s, even, and these “children” are only in their early, to late teens.

Do We Really Want to be Led by the Internet? To Get the Right of Our Lives, Back

How we humans are, driven to become, more and more, addicted to high-tech devices, the internet here, with the outbreaks, adding to our needs to use the internet, because we have to, to keep ourselves out of, MERS-CoV’s ways???  Off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

What do you want your futures to be composed of?  More and more convenient, safer, and more, secure that’s a given!  But, do you want that tighter knit relationship with the internet, or, more of the physical, face-to-face, human interactions, and getting into the natural world?

Scientific research had already proven, that physical interactions with others and being close to nature, is good for our physical and mental, health, but, the internet surely, does make life, more, convenient, safer, and the key here is are technologies being used by the people, or, are we the people, being, used by, technologies?  A food for thought, for all the consumers in the world!

“Metaverse”, surely, everybody’s heard of it, it’d made its way onto the various forms of media, and in print, described how the internet world will be filled with so many brand new things we can, experience, at our, fingertips, but how much of what’s on the internet, is truly, practical, that offered the people the ways of life they want to have?  And, how much of the population would want to, live in this, virtual, reality?

The virtual reality surely can, bring more fun and applications to human living, it can be used in gaming, travel, education training, safety, an assortment of modes of businesses………………, these technologies are used by people, they can make our futures more convenient, safer, and full of more practical operations.

But, the major companies of technologies hold a different view of the practical means of technology, the C.E.O. of Tesla, Musk once mocked, “nobody wants to tie a god damn screen to one’s head all day long”, and he’d wanted to develop “a chip that’s implanted into the brains, that can, help improve our physical abilities.”, but this also has the risk of moral, as well as the issues of practicality as well.

what we all, become…

as we are, highly, addicted, and, lacked, that needed, self-control! Illustration from online

The advancements in technologies, and the usefulness of the internet, surely, gave people  a ton of convenience, made our lives more efficient, it’s a must-have tool for everybody, but, the sources of our happiness, is not from the internet, but from the face-to-face interactions we share with others around us, and being able to enjoying the beauties of, nature, so it’s the consumers who need to become, fully aware, of what it is that they are, searching for.

The consumers should use the internet and technologies available to us, to make a safer, and more convenient, and healthier world for us all to live in, instead of trapping ourselves, in the virtual realities, that we can’t, get back out again.

And, this showed, how easily it is, that we all become, addicted to these, high-tech devices, these social networking means, and we feel compelled to update our profiles, to let the rest of the world know what’s happening to us in our separate lives (oh wow, I just made a “doo-doo” out of my ASS!), and it’s this state of mind of wanting to be in the SPOTLIGHT, and I want the world’s attention on ME, that’s drive the internet to become so widely variable, and we’d lost sight of what’s truly important, getting into the world, physically, to INTERACT with each other, face-to-face, especially, with MERS-CoV, rolling around currently, it’s safer, for us to, keep ourselves home, to reduce the risk of getting exposed, and, all of these, added to the addiction of using the internet, and our separate, high-tech devices, and it’s still not good!

You Win

This is how the high-tech devices, get between the love the two of you shared, because, you CAN’T divert his attention from “her”, no matter what, you just, can’t compete, and so, you admit to losing, and, make your, “exit”…translated…

You won!  I chose, to back out of the game.

On the MRT trains, as he sat by my side, he kept his eyes glued on you.  The attention I’d longed for from him, he’d, given it all, to you.  In the morning when we rose, before bed, he’d not even, given me a second of his time, only paid a ton of attention, to you, all he sees is, you.

In that space of privacy of only two people, I’d become, that unwelcomed, third, wheel.  And, as I’d, talked until I lost my voice, and can’t talk anymore, it’s all, wind to his, ears; and as you’d called to him, he’d immediately, tuned in, completely, focused.  Wherever he’d gone, he’d, taken you, without you, it’s like, he’d lost, his, soul.  Oh how I’d hoped, to become you, becoming the center of his, life.  But I know, that I will not, beat you, I admit, I lose.  You happy?

I HATE you!  Smartphone.

And so, this, is how addicted the modern day man can become, to the high-tech devices, to the point, that we ignore those who are around us, whom we should be, paying, more of our, attention to, well, what can we say?  We are, children, of the high-tech age, and that, is that.

The Air, My Friend

All our, active, imaginations, getting, SLAUGHTERED, because of the “abundance” of access to high-tech gadgets, with internet access, at the tips of, all of, our, fingers, the column by Jimmi Liao, translated by me…

I’m Not Foolish Enough, to Go up to the Skies to Catch the Stars,

Nor am I, Stupid Enough, to Follow the Clouds Out Adrift,

I Will NOT Head Off to Space to that Exploration that Tires Me Out Completely.

 I Can Say This, Bravely, Loud & Clear:

“So Long as I Get to Stay at Home, Check Things Out Online on My Cell Phone,

I’ll Be, Happy as, a Clam!”

the artwork of Jimmi Liao, courtesy of UDN.com

And this would be, a MAJOR problem, the slaughtering of our, and the next generations’, active imagination, as the high-tech devices are now, taking OVER this god damn world, and, soon enough you will have those, itty, bitty, fetuses inside the wombs with a cell phone (or an iPad!), in those, tiny ten little finger when you go in to get your ultrasound or sonograms, and that’s still, too sad…

Instead of Prohibiting the Children from Using the Cell Phones, Try Utilizing High-Tech Management Instead

How to restrict your own children, from getting addicted to the online world, and the high-tech devices, sound advice from the counselor’s office, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

Tik-Tok is not, the children’s favorite kind of new age social media, but there are, too many negative news on it, that it’d made the parents worrisome, that if the children are, using Tik-Tok without their, guidance.  The UDN papers interviewed many adolescents’ parents, the following is the first-person interview in summation.

There are a lot of parents around me who watched the videos on Tik-Tok too, there were friends on my FB who’d shared the videos off of Tik-Tok with us, there’s no way of banning our own young from seeing or using this new form of social media.  If we are worried that the kids may view the video footages of sex, of violence on TikTok, and banned it from their use, it only treats the symptoms, and not the disorder itself, in the online era, you can ban TikTok, but you can’t, ban EVERY other form of social network available for the children to download and use, you should set up the clear cut rules of usage of your kids’ cell phones for them instead.

I’d introduced the high-tech devices to my own children by progression, by fifth grade, I’d, given them the iPads, and, as they entered into the middle school years, I’d given them their cell phones.  As the epidemic happened, the school started utilizing the FB groups, LINE groups to assign the homework assignments, and, at this time, I’d taken the advantage, to teach them the dos and don’ts of social media.  For instance, they are only allowed to play the cell phone games after they completed their homework assignments from school, to use TikTok, and, on weekdays, off-line by ten, to avoid the impacts on their sleep.

I know, that there’s, NO way we’ll be there, monitoring the kids over what they’re viewing online, what they’re playing online, but, it’s important that we, as adults, know what programs they’d downloaded onto their cell phones, and how to use certain programs, to prevent the kids from encountering the improper, bad things online.  Using the high-tech device settings it’s more effective than the adults telling the children what they can, or cannot do.

For instance, using the Google Family Link to set the download limitations, using the ratings systems of YouTube that’s available; you can set the usage time on the iPhones too, or limit the time of use of programs on your children’s cellphones.

And so, all of these, are means that are available to all you parents out there, to keep tabs on your children’s time of usage on their high-tech devices, because, let’s face it, high-tech devices had already become, a vital part of our lives, something that we can’t, do without, and, to BAN your own young from using, it’s, just, impossible, so you should teach them how to use their high-tech devices more intelligently instead.

The Younger Generations of Tik-Tokers, Walking on the Borderlines of Morality

These younger generations will do just about any and everything, for hits on their channels here, even losing their virginity too, I bet!!!  And it’s still all due to the developments of these internet platforms, that made it too easy, to gain the “fames” that these younger generations of children are longing to get, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

Bytedance, the internet company in China in 2016 announced it’s APP Tik-Tok being provided, since the selfie shorts are, trending all across the world, and now, the international version of Tik-Tok, and the Chines versions had been downloaded over three billion times, surpassing FB, IG, and other social media leaders.

and this, is how it all got, started…

photo from online

The adolescents are already used to sharing their selfie videos, streaming them online, anytime, anyplace, sharing it with the online communities.  The Child Welfare League’s “Survey of Children & Adolescents Usage of Internet Software” back in 2019 found, that thirty-five-percent of children and adolescents have the habits of making short films of themselves, and streaming online, sixty-percent are using Tik-Tok, of the surveyed, forty-five percent said that they wanted to be young internet sensations.

In the past, Tiktok had made a ton of middle and high school age students famous.  There were the students who’d started speaking for the products, hiring the agents, with many of the high school age students’ followers breaking over hundreds of thousands, most of the followers are in the peer groups of teenagers.

To get the trending videos made, some of the teens are walking the borderlines of morality.  In October, there are the TikTok footages of many adolescents interacting with a homeless man, Huang.  The homeless man, Huang seemed to be psychologically ill, had once gone and hugged unknown school students who’d passed him by, and now, where the homeless man squatted, there is, a crowd holding their cell phones, making fun, and, some had used improper language to anger the homeless man, and there were those students in their school uniforms, hugging him, kissing him, all of the sake, of getting thousands, or hundreds of thousands of hearts, and the “most number of Kudos” on TikTok.

advancing to this…

photo from online…and, this too…

photo from online

So, this, is how bad it is getting, to boost our ratings, our “popularities”, we’re, willing to, put our lives out there, in HARM’s way, and, you don’t know, if that homeless guy you’re, hugging, for “ratings” might get turned on, and, start molesting you, and yeah, I’d been there, and had that done to me, and that just showed how the younger generations will do everything, just to get a HIT on their YouTube channels or whatever.

My Cellphone that Suddenly, Stopped Working

When it still worked, you failed to realize your dependency on it, but, once as it’d, malfunctioned, you found yourself, lost without its, convenience…translated…

Eleven days before the levels of alert dropped to two, that Thursday evening, having been diagnosed with the addiction of Tetris, I’d finally, overcome the addiction, as I was about to, turn on the app of my electronic reader, my cell phone screen blacked out all of a sudden.

Malfunctioning?  How’s the vital signs?  The body’s still, a bit, warmed up.

I’d, restarted my cell phone by force, pressed the primary key and the power button, continued for a few seconds, letting go, unresponsive still.  Lack of battery power then?  Plugged in the charging cords, unresponsible.  Switching to another cord, another charger, still, nothing.

I had, continued, forcing my cell phone to, restart, for a continued, more than, twenty-minutes on end, I started sweating hard, lifted my head up, it was, as if, I saw the masked doctor, Ying, blinked at me with those, dimmed out, but still agile eyes, telling me, “Dong-Ju, give it up already.”

I’m not Dong-Ju, I’m not doing, CPR, just waiting, for the first episode of the second season of that soap, reviewing over another soap.  And yet, the cell phone was like that patient who’s, already, dead in the soaps, stopped beating in the heart, if it had, a heart.

this…

photo from online

“Oh, cell!  What’s happened to you!”, I’d spoken that Korean, not knowing if it’s, correct or not.  Started wailing loud, like the families of those patients who had, died.

On the following day, working from home, thankfully, the wi-fi at my home was working, I’d, connected with that sense of, normalcy with the rest of the known world.  For lunch, I’d made the Korean style ramen noodles, pulled open my storage cabinets, two packs of it left.  Opened up the fridge, two more bundles of baby Pak Choi, just my serving amount, three eggs, that’ll, last me until tomorrow at breakfast then.  In the freezer, the sides I’d used, the fish dumplings, the shrimp dumplings, not that many left.  Time to, order in then…………

Oh yeah, my cell phone broke, I can’t, call the orders.

Of course, I could, walk down the staircases five stairs, then, down that sharp slope of four hundred meters, to get some groceries from under the hills, then, carry all of that, weighing in at about three to five kilograms, climb up that steep slope for about four hundred meters, then, hike up five floors of staircases home.

Because, my scooter also, broke. 

“Oh my scooter, what shall I do, without, you?”

Eight days after the alerts got elevated to stage three, Monday morn, we were going to work in shifts, it was my turn to go in for work, I’d, twisted the key in my scooter then, pressed the start button, squeezed tight my brakes, and I heard my scooter, started, moaning and groaning, making that sound that sounded like it was, dying.  Couldn’t get it to start the engine, no matter how hard I’d, tried, seeing how I’d continued to try to turn the engines on for almost ten minutes then, if I don’t go, I will be late, so I’d, run down that four-hundred meters worth of downhill slopes, to catch, the MRT.

Gotten too far away from the subject here, back on my broken cellphone.

with this…

cell phone broken…

What’s, in it?  Games, electronic books, emails, video streams, the communication records of my group…………none of that mattered.  I’d become, totally, reliant on my cell in shopping for daily needs, food too.  It’s safe to say, that I’d been, spoiled by it.  Until I recalled how my banking app, and my trading accounts are also, on there, that came, as, a biggest, sort of, shock!  These days, any and everything is, stored on the cell phones, when did that start to happen?

To tell the truth, there’s, nothing wrong with modern day man’s reliance on the cell phones, I just hope, that it doesn’t, break again, in the past two years, enough had already, broken down, the entire world.

mixed in with…

illustration from online, and we modern day people are, totally, SCREWED!!!

And so, it wasn’t until your cell phone broke, did you realize, how much you’d, relied on it, and, as you’d realized this, you wanted to, get off depending on it completely, but you can’t, because our lives are, tied in with, these high-tech devices that we’re all using, for work, for entertainment, and everything else, and, these high-tech devices, made us, into, their, dependents, and we can’t, get off using it.