This opinion piece shares how teenagers are feeling more dissatisfied with themselves and their lives these days. Evidence has shown a correlation between teenagers' screen time and their mental health. 

As teenagers' quality of life improves (compared to when their parents were teenagers), we would expect teenagers to live a more comfortable and carefree life. However, it seems that every generation has its own problems to face. For this generation, although the ubiquitous nature of social media has brought about more interconnectivity and convenience for teenagers, social media is becoming increasingly pervasive. In every generation, teenagers are the most delicate and impressionable group of people. They are the ones who have not gone through enough life experiences to be able to effectively discern right from wrong, rendering them especially susceptible to the influence of social media. Over the past decades, the effects of social media have evolved to reach a point where its influence exerted on this vulnerable group of people is taking a toll on their mental health. 

In the news article, the author stated a phenomenon that teenagers who spends more time using social media platforms have worse mental health. This is applicable to the teenagers in Singapore as many teenagers care about their “face” which is their dignity and they are also easily pressurised to participate in the same things as their peers. This causes teenagers to be paranoid about the latest trend amongst the peers and are also susceptible to peer influence. The inter connectivity of social media allows teenagers to be constantly exposed to the lives of other peers and lead to unhealthy competition mentality. In the long run, it will slowly influence teenagers’ perception as they grow increasingly dissatisfied with their own lives. Furthermore, although teenagers understand that what is portrayed on social media might not be entirely true, they are not rational enough to not let these unrealistic representations of people’s life affect themselves. Ultimately, more guidance is needed from parents and teachers to ensure that teenagers do not get into a vicious cycle of comparing themselves with what they see online. 

One wire I learnt from the article is “grimmest” which means very serious. 

 

More about what emotional support animals are 🐶: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/emotional-support-animals-dogs-mental-health-pets-3141001 

The commentary on CNA, written by a mental health specialist, featured a balanced entry on the take of emotional support animals (ESAs) on airplanes. Following a ban of ESAs on flight cabins in many other countries, Singapore has followed suit, banning emotional support dogs on flight cabins from 1 April onwards. They are not recognised as assistance dogs, which by the Animal and Veterinary Service (AVS) website’s description, refers to one who has received the required training by Assistance Dogs International (ADI) or the International Guide Dog Federation (IGDF), and hence will no longer be allowed to stay onboard on SIA flights once the documentations are passed past 1 April 2023.

Ideally, allowing ESAs and assistance dogs onboard provides those who need help from their pets an avenue through which they can travel overseas in comfort. However, in reality, as mentioned in the commentary, I do agree that airlines have to take this move to combat exploitation, where pet-owning flight-takers who don’t want to pay more for their pets take advantage of the benefits meant for ESAs and assistance dogs, swindling their way through, in order to get a free air ticket for their furry little ones. Seeing how airlines have to take such a radical move, it can be safely assumed that the situation may be worse than we think. 

Yet, this also inevitably comes at a price. By establishing bans on ESAs on flights, airlines may be denying passengers who really require the pets’ support a chance to travel on planes comfortably, or at all, if their conditions are on the severe side. This is especially so as cramped flight cabins spaces are a nightmare for those with severe claustrophobia, and airplanes themselves are quite notorious for being reminiscent of bad memories, which may trigger PTSD or anxiety patients.

In response to this, the writer proposes that airlines impose more stringent measures when it comes to documentation of ESAs and assistance dogs, so that we can help those with mental or physical disabilities enjoy a safe and comfortable flight. In the context of Singapore, this may entail more governmental regulation of what constitutes a ‘certified mental health professional’ who is able to issue certification of legitimate ESAs and assistance dogs, which would curtail exploitations by crafty flight-takers. 

VOCAB 🔉

psychotherapy (n.): the treatment of mental conditions by verbal communication and interaction.

He states that the tech industry paints an idealistic illusion on how the future world would look like and millions of people fall for it. He mentioned that tech giants made us believe in their products like “meta verse”, “web3” “artificial intelligence”. All these products have raked in billions of dollars, despite their technology still being in the infancy stage.

He talked about ChatGPT4, mentioning that it, like other large language models, are simply mirroring databases of texts, and the machine glom words together based on probability. The systems are trained to generate text that sounds plausible. It is not intelligence.Yet, the product is being marked as new oracles of knowledge, and a humanly persons it’s emotions.

From this article, I learnt about the powerful mess of labels, which make us believe a painted image by a company, in order for us to fork out our money to invest, for the sole purpose of their companies’ growth.

Thus, we should remain open minded and not be trapped in any labels which corporations force onto us. The next time you hear the term “metaverse”, remember it’s merely a company’s name, not our destined future.

The word I learn is oracle
oracle is a person or thing considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions

 

At the 66th session of the CND, Second Minister for Home Affairs Josephine Teo said the global trends in drug supply and abuse were worrying, in particular the increasing liberalisation of cannabis for non-medical use and reiterated Singapore's strategy to dealing with illicit drugs was that of a multi-pronged, holistic harm prevention approach aimed at reducing drug demand and supply.
This includes drug education, tough laws, robust enforcement efforts, while focusing on rehabilitation and reintegration programmes in order to keep the country relatively drug-free. 

This is a huge achievement for Singapore being represented in a global context and taking on larger role and responsibility. Singapore is able to showcase its unique yet successful drug control to the rest of the world and help in drug control as well especially with the increasingly severe drug dealings among young people to curb long term addiction and possible social unrest

The Child Protective Service noted that Ella's parents had difficulties exercising proper supervision and control over her, with their ability inhibited by their acrimonious relationship and conflicting parenting styles, which often "triangulated Ella", said Judge Tung.

I think this is a perfect example of control of family by authorities when the parents are incapable of managing their own behaviour and leading to wrong behaviours of their children subsequently. This should be alerted to relevant authorities and let them intervene when necessary

vacillated: indecisive about