One of the big topics in today's parenting is about violent video games on children. There are lots of research, articles, and opinions on this topic. I think this does not only impact children but anyone who plays violent video games of any age.
I think these games do not make me any more violent than if I did not play violent games. It is possible that some people may learn to use violence as a coping mechanism, but I think this is more a lack on society in teaching the person alternative ways to cope with certain feelings. The problem is even worse with video games because it also takes people away from society thus forcing more stress on parents or guardians to focus on this behavior. In the past with other media, there was still at least some interactions with other people. Watching tv, movies, and/or listening to the radio allows other people to also be in the same proximity. So, violent shows and movies have similar impact but some social norms are still expected. It would be interesting to see impacts on people who do the same activities but by themselves.
What I think video games do to me is desensitize me from the violence. By this I mean that it is less shocking when reality presents me a similar situation. For example, seeing guns is less shocking because I see them in all the games. Although I have been taught to be careful, there is still some fear to be around them but after so many games, movies, and even the news, there is also a curiosity or cool factor to them. I would not be surprised that people with different exposure levels could be less inclined to stay away from things that could be very fatal or sadly excited to test to see if it is real.
To borrow from another genre of horror games, some things are less scary now because I am more used to seeing creepy creatures, blood, and other creepy music. Although this can be seen as a pro, this also shows how my increased exposure to certain things made me immune to certain feelings. Thus with violence, many people are "losing" the natural protection from violence which was our fear to violence. Perhaps that was not the best way to protect ourselves as we see our world compared to the past.
There was an article stating that criminal violence has actually gone down during the growth of video games among the youth. Unfortunately, I am not familiar with what can make an individual take the leap to that level of violence. Possibly since they act out earlier, these issues can actually be addressed before they are stressed to commit a larger crime. Another possibility is game addiction which prevents them from physically going out to commit crimes. Or maybe they lack so much social experience that they can no longer simple mix in with the crowd thus making them stand out more.
To me, the main problem is education which means parenting for many families. What makes education difficult is the changes in the way we educate others. Each generation faces different exposure and different values. I'm sure society thought the 80's families were more violent due to the exposures to violent tv shows and movies. Before that, possibly blamed radios. Today's education issue is probably more pronounced than before due to many combinations of improved communications primarily in marketing (internet) and our society values in placing economic values over social values (free market). This may not be technically better or worse, but definitely requires a different method to address different underlying issues although the underlying issues may share the same outcomes.
Education is not the soul responsibility of the parents although they are the core source for many children. It is all of our responsibilities to promote people around us, including friends, siblings, family, and even our parents. For parents, parenting shouldn't stop even after the kids leave to lead their own lives (hopefully at a lesser level than before). I may not understand everything my parents tell me, but I am still listening even if I retort that our world is not the same. Sometimes it just takes a lot of repetition for the lesson to hit home, and sometimes it really is a different world.
Reference:
http://videogames.procon.org/#pro_con
http://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/Facts_for_Families_Pages/Children_and_Video_Games_Playing_with_Violence_91.aspx
http://www.drphil.com/articles/article/297
http://www.pamf.org/parenting-teens/general/media-web/videogames.html
Monday, November 18, 2013
Friday, November 15, 2013
Work Life: Working Remotely
I have worked in the office or at client's site for most my career. The experience is as normal wherever I worked. I have the good chance to work remotely for over a year. Well, I work remotely most of the time because I technically still have an office that I go to once in a while. I just want to state that because it is not exactly the same as working remotely all the time.
I did not have a lot of problems transitioning to the new work-style. Overall, my work quality has improved and my time management probably is a little better. I do miss having some face-to-face conversations. I think one of the easy aspects of the transition is my seriousness to working professionally. Another factor is that the entire team is spread around the country with a handful in the other hemisphere, so we are all used to teleconferencing even when in the office.
In my line of work, I do a lot of teleconferencing with desktop sharing similar to GoToMeeting or WebEx. I work with a lot of people. I become more serious with formality the larger my meeting is. I will be a little more lax as there are fewer people. As a software release manager, my role entails a lot of meetings. I do not have to do a lot of active participation in most of the meetings, but still have my share of meetings where I am the host.
There are some annoyances working with some other remote users. Those with kids and dogs are particularly frustrating at times. Some users just cannot separate their personal lives from the background. When people cringe just by seeing you sign into the meeting before the voice is connected, that is a poor sign that something needs to be done. If their dog cannot stop barking, then the user needs to find another location to work. I am fine with people who had to stay home for an emergency or have some background sound due to other extraneous situations. I'll even let some construction or even just a bad day (or even two). But if you have loud background distractions practically all the time, then you need to find a different place.
Because I'm in meetings a lot, sometimes there is some downtime waiting for people to attend. During these times, I'd use the time to cleanup my work area which also happens to be the same area for personal use. The frees up a lot of time outside of work. Other times, I would just move over to my exercise fitness ball and do a few crunches. Not only healthy for me, but really helps give me energy to focus on my meetings. Because you are not far from other chores, I can also cook and/or do laundry during my lunch breaks. This also saves a lot of time outside of work and healthier. All of these adds up so by the end of the day, I can actually relax and not have to spend my time working on personal chores which are not difficult but time-consuming (like laundry which is two 5 minutes and most of the time is just waiting).
Because I can relax more effectively, I wake up more naturally and rarely have the afternoon burn out. I work more effectively which also helps me make more use of my time. So working home is quite beneficial for my employer.
The part that I miss is the interactions with other people. I do not feel as emotionally invested with coworkers. Interactions are a bit more impersonal which in turn actually helps me run my meetings more effectively. Although beneficial for the employer, there is slightly less personal feel to it.
If I could change something, it would be nice to have video conferencing but the companies bandwidth will unlikely hold up since we could have up to 30+ people in a meeting. Alternatively, maybe just a "white noise" video conference of your immediate team even if no one is talking. It will be virtually like being an office except you can actually mute if you need silence or "peek" over at someone and see what they are working on or just listen into their meetings without having to bug them about their schedule or for an invite.
Also, I think some people will have a little easier time empathizing with others. I've found that some people feel that they are singled out but not realize that the other person is just that way with everyone. They just do not see it because you cannot see that sort of thing from a remote location. There have been several conversations with colleagues where I just say that they don't have to stress on it because the person is like that to everyone.
So there are some new social norms remote users have to be more aware of. Because I have lost the visual aid, I have to be more careful on how I deliver my messages. Too quiet and they think you are not confident in what you are saying. Interrupt too much and they think you do not respect them (there is a very slight lag time that most people do not realize but makes it easier for certain types of people to interrupt others). Talk too much and you will likely lose your audience without even knowing it. Multi-tasking is very common in remote users.
A good sign that your meeting is losing its focus when more and more people respond with "sorry, can you repeat that?" There are all sorts of variations of the question but basically they are saying that they were not paying attention to the meeting and was working on something else. This is ok if the person is not an integral person to the meeting. Those people should not be a permanent member of the meeting though. But when your crucial participants say that more frequently, the agenda of the meeting is somehow lost and should be restructured.
Another problem with remote users is that it is now so easy to attend meetings that you do not need to be attending. I've been on meetings where there were 50+ people and only 10 people really needed to be on that call. Worst is when those 10 people go even further off-topic or extend the meeting longer than necessary. Personally, I think if only 20% of the people on the call is actively participating then the meeting needs to be restructured. Also on this topic, I always find it ridiculous when meetings have both the team's manager, team members, and both are inactive. If that were the case, the manager should kick off his team and have himself or another member stay on to later summarize key points for the team. There is no reason for the entire team to be wasting time listening to a lot of topics unrelated to them.
Financially, it saves both parties. The company saves on office space and utilities while employees save on gas (and probably eating out for the younger generation). There will less complaints about working extra time here and there because they also save commute time (although employers/bosses should not expect this if they did not expect this in-office). Particularly for IT, this also makes it easier to transition to more flexible hours. Work four hours in the morning, then stay up really late for a late night install.
My opinion on working remotely is that it works for some people but not all people. In general, it works and should be considered as a solution but do not expect that everyone will thrive in such an environment even those you know who have good work ethics in the office.
I did not have a lot of problems transitioning to the new work-style. Overall, my work quality has improved and my time management probably is a little better. I do miss having some face-to-face conversations. I think one of the easy aspects of the transition is my seriousness to working professionally. Another factor is that the entire team is spread around the country with a handful in the other hemisphere, so we are all used to teleconferencing even when in the office.
In my line of work, I do a lot of teleconferencing with desktop sharing similar to GoToMeeting or WebEx. I work with a lot of people. I become more serious with formality the larger my meeting is. I will be a little more lax as there are fewer people. As a software release manager, my role entails a lot of meetings. I do not have to do a lot of active participation in most of the meetings, but still have my share of meetings where I am the host.
There are some annoyances working with some other remote users. Those with kids and dogs are particularly frustrating at times. Some users just cannot separate their personal lives from the background. When people cringe just by seeing you sign into the meeting before the voice is connected, that is a poor sign that something needs to be done. If their dog cannot stop barking, then the user needs to find another location to work. I am fine with people who had to stay home for an emergency or have some background sound due to other extraneous situations. I'll even let some construction or even just a bad day (or even two). But if you have loud background distractions practically all the time, then you need to find a different place.
Because I'm in meetings a lot, sometimes there is some downtime waiting for people to attend. During these times, I'd use the time to cleanup my work area which also happens to be the same area for personal use. The frees up a lot of time outside of work. Other times, I would just move over to my exercise fitness ball and do a few crunches. Not only healthy for me, but really helps give me energy to focus on my meetings. Because you are not far from other chores, I can also cook and/or do laundry during my lunch breaks. This also saves a lot of time outside of work and healthier. All of these adds up so by the end of the day, I can actually relax and not have to spend my time working on personal chores which are not difficult but time-consuming (like laundry which is two 5 minutes and most of the time is just waiting).
Because I can relax more effectively, I wake up more naturally and rarely have the afternoon burn out. I work more effectively which also helps me make more use of my time. So working home is quite beneficial for my employer.
The part that I miss is the interactions with other people. I do not feel as emotionally invested with coworkers. Interactions are a bit more impersonal which in turn actually helps me run my meetings more effectively. Although beneficial for the employer, there is slightly less personal feel to it.
If I could change something, it would be nice to have video conferencing but the companies bandwidth will unlikely hold up since we could have up to 30+ people in a meeting. Alternatively, maybe just a "white noise" video conference of your immediate team even if no one is talking. It will be virtually like being an office except you can actually mute if you need silence or "peek" over at someone and see what they are working on or just listen into their meetings without having to bug them about their schedule or for an invite.
Also, I think some people will have a little easier time empathizing with others. I've found that some people feel that they are singled out but not realize that the other person is just that way with everyone. They just do not see it because you cannot see that sort of thing from a remote location. There have been several conversations with colleagues where I just say that they don't have to stress on it because the person is like that to everyone.
So there are some new social norms remote users have to be more aware of. Because I have lost the visual aid, I have to be more careful on how I deliver my messages. Too quiet and they think you are not confident in what you are saying. Interrupt too much and they think you do not respect them (there is a very slight lag time that most people do not realize but makes it easier for certain types of people to interrupt others). Talk too much and you will likely lose your audience without even knowing it. Multi-tasking is very common in remote users.
A good sign that your meeting is losing its focus when more and more people respond with "sorry, can you repeat that?" There are all sorts of variations of the question but basically they are saying that they were not paying attention to the meeting and was working on something else. This is ok if the person is not an integral person to the meeting. Those people should not be a permanent member of the meeting though. But when your crucial participants say that more frequently, the agenda of the meeting is somehow lost and should be restructured.
Another problem with remote users is that it is now so easy to attend meetings that you do not need to be attending. I've been on meetings where there were 50+ people and only 10 people really needed to be on that call. Worst is when those 10 people go even further off-topic or extend the meeting longer than necessary. Personally, I think if only 20% of the people on the call is actively participating then the meeting needs to be restructured. Also on this topic, I always find it ridiculous when meetings have both the team's manager, team members, and both are inactive. If that were the case, the manager should kick off his team and have himself or another member stay on to later summarize key points for the team. There is no reason for the entire team to be wasting time listening to a lot of topics unrelated to them.
Financially, it saves both parties. The company saves on office space and utilities while employees save on gas (and probably eating out for the younger generation). There will less complaints about working extra time here and there because they also save commute time (although employers/bosses should not expect this if they did not expect this in-office). Particularly for IT, this also makes it easier to transition to more flexible hours. Work four hours in the morning, then stay up really late for a late night install.
My opinion on working remotely is that it works for some people but not all people. In general, it works and should be considered as a solution but do not expect that everyone will thrive in such an environment even those you know who have good work ethics in the office.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Question: Max 90 days of audit logs?
In one of my meetings, one of the new requirements was to keep a audit logs only for 90 days. Up to this point, the audit logs were kept for 1 year. This was according to a new mandate that I am not familiar with.
What is the reasoning behind mandating a shorter period of audit logs? I can understand if it was stated as keeping a minimum record, but not even allowing more logs seem odd to me.
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