What Culture Do You Belong To........

I recently had a truly wonderful experience. Never before this had I given much thought to what I was wearing or where it was coming from. For me it is always just the brand name or the logo that I see/buy.

A few days ago while looking at the clothes labels for washing instructions; I stumbled upon something really fascinating. The first few articles of clothing I saw were made in different countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Jordan etc. I dug more and found a few more that were made in China. Extremely motivated I decided to search more and looked at several other clothes in my closet OK, the first four items—all shirts were made in Bangladesh. Hmm….then I noticed a few more—pants, scarfs, sweaters—made in China.  You must be wondering, what was going on and why was it so interesting. Well the interesting part was that all the clothing items older than 2 or more years were pretty much made in China, while those bought in past one year or so were made in different countries like Jordan, Vietnam, Chile etc. Could it be that cheap labor is no longer available in China or that people living in that country have come to realize their true potential and drifting more towards performing intellectual jobs such as research & development? Not too many would know that a lot of new research in the field of biology, microbiology, genetics or medicine is taking place in South Asian countries as opposed to Europe. Yes that's true, recently while working on my microbiology project, I was amazed to find out that many new bacterial species discovered in the past few years were all extensively researched or discovered by Chinese scientists. But coming back to the everyday consumer items, the shift is intriguing. And how this World wide integrated culture we call globalization, is impacting our lives and in true sense representative of who we are or what culture we belong to. For most part we don’t care where our clothes, shoes or other material goods are coming from. We as consumers just buy the stuff we like as they are mere reflection of our lifestyles—be it urban or traditional, than our cultural norms and/ or practices. The changing pace of technology and globalization has not only eliminated the distances between the countries but also the cultural diversity.

It is astonishing that while most of us may have never had crossed the U.S. border, the products we use/consume everyday are created, assembled and produced by different people in different countries. To us it is just the finished product that is being sold or marketed— be it clothes, shoes, toys, books, gadgets, cars or anything else. 

So What Culture do we actually belong to?!?!

What Your Kids Are Watching......

Whether we like it or not media is an integral part of children's lives today. There is so much influence of media in our everyday lives that it is hard to not have kids exposed to television, internet and video games. It is believed that American children on an average spend four to five hours every day on some form of electronic media which includes watching TV, being on the internet and playing video games. Today media unarguably plays a role in kid’s development; and its influence could be both favorable and unfavorable. In comparison to the favorable influencing, it’s the unfavorable part that concerns most parents today. Due to the negative effects of exposure to violent TV programming and video games; parents continue to express their disgust over its influence on young minds. 

While studies have proved that all media including television, video games, computers and the Internet, especially when the contents are violent is harmful. But at the same time it is unimaginable to not have kids exposed to it at all. The analysts have divided opinion on as to how many hours of TV watching is appropriate; many profess no exposure while others assert only a few hours a week. In fact, in a fast paced digital age today where new technology and gadgets come to market an on almost daily basis, more than ever there is a need for constant research to understand the impact of new technological innovations and their influence on young minds. There could be numerous topics and categories of research which could and should be done when it comes to children and electronic media. For example, considering the popularity and easy accessibility of mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones along with the numerous kids friendly apps available on these devices; the question is, if the old school thought of not exposing kids to electronic media until age 5 or later, still valid. It is important to learn, how much exposure kids need to have in  different age groups to various different devices? And not just to device itself, but also exposure to a specific type of content (games, apps, videos, etc.) also needs to be researched as different type of content can have an entirely different impact. Considering that kids today are exposed to every device which comes to market, what is the right time for parents to allow kids to either have access or ownership of these devices? What kind of parental control or restrictions are good to have and/or are justified and what is not. When any company or manufacturer comes up with new technology or electronic media, in most cases they have already had spent time researching the target market, but they may also need to spend time and resources on understanding the impact to children and these studies be published; and thus society/parents need to be aware of it to make an informed decisions.