ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS IN ADOLESCENCE

To start talking about this, we have a typical trigger question: is it possible to have a ‘lasting relationship’ being a teenager? The answer is yes and no. We will answer this with another question: when teenagers find boyfriends or girlfriends, do they want the relationship to last and have a future? 

The saying is self-explaining: 'it will last as long as you care for it and you’ll keep your partner for as long as you desire'. 

People say that the time a relationship lasts depends on both parts of the couple. Personally, we think that it also depends on society or the person’s group of friends. 

According to various studies, the ‘romantic love’ depends on three factors: physical attraction, intimacy (which means to thoroughly know your partner) and commitment. 

During adolescence is very common to feel the ‘attraction’ towards the other person, because society stands that the ‘outside’ of a person is extremely exposed and it is given great importance when you start going out with someone. 

Obviously, without the combination of the three factors, a lasting relationship is impossible. If there is only attraction, it will be only a ‘moment of love’ or a chance to discover that that person will never be ‘THE one’ and that he or she will be attracted to other people (sooner or later). 

The most important thing is to be committed: if there’s no commitment, the relationship won’t last. You must feel the urge of being with someone and see that person as a perfect companion in the future. 

Typically, teenagers have shorter relationships because adolescence is a stage in which people instinctively seek for many different experiences and try almost everything once. Adolescence is about discovering who you are, what values you consider to be important and what you want to achieve in life. 

That’s why we believe that romantic relationships in adolescence are established –mainly, there’s always the exception to the rule- to have fun. Dating someone is an opportunity to go to new places and live new experiences. Dating can be a way to fit in a group of friends; if all your friends go out with someone, one can also feel the need to find a ‘soul mate’. For some people, going out with someone, is a matter of ‘social status’.

The reality –and so often heard from teachers, grandparents, mothers or even psychologists- is that during adolescence we exaggerate things. Everything is new and unique, that’s why we believe our first girlfriend or boyfriend is actually ‘the love of our lives’, ‘the one’ and so on. 

But…is it possible to find ‘true love’ during adolescence? This, we’ll discuss next time.

Malena Avagliano, Macarena Beceiro, Valeria Gasol and Camila Periale - 5th Year

SOCIAL NETWORKS

Nowadays, teenagers (and most of adult people) communicate via social networks. Many of us are familiarized with them, but not everyone knows how to use them or what they are used for.

A virtual community or social network is a website on the internet that brings people together to talk, share ideas and interests or make new friends. This type of collaboration and sharing of data is often referred to as ‘social media’. Unlike traditional media, that is often created by no more than 10 people, social media sites have content that has been created by hundreds or even millions of different people. 

The first network, not currently known, was called ‘Six Degrees’. This network was initiated in late 1997, but the server was released in 2001. It is currently one of the networks that have disappeared. It was founded by Andrew Winreich, and developed by the company Macroview. This site gave the users the option to create their profile and friends list. The name was based on the theory that any human being is connected to any other by a maximum of 6 known people. Nowadays, this social network has disappeared due to its low popularity.

Nevertheless, social networks continued to grow and became extremely popular. The most used ones today are: WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. But do we know what they are for?

WhatsApp is a free instant messaging application for mobile phones, to send and receive messages via internet, complementing mail services, instant messaging, short message services or multimedia messaging systems. Using this app (short for APPLICATION), you can even talk to several people at the same by creating groups; and share images, videos and other data. One of its characteristics is that you can send and receive voice messages; this is useful for people that need to say several things and what to avoid writing so much. 

Facebook is a social network created by Mark Zuckerberg while studying at Harvard University. His aim was to design a space where students at university could communicate and share content easily through the internet. His project was so ground-breaking that eventually spread to be available for any user on the network. 

Twitter is a network where you can send plain text messages of short length with a maximum of 140 characters called tweets, which are displayed in the user's home page. Users can subscribe to other users tweets. This is called ‘following’ and people become ‘followers’. By default, messages are public and can be disseminated privately showing them only to certain followers. Users can tweet from the web service, with external applications, or by short message service (SMS) available in certain countries. 

It became even more popular when people started using Hashtags, which are words or phrases that represent conversations the users are having. It is preceded by a # . This trend is now used not only on Twitter, but also on Facebook and Instagram. 

Instagram is a social network application for sharing photos and videos. It allows users to apply photo effects like filters, frames, retro and vintage colours; these can be shared in different social networks like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter.

A distinctive feature of the application is that it gives a square shape to photographs in honor of the Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid cameras, contrasting with the aspect ratio 16:9 currently used by most mobile phone cameras. 

However, not all social networks are used properly. There is a lack of control and anonymity and they give access to inappropriate content.

Here are some of the disadvantages that they may present:

• They are dangerous if not properly configured;
• They are addictive;
• They are used by criminals to know the details of their victims.

When these networks are used correctly, they can be very useful to contact old friends or distant relatives; besides, their use allows communication in real time. In addition, the information is continually updated. 

Social Networks give us tools to communicate easily and quickly. Nevertheless, if used in a wrong way, they may bring problems. Remember to leave them aside from time to time and never stop talking to ‘real’ people, in real life. 

Camila Alcuri, Brenda González, Cibeles Dillon and Bruno García - 3rd Year

REALITY SHOWS

When we talk about reality shows, we often think about people exposing their lives and letting everyone know what they think and feel. We often relate it to the first reality that was shown here: Big Brother.

But, was it really the first one? The only one? Can we consider 'Showmatch' a reality show? What about MasterChef? 

What makes a reality show what it is? How does this kind of entertainment affect young people and teenagers?

Big Brother

This is one of the most popular reality shows. It is a franchise created by Jon de Mol and was originally based on a tv programme from The Netherlands. The premise of the show is that there is a group of people, dubbed as 'house mates' or 'house guests', living together in a specially constructed large house. During their time in the house they are isolated from the outside world and are not aware of outside events or have access to any electronic devices. Contestants are continuously monitored by television cameras as well as personal audio microphones during their entire stay.

The show gained such popularity that it started to expand overseas. Today, we can turn on the tv and watch our own Big Brother; this was what gave us the idea of writing this article. 

The goal of the show is to portray different people, with deep personal stories. Among this year's participants we can find a gay man, a womanizer, a raped woman, an engineer, a transexual woman, a boxer and a cumbia singer, among others. 

Big Brother 2015 - Argentina

The participants are young people, they share the ambition of winning the general prize and during the process they win fame, money and followers.

The goal is to avoid fiction. Reality shows that are based on this concept, are undoubtedly the most discussed ones and are in the eye of the media because they represent the invasion of the private lives of those portrayed in the show.

But, is it a good thing to turn on the tv and watch someone else's life live? What do we learn from this? Is this constructive? 

One of the reasons why people are against reality shows is the extreme exposition. Media should keep a balance between portraying people's lives and their rights. They must respect people's privacy and freedom, which is not done when taking part in a reality show. 

A blogger, Lucy Maher, wrote the following about the issue:

Parents need to know that the contestants on this voyeuristic reality show are 14 adults who live together in a house. Their close proximity leads to various iffy situations, including excessive drinking and hooking up. What's more, the contestants manipulate each other (lying, flirting, etc.) to get a leg up on their opponent.

We agree with Lucy. 

We think that reality shows are a bad influence to teenagers and younger generations. Big Brother is clearly among the worst of them since it displays an unnnecessary amount of explicit content, having their participants, both men and women, exposing themselves with nudity and live sex. This phenomenon does not end there, it gets worse when they show their 'inhabitants' consuming alcohol and drugs like it's a socially accepted trait. 

Our culture has been invaded by this kind of shows. Does this mean the decadence of good tv has finally started? Is this the ONLY thing we will be forced to watch in the future? 

It depends on every person, to support these formats or not. But it's in our hands, we have the power: we can choose not to watch it, lowering the so call 'rating' battle and asking -silently- for a change. 

Luna Méndez, Agustina Varela, Thomas Lepera, Jonathan Meneses and Facundo Guajardo - 3rd Year.-

HUMAN ALIENATION THANKS TO TECHNOLOGY?

Technology influences us in ways that we don´t believe or imagine. It gives us benefits when we use it limitedly and it distracts us when we use it unconsciously, without moderation.

These technologies facilitate the development of society and they give us tools to solve problems that appeared to have no solution.

Nowadays, society is known as an ‘information society’ because technology caused this change.

Now, the people are using technology to communicate; we are losing the habit of ‘face to face’ communication and therefore personal relationships. We have lost our dialogue; we don’t go to libraries anymore, and so on.

We are less dependent on the people around and we are more dependent on technology.

To confirm this idea, we decided to interview people from different generations to see what they thought about technology: a teenager (17 years old), a housewife (44 years old) and a lovely grandmother (75 years old). Here's what they said. 

BerthoTimes: What are social networks? We refer to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, among others.

Teenager: They are part of the ‘Media’, a way to keep society informed.

Housewife: A quick way to stay in touch, because if I compare it with when I was a little girl and I have to send a letter to San Juan, the answer comes to me in a month.

Grandma: I don’t know them.

BT: How often are they used?

T: It depends on each person. There are certain people who are dependent of them and others who are independent. I am dependent on this case because now instead of answering the question, I am answering a Whatsapp message.

H: Exaggeratedly.

G: I do not know them. I have no idea.

BT: What do you think of the initiative of leaving electronic devices aside when socializing?

T: I think it’s a good idea, that way people would talk to each other personally again.

H: Good, It should be left aside (the mobile phone) because people don’t look at you when they speak anymore.

G: I would say that, before technology, we didn’t live with our mobile phones in the hand…we didn’t look like zombies like you do. You can live the same without a mobile phone and if you don’t have one, you just look for a public phone.

BT: Is using the mobile phone a disadvantage during class?

T: No, because I use it to pass tests sometimes. I think this is right…

H: During class, it shouldn’t be used. It is important to have it on you all morning because a responsible parent knows when to reach his or her child. If you were a teacher, would you let a student answer a phone call from his or her mother?

G: It is a disadvantage!! A huge disadvantage because you do not learn anything! You learn things half-way! If I ask a teenager what happened on October 12th, they have no clue!

BT: Are you annoyed when people are using their phones and other electronic devices all the time?

T: If I'm talking about something important and they don’t listen, it is. If it’s not important, then it doesn’t bother me.

H: Yes, because they are disconnected from reality, and they don’t pay attention in the street, adults talk to them and they don’t listen to us because they are aware of the ‘Clin clin’ (phone’s ringtone) and don’t even listen to their mothers!

G: Yes because… I'll tell you: They don’t pay attention when they are crossing streets, railroad tracks. They look silly.

BT: What would you change of technology? 

T: Nothing…it is perfect the way it is; except that it is constantly evolving…and I can’t keep track!

H: There should be a little more privacy because, when you don’t know how to use it it can bring you trouble.

G: Leave those bloody mobile phones or, at the most, use them ONLY when you need them! Back in my day, we waited 15 YEARS for the mobile phone to be invented…and nobody died waiting! Now, if a teenager doesn’t have a mobile –and the last one launched- he or she ‘dies’. They go to the toilet with the phone, just in case. It strikes me because it is foolish. I don’t mean technology overall…but mobile phones!

So…what do YOU think? Are YOU alienated by technology and social networks? It's time for us to leave electronic gadgets aside and start talking to people personally, admiring the world we live in. There's so much beauty! 

Cecilia Gliubizzi and Candela Córdoba - 5th Year

PIERCINGS AND TATTOOS: DETERMINING FACTOR?

There are plenty of misconceptions about people with piercings and tattoos. A lot of people think that everyone with them is less intelligent, dishonest, disrespectful, aggressive, unreliable and so on. Are they right? Do people with piercings and tattoos deserve to be judged just for having them?

We asked some people who have them to tell us about their experiences. 

First we interviewed someone with piercings and this is what she said: 

‘I have always liked them so I wanted to get a few. I started getting them seven years ago, when I was 21. At first, my mom didn’t approve them but after a couple of months she started to accept them. However, one of my aunts doesn’t like them, so she makes me take them off every time I see her. I’ve never had any problems finding a job because when it comes to graphic designers it’s very common to find people with piercings and tattoos. I have never felt rejected by society for having them, sometimes people stares at me but that’s okay. I understand them because I have piercings on my face’.

Then we talked to a girl who has a tattoo. She told us: 

‘I got it because I liked the design and it has a meaning for me (the balance between good and evil). I got it 8 (eight) months ago. My parents liked it, so they encouraged me to get it, and it was a present from them. I didn’t have any problems finding a job. I work with my mother in a bakery and they don’t have any issues because it’s in a place where is hard to see it'. 

Tattoos are a way to express yourself, they can be planned and have a meaning or be spontaneous and meaningless. As well as piercings, tattoos are a way to decorate your body but they don’t define your economic situation or your level of intelligence.So next time you see someone with piercings or tattoos, don’t judge them until you get to know them.

Florencia Tubío and Analía Yonamine- 4th Year