NAME: LEE TACK HOOI

MATRIX NUMBER: D20081032349

TITLE: DO YOUNG PEOPLE TODAY MAKE A GOOD USE OF THEIR LEISURE TIME? OR DO THEY SPENT TOO MUCH TIME WATCHING TELEVISION AND PLAYING VIDEO GAMES, INSTEAD OF TAKING PART IN MORE PRODUCTION ACTIVITIES.

Nowadays, young people are very different from those young people in the older days.

They have a better technology, more entertainment, and a much better lifestyle. The situation is

totally different for the young people in the older days. They do not have the technology –

powered material, not as much entertainment as nowadays and a very difficult lifestyle. They do

not have much leisure time to spent like the young people today. The young people in the older

days needed to do many daily routine to complete their basic needs and they just have a tiny

space for their leisure activities. In the other hand, the young people nowadays have lots of

leisure time left due to the development of the technology in their life. However, all these

enhancements from the technology development actually do not help much in building up their

positive characteristics and maturity development. This is because the young people nowadays

do not make a good use of their leisure time. They might spend too much times watching

television and playing video games instead of taking part in more production activities.

There is no doubt that the technology today is developing very fast and bringing up

many news things for us daily. However, the market value of this new technology is always

depends on the acceptance of the young people. For example is the introduction of the 3G

communication system. The young people today do not seem to accept or use the 3G

communication due to the reason of the price and the connectivity. Thus, the 3G communication

is still in the introduction phase of a new technology. If the young people have accept this new

technology and most of them are using it, then we might see that all the communication –

device seller are selling the 3G phones everywhere.

However, there is two things that is very welcome by young people is the video games

and the television. Laptop or personal computer is also growing and becoming one of the basic

needs that must be owned by young people. The wide acceptance of the video games actually

is due to the introduction of new games almost every month. Most of the young people will

spend their time playing video games in their house or in the cyber café in their neighborhood.

Video games actually do not bring much of the positive effect to the young people. It actually

made an individual become anti – social in the future. This is because some of the players are

very addicted to the video game that they can play it for 24 hours non – stop. Some might plays

at home and some might plays with their friend in the cyber café. This actually will limit the

social development of the young people. They will not learn to communicate or socialize with

the people surrounding them. Instead, they might be an expertise in socializing through the

virtual world. No matter how, we need to bear in mind that social life in the virtual world is very

much different from the real social world. So, they might soon come out as an anti – social

young people.

Playing video games and watching television actually does bring some good effects on

the young people. By playing video games, an individual actually will develop his or her brain

cells faster than those who do not play video games. They can be a fast thinker and they might

as well always come out with new ideas that we might not think of. Why does this happen? This

is because in video games, the player will always need to think and find out the best solution to

avoid from losing the games to others. Thus, they might be able to train themselves to be a fast

thinker. At the same time, the video games actually turning the young people into violence

oriented individual because most of the video game such as war craft and Dotta involve the

violence aspect of killing the enemy with some special tool animated in the games. As a result,

a few years ago, a young man in the western country had killed his lecturer and friend using a

hand gun. This might be the influence of the video games named Counter Strike which involve

killing the enemy by using the hand gun or pistol. Not just that, over – playing of video games

might actually killed the brain cells too. If an individual plays video game for 24 hours non –

stop, it is just like another form of unintentional suicide.

Watching television actually bring both pros and cons to the young people. The

television might be able to send out messages and news to the young people. For instance, the

television is advertising the ways to prevent the Swine Influenza or the H1N1 illness. This

message is able to be send throughout the whole country except the country side where lack of

electricity. Not just that, young people might enhance their imagination by watching television.

They might produce some good ideas from what they had watched from the television. This

might bring up some brand new things that we think is impossible to be done. However, how

many of the young people have made a good use of the television? It is true that the young

people might impersonate the character they watch in the television but most of the character

they chosen to impersonate is always those that perform violence and some dangerous stunt.

For example, my young brother was trying to impersonate the Jackie Chan in New Police

Stories 2. After watching the movie, he will always plays with his gun and perform some stunt he

learnt from that movie. A few days later, he was bruise for falling down from tree.

Actually, the young people nowadays were very much enhanced by the introduced new

technology. As a good user of the technology without abusing it, we must be wise enough to

use it. Actually, as young people we are not necessary to spent out times on television and

video games. There are many social works out there that we can involve in. For example is the

RELA community. This community is one of the volunteering activities that always lack of young

people participation. By joining this community, the young people can spend their leisure time

with the activities organized. Thus, this will help them to increase their credibility in socializing

with other. This skill is very useful for every individual in the future. There are stil other such as

the Rakan Muda association. In this association, the young people can join the activities like

mountain hiking, jungle tracking, assailing, diving and others. All these activities actually provide

hands – on experience to the individual participated and can enhance their knowledge rather

than just playing video games and watching television. However, all these volunteering

association and community are always lack of young people. They do not fully utilize their

leisure time with all the beneficiary activities provided for them.

Another bad habit of the young people nowadays is that they like to sleep when they

have free times rather than doing other activities. They felt tired and will spend their whole

weekend sleeping. This is just a wasting of time. Life is just like the burning candle. It should not

be waste just for sleeping and useless activities. Actually, the above statement is more

concentrated on watching television and playing video games. The young people nowadays are

also more likely to be involved in clubbing, illegal racing, gambling and virtual chatting.

As a conclusion, each individual has their own right and risk to choose the best way to

full use of their leisure time. it is very dependent on the way they spent on each activities. If they

are too addicted to an activities no matter it is a video games or the volunteering activities, it

might affect their other performance as well. This is because they had spent too much time on it.

Young people should bear in mind that all these activities is just used to filling up their leisure

time and not as an important event that must be done. There is no harm playing video games

and watching television if the individuals do not abuse these two technologies provided to them.

Lastly, it will back to each individual to think of what is necessary to be done and what is not

necessary to be done.