Lies and Sports

Article: Have Sports Teams Brought Down America’s Schools?

Author: Elizabeth Kolbert

September 6, 2013

                In the article “Have Sports Teams Brought Down America’s Schools?” written by Elizabeth Kolbert, she talks about a book called “The Smartest Kids in the World” by Amanda Ripley.  Kolbert then goes on to talk about Amanda Ripley’s book who tells a story about a young man who decides to spend his senior year in Poland.  She goes further into the article comparing the test scores of other countries whose schools have no sports versus America where sports are everything.  Of course the other countries had higher test scores because their main concern is school and education not sports.  Elizabeth Kolbert then ends her article by saying “American kids' performance on the field shows just how well they can do when expectations are high and they put their minds to it. It’s too bad that their test scores show the same thing.”

                In my opinion sports are important. Do I think sports are more important than education? Of course not but I do stand on the fact that they are important.  Sports teach valuable lessons as well as going to class to learn a different subject. But it is pretty sad that the test scores of our children are going down the drain, but people cannot blame just sports for that.

Article: How to Catch a Texting Liar

Author: Alexandra Sifferlin

September 5, 2013

                In the article “How to Catch a Texting Liar” written by Alexandra Sifferlin, she talks about a study that was done by researchers from Brigham Young University.  The researchers asked college students to respond to 30 questions that were generated by the computer and texted to the students.  Not only were they asked to respond to these questions, they were also asked to lie to half of them.  What they found,  Sifferlin claims is that it took longer for the participants to respond when they were lying and that more edits were done in the process.  She then goes on to talk about how it is much easier to lie through social media and digital conversations. 

                I would have to agree with this article.  It is easier to lie through social media because you it is not like you are reading the face of the person you are talking to, their facial expressions, or even hear that person talking.  When you are having digital conversations there is nothing you can do to know when a person is lying unless you are paying close attention to the details that you have been given.