On Peer Pressure.

Peer pressure is defined by dictionary.com as follows: The social influence a peer group exerts on its individual members as each member attempts to conform to the expectations of the group.

It would be easy to suggest why teenagers and adults drink and drive as a result of negative peer pressure. They might drink and drive because they want to fit in or because somebody or a group of people tell you they don’t want to take a taxi home from the bar or a house party so they will encourage the most sober person of the group to drive home.

On the flip-side, positive peer pressure can also deter people from drinking and driving. Taken from timescolonist.com, Steve Wallace shared a story about four fathers who took turns to drive children to hockey games and practice. Eventually one of the fathers was charged with a DUI charge and lost his license for three months. The other fathers quickly declined the offer from the offender when he offered to drive after his ban was finished to make up for his driving absence because they did not trust him to drive their own children any longer.

Wallace wrote, “The social stigma of an impaired driving conviction had a lasting effect on the relationship of the four men and their families. Many convicted drivers do not abstain from drinking and driving because of the law. They change their behaviour because of social pressure. Bad behaviour can go the way of the spittoon. Peer pressure is an extremely powerful weapon against drinking drivers. It is the kind of pressure we should all be willing to exert in order to end the senseless slaughter on our roads.”

Teenagers are easily led by negative peer pressure according to an article on thedrunkdrivingmasses.com because they have inexperience and their immaturity leads to them being subdued by negative peer pressure and accidents as a result of those traits and lack of experience; i.e. drag racing, drinking and driving and failure to properly wear seatbelts.

The article goes on to say that many young drivers are at an increased risk because of deficiencies in a variety of psychomotor, perceptual, and cognitive skills. Some young drivers intentionally increase their risk of collision - they are motivated by thrill-seeking or compromised by peer pressure. Lifestyle choices, alcohol, drug use and inexperience often combine to dramatically increase the crash risk of teen drivers.

Teenadvice.about.com adds in a separate article that peer pressure almost always plays a role in street racing and other car games played by teens.

It would be wise for any new driver young or old to drive with positive influences that will encourage them to drive safely and responsibly. Driving under positive peer pressure will result in proper seatbelt usage, controlled speeds and sober driving. 

On Auto-Tune.

Auto-Tune defined by dictionary.com states the meaning as such: (n) a software package that automatically manipulates a recording of a vocal track until it is in tune regardless of whether or not the original performance was in tune.

Taken from antarestech.com in 1997, Antares Audio Technologies (founded in 1990 as Jupiter Systems by Dr. Harold Hildebrand) moved into the hardware DSP effects processor market with the ATR-1, a rack-mount version of Auto-Tune. Antares incorporated in May 1998 and in January 1999 they acquired Cameo International who was their former distributor. Later in 1999, Antares once again created a new product category with the Antares Microphone Modeler, which is a plug-in that allows any reasonable quality microphone to sound like a vast selection of other more complex microphones.

Many artists in today’s pop culture rely heavily on Antares’s digital phenomenon. According to hiphopmusic.com, Auto-Tune was initially used discreetly to smooth over wrong notes but Cher first used the effect in 1998 as an instrument rather then as a corrective lens in her single, “Believe,” which reached the 74th spot of the list on VH1’s, 100 Greatest Songs of the 90’s. This song catapulted the popularity of Auto-Tune and in today’s pop world a vast majority of artists has moulded Auto-Tune as a generic sound. Most notably, Faheem Rasheed Najm, or otherwise known as T-Pain who single-handedly revolutionized the use of Auto-Tune in the hip-hop genre by winning two separate Grammy awards for both singles “The Good Life” with Kanye West and also “Blame It” with Jamie Foxx. As more and more artists continue to use the software, Cher and T-Pain could both go down as the grandparents of Auto-Tune; with special consideration to the ever-controversial artist, Kanye West.

But not only has Auto-Tune impacted the music industry for better or for worse, upon releasing the software to the general public, people everywhere Auto-Tuned everything and anything on the internet. Youtube.com has hundreds of thousands of videos dedicated to parodies and wanna-bes broadcasting their creativity and morphing older videos into musical mock-ups. According to networkworld.com in 2010, over 700 billion videos were viewed on youtube.com and more then 13 million hours of video were uploaded to the multi-media juggernaut (just to give you a rough idea of how powerful the internet can be to broadcast yourself).

Auto-Tune the News takes serious interviews and news pieces from around the world and masks the Auto-Tune feature over the voices and adds music to the background to create a much different tone then what the original content was originally intended.

Other youtube.com users such as SherrieLeaLaird take popular viral videos to make a new viral video using Auto-Tune such as SherrieLeaLaird’s Auto-Tuned take on Antoine Dodson.

Auto-Tune’s ability to turn anyone into an overnight songbird couldn’t be more evident then a video on youtube.com of a homely woman singing in “a-capella” about her favourite alcoholic beverage in contorting tones and pitches and then when later replayed in Auto-Tune and laying a music track beneath the song, the woman sings a catchy jingle.  

Perhaps its reasons such as this that turns people off from Auto-Tune and why some people give zero respect to artists who use it such as Kesha who not only uses Auto-tune in her international hits such as “Tik-Tok,” but also sings in speech which may have also catapulted a new genre of pop music style. Collegehumor.com best explains her style with their musical parody “Sing-Talk.”

Further-still, T-Pain may have tarnished the music fad by allowing SonicMule Inc. to use his name in their iPhone application created in 2010, I Am T-Pain. According to americanconsumernews.com I Am T-Pain users have created almost 35 million Auto-Tuned recordings, the application has made Apple’s Top 300 iPad/iPod application list and I Am T-Pain has been featured on TV shows such as The Ellen Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live. At US$2.99 per download, T-Pain cashed in and permanently scorched his name into Auto-Tune history.

Rap super-star, Jay-Z released a track that was intended to ruin and crushthe use of Auto-Tune under the title, “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune),” but according to crunchgear.com Anteras admitted that there was a boost in Auto-Tune sales in the weeks following the release of the song. The article goes on to explain that D.O.A. was ironically produced by Kanye West, an artist who certainly uses the gimmick in his own music.

So while there is much to celebrate and also to deliberate about Auto-Tune and its impact on the global multi-media scale, the fact remains that there is much popularity in the software and there might not be death for Auto-Tune anytime soon.

On Digital Dating.

As part of many online disaster stories I have a lot of experience in the online dating world. The more times I ask couples how they met, the more responses I hear are becoming notably similar, “we met online.” Let’s face the facts, one-in-five American singles are in a committed relationship with a partner they have met online according to a match.com study found on datingsitesreviews.com.

Those are astounding numbers when there is a big stigmatism about meeting people through a dating website. People can feel ashamed or embarrassed about the fact that they met online. Others may feel scared or intimidated about meeting online strangers. Perhaps there is a fear because according to Statistics Canada, in 2008 approximately 23,000 incidents of dating violence were reported to police. There may be an intimidation factor because people tend to set their profile pictures as an image of a time when they looked flawless and fear the possibility of their date being disappointed when they see reality. Everyone has that one picture they love of themselves where the camera caught them looking their best with a great smile at the perfect angle. We use those pictures as our main images because as unfortunate as it is; looks matter to most people.

It’s also very easy to stretch the truth on your profile information. According to statistics found in a nypost.com article, men are approximately two inches shorter then what they publish in their profile while women are an inch shorter and 50 percent of daters lie about their weight. When it comes to revealing information about salary and income, their financial information is usually exaggerated by 20 percent.

Here’s an informative image full of online dating statistics. 

With all of these negative conceptions, people are still surfing the web for love or sexual encounters. Greg Blatt, CEO of Match.com said the world has changed. Blatt says people get married older, work longer hours, move around more, and people are generally busier. He said these changes have put pressure on the way society traditionally have met their significant others.  Blatt goes on to say that because of these changes, there is an increasing openness to doing new things.  He said online dating has grown so much in part as a response to these societal changes and has become the third most important way we meet our significant others, even though it didn't even exist 15 years ago.  

Though meeting significant others and spouses occur at a bigger percentage at work and school (36 percent) or through friends and family (26 percent) according to match.com, online dating (17 percent) has overtaken the bar scene during the past three years as only 11 percent of people have met their spouse at a club or social event.

Another dating website, plentyoffish.com claims that with over 135 million monthly visitors, they are the market leader in online dating. Plentyoffish says independent tracking firms Comscore.com and Hitwise.com report plentyoffish is the most visited dating site in the Northern America and the United Kingdom in 2010; not to mention membership is absolutely free.

But is free necessarily a good thing? Would a paid membership offer better results? 


Plentyoffish claims that eharmony.ca charges its subscribers $49.99 every month which is a hefty price to pay if a user struggles to find love for an entire year. A year’s subscription would result in an annual bill of $599.88. However, eharmony says that the premium price will help users find meaningful high-quality matches. Eharmony claims that $49.99 a month will cost less than going on dates with people who may not be compatible with you. In theory, eharmony may have a point but that also depends on the type of dates you go on, not every date has to be a bank-buster. But in my own opinion there may be more merit in knowing someone is willing to fork out $49.99 a month to find love because that tells me a woman is serious about long-term relationships rather then a woman on a free dating site who may just be on it for an ego-booster.

If anyone signs up for any type of dating website there is safety and advice that should always be taken and followed. Plentyoffish says there is no substitute for acting with caution when communicating with any stranger who wants to meet you. Never include your last name, e-mail address, home address, phone number, place of work, or any other identifying information in your internet profile or initial e-mail messages. Stop communicating with anyone who pressures you for personal or financial information or attempts in any way to trick you into revealing it.

Plentyoffish also advises that if you choose to have a face-to-face meeting with another member, always tell someone in your family or a friend where you are going and when you will return. Never agree to be picked up at your home. Always provide your own transportation to and from your date and meet in a public place with many people around.

And let’s not forget that a date should be fun, whatever fun may be for those particular people. 


Check out these ten great first date ideas on onlinedating.org for some suggestions if you’re stuck on what to do or where to go.