Is DNA Destiny?

   This question is posed often in science. There is no easy answer as there are many ways to break down this enigmatic inquiry. To me, the idea of DNA controlling your future can most easily be viewed by putting it into two categories, personality and physicality.

   DNA controlling who you are as a person is often thought about in the age old question, nature or nurture? Do you behave the way you do because you were raised that way? Do you act in a certain manner because you inherited some specific genes from you parents, or was it media and society that shaped the person you are? It may be none of these things at all, but I believe you are shaped more by who raised and your environment than the seemingly never-ending code of C's, G's, A's, and T's in your DNA . Studies have shown that a child and their siblings who grew up in a household with their parents were much more likely to have the same personality traits as their parents, rather than a sibling who was put up for adoption and raised in another household. Genetics doesn't lay out the way you are going operate. It doesn't destine you to be a certain way. It may make you more prone to act in a one manner or another, for example, those with a history of depression in their family may be more likely to get depression themselves and be moody, but the way a person handles that situation is completely up to them. They may get help from a doctor or family member, or they may let the dark hold of depression choke them out. The genes may be prominent in their veins, but they make their own choices in their brains. DNA does not set in stone who a person is.

   People may ague that while DNA doesn't completely control personality, it has a much stronger link to physical problems. This is true, but I believe your "destiny," so to speak, is in your own hands. If you know you're more likely to get heart disease due to your family background, you can do things to prevent the problem from growing, such as eating right and exercising. Many diseases cannot be prevented as easily though, things like cancer and multiple sclerosis, but you can control how you deal with them. There are many people who lay down and accept their fate when diagnosed with diseases like these, but then there are people, like my mother, who did not hear the nails in her coffin when the doctor told her the news. She heard opportunity. Opportunity to show others you aren't your disease. Opportunity to prove that her DNA was not her destiny. Opportunity to present to the world she could still be successful, beyond successful, even though her genes told her otherwise.
   
  So in short DNA, to me, is not your destiny. Your destiny is the choices you make based on the hand life deals you. It is the path you choose based on the alleles your parents give you.

Not So Smart Phones

    Are smart phones making us dumber? I believe so. While our tiny computers give us the easy reach to the depths of knowledge on the Internet, I feel our cellular devices are making us no more knowledgeable. They have taken away our ability to wonder, as we have all the answers right before us. This "instant" information happens to also make us more impatient as human beings.

    Smart phones are also taking away or ability to spell along with our ability to imagine. Autocorrect has taken away our need to pull out a dictionary or think about the letters we put into a word. Our spelling mistakes are no longer recognizable in our writing because there is no red line under our errors. There is no device to fix our out-of-place letters.

    Lack of productivity is also an outcome from the growing popularity of cell phones. Instead of paying attention in class or doing homework, most students are found poking around on Facebook or playing various pointless games. If many students didn't have their phone they would wouldn't know how to find information in a book rather than just putting a question into a search bar. 

    Cell phones make us socially dumb as well. Most people don't know how to talk to other individuals face to face anymore because they are so used to doing it through a screen. I think we should learn to look up from our phones and enjoy the world around us for awhile. That's the smartest way to handle smart phones.