Essay 4 Proposal

Jacqueline Martin

April 15^th 2014

Professor Nicole Williams

English 102

Essay #4 Proposal

I plan to research how dependent young adults are on their cell pones apposed to how older adults were at their age. I realize that I will need to touch up my thesis. I plan to interview young adults my age as well as some older adults. I will compare and contrast the data I find to put together a well throughout reach paper.

            I chose this topic because I wanted to research something that I found interesting. I would like to see the data I collect because I wonder is I personally am to dependent on my cellphone. I have come to realize that if it’s not in my hand it is constantly in reaching distance. I wonder how many other young adults are facing the same “addiction.” I find myself wondering what young adults did before cellphones. It is mind-blowing to me that at one point in time cellphones did not exist, or they were used strictly for phone calls. Now a days cellphones are used for so much more than just calling, all social media is assessable twenty four hours a day.

            The key topics that I plan to researcher are things such as when cellphones, texting, and smart phones originated, what types of communication was primarily used before cellphones. I hope to interview five young adults and five older adults. I want to ask them a variety of question. I will ask the young adults questions such as how often a day they are on their phones, and what they use it for mainly. I will ask the older adults to think back to their teenage years and answer the questions as if they were that age. I want to compare the time difference.

Everything Bad Is Good For You: Games

This is a post that I missed from April first. The reading is is written by Steven Johnson, and his point of view on video games in society today. Right away Johnson shows gives specific exampled to his reader on why games aren't as horrible for you as some people may think. Johnson bring up the point that to watch certain television shows today you have to be able to make inferences, track shifting social relationships, and that to do all of these tasks the viewer has to pay attention. This instantly made me realize that Johnson is right. Theres a lot more to watching television show than jut sitting down and looking at the screen. A viewer has to remember characters, and their roles in show. For a series a view may need to use previous knowledge from a different episode. As I continued to read i learned that Johnson has many more of these excellent examples. He brings up the point that a video game would improve a child hand eye coordination more than holding a book would. I liked this example because it is counter arguing that all video games are bad for you. Overall Johnson made a really good argument. He shifted my opinion.

Practice Observation

I chose to observe a dining hall for my practice observations. I usually get lunch at Tilly so I observed while I ate alone. The first clear thing that I observed was that there are different tables for people to sit on. Most tables were filled with groups of friends. I watched as they shared laughs and conversations. There were some tables, however, that had people sitting unaccompanied. These people still seemed to have their attention occupied. Quite a few people scrolled through their phones as they ate. Others were reading from their computers, novel, or paper. The last bit of people sitting alone were just happy eating while in thought. I watched as people went up and got food then went back to their table. A couple of people stood in line socializing. Many people kept to their friends but more than once I watched as someone ran into someone they knew, they would share a couple of words then go back on to the task of getting food. Overall Tilly is a very social place.

Jon Stewart Commencement Address

Jon Stewart's Commencement Address is not one like most. The most shocking thing to me was that in this speech over and over again, Jon insults the school. He started off my insulting the choir by saying that the song reminds him of nothing. It seemed as if Jon knew that he was set up to fail in the sense that he made it a point to tell the parents he was "serious." He is basically sitting there thanking the school for giving him the degree when in fact he did nothing. Although he realizes that he did nothing he does a good job of making a point to show that he knows that the scholars in front of him went through a lot and paid a lot to be in the seat they are in. I do like the way he went about this but at the same time. I don't think that I would want to hear this address at my commencement ceremony. I did enjoy a couple of laughs, Stewart uses humor to get to his audience. One thing that caught my eyes was that he joked about six graduates trying to figure out how to make a bong out of their caps. All and all Stewart does show community by showing that he did belong to the school, although his speech was a little vulgar and immature at points you can feel the connection he feels with the school.

Draft Collage!

This was my first try using glogster, I'm happy with how it came out, I may make some changes before the Collage is officially due. I chose to centralize my collage around the three most important things to me which would be my family, my friends, and my love for traveling. I chose the color for the background because I wanted it to be simple and easy on the eyes. the green is natural and gives off a positive vibe to be. I chose to have a navy text because I thought that black was too plain and boring, and navy just happens to be my favorite color. The song that I chose is one that I just think is inspirational and in the song is where I found the title to my blog which is "This is my world."

Link To My Collage!

Alter Egos: Avatars and Their Creators

Due: Thursday January 30th 

I chose to write about the reading that was on pages fifty-three to fifty nine, Julian Dibbell’s Alter Egos: Avatars and Their Creators. Immediately this reading caught my attention solely on the way that it was set up. It was clear and easy to understand. I liked the fact that the reader can compare the looks of the avatar to the actual picture of the creator. The reader is also able to get a taste of who the creator really is because there is information about them under their actual picture. I found it funny each avatar is very different from their creator. I also found it interesting that all of the creators stated that they liked the game world because it was a way to escape. They all realized that they are treated differently than in the real world. The young boy Jason for example clearly has physical disabilities, but in the game world no one knows that, they assume he is perfectly healthy. In the game world he’s able to do things that he would be unable to in real life. I did have previous knowledge on this topic, due to the fact that I have friends that are “gamers.”