Sunday, December 20, 2009

HW 31 Exploring methods

I started off by asking myself this question and answering becuase i feel other people might have the same answer and wont say it, and because i dont have a problem saying it either. i would say that i dont seek out everyones approval. I only seek out approval from people who are really close to me like my my mother and my bestfriends and my family because they know me the best. i would say they way i act in terms of my personality doesnt change for anyone because i like my personality but the way i dress if deffinitly influenced by others and i costumize myself so that people can see me a certain way. i dont want people to see as a dirrty slob or anything to i make sure i put makeup on my face and try to dress nice. especially being a girl its hard because were pressured by other figures like models and celebrities. The same goes for guys.

But for the person that i asked these questions to was my close friend jessica and the first question i asked her was do you like the way you look. her responce was "I accept that im not perfect but there are deffinitly things about myself i would like to change. im not a size two like you but i dont try to be like you and every other kind of woman because i cant change who i really am on the inside."

I then asked her is there anyone she looks up to. Her responce was "Ellen DeGeneres because she is who she is no matter what and thats someonething i like about people."

Theorizing of cool

Where does the source of our emptiness come from & the need to have meaning?

In everyday life we notice that alot of the worlds attention goes to the people who are "cool", either for what there wearing, the way they carry themselfs and how they look. I think the main source of feeling meaningless is the want to be approved of. we desperately want approval because it makes us feel more then just happy but like life would be perfect if we were liked by everyone.

when marketing compnaies show commericals and make teen magazines they play off of our insecurities and give us the idea of how we have to be in order to be "cool" and for some teenagers its really stressful physicially and mentally because they strive so hard to be just like that and when it doesnt happen it can send people into a state of even lower self asteem and it makes people want to try even harder. alot of teens ask themselfs why cant i be like that, why cant i look like her because she has the perfect life but we never really look at the person being marketed to us. that person might have the same exact problem that alot of other teenagers too. Either way no one FEELS perfect, everyone has some kind of insecurity.

Another source of our meaningless is the media. Theres movie constantly being made with the same stereotypical group of people. The jock,prep,prom queen and the vally chick. they set it up in a way where if you dont fit into one of those categories then there must be something wrong with you.

I aslo think that our extreme need for a sence of meaning comes from our families and friends who are the closest people to us (in most cases). we have the need to be accepted in both our social and cultural worlds. when one doesnt work the other seams alot harder to do because we know in our heads we cant do both.

We each have a hole were trying to fill with eaither a certain image or material things. but in the end its just a fight to keep up.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

HW 29, merchant of cool

From watching "Merchants of cool" on PBS there were a few things that stood out to me the most. but first my overall thought about this documentry was that us teenagers are the center of attention to marketing companies and we dont even know it sometimes. Its like big brother and were being watched constantly to see how were changing so they can keep up with us.

Something i found intresting was from the video they said that they look for the underground trends to market. That the trends other marketers havent discoverd yet market them so they can have the latest trend and keep up with our genertation to make money. its like there helping us by making things we like but at the same time they just want our money and they cause conflict by making it a competition between teenagers.

The video mentioned a person called the "Mook" and i thouight this person was intresting because its like there creating a person that us teengers can look up to and someone we can become so they market a type of person for us to become and in order to become that person we need to buy things like clothes and accesories and just become cool by becoming that person.

The marketing companies try to target every category of teenagers they can think of. weather its Boys,girls,goth,prep,vally and jock they have set standards for us on how each one of these groups should look like and if we cant meet up to those standards then were not cool.

Monday, December 7, 2009

HW 28, Informal reasurch, Internet, magazines, TV shows

To start off my reasurch i started with the visual things like movies, TV shows and magazines.

Movies:
There is a movie called Odd Girl Out staring Alexa vega from Spy Kids, and she plays a teenage girl in high school whos world seams to be falling apart by event after event. Shes friends with the popular girl at school named Stacy. Stacy has money, clothes, a car and lots of friends. The main character on the other hand doesnt have everything that Stacy has so people see her as the sidekick who isnt really cool so shes being pittyed by stacy. by the middle of the movie the main character try's to kill herself because her freind stacy has used her popularity to spread rumors and turn everyone against her. She a bitch.

The Movie Twilight appeals to young adults because they think its cool that robert pattinson plays a vampire and is good looking. i think its all about appeal because if it doesnt appeal to you there is no desire or envy for it.

TV shows:
What i notice from TV shows is to become the MAIN character you have to be cool. There has to be something about you that EVERYONE likes so that people watch the show. It gives the idea that in order to be cool you have to appeal to everyones intrest, almost as if you can create a perfect person, which is impossible. TV shows for younger kids like Hannah montana or any show on disney channel each one of those characters has something "special" about them that makes kids want to be them cuz they want to be "cool" too. Hannah Montana Sings, Demi lovato's character on sony with a chance is working at an acting studio, the characters on Wizards of wavery place have magical powers and younger kids find that cool.

Internet Sources:
i went to goggle & i typed it "How To be a cool teenager" and they had one in perticular from wikihow http://www.wikihow.com/Be-Cool-(Teen-Girls) for How to be a cool teenage girl and what i thought was intresting about the whole list was that it contradicts itself. half the list is telling you what to wear and how to act and the other half is telling you just to be youself so i found that annoying.

" 4- Wear nice clothes. NEVER do all of your shopping at Wal- Mart or Target, you'll look cheap and unfashionable. Try stores like: Urban Outfitters, Kiwi Beach, Aeropostale, American Eagle, Abercrombie, Hollister, Delia's, Forever 21- try not to get loads of stuff with the brand's name on them- you'll look stupid plus you'll be a walking billboard---Although if you can't afford those kinds of clothes Target is very acceptable."

"11- Don't be fake. People won't like you or think you're cool if you try to be popular. JUST BE YOURSELF and HAVE FUN!"

The next website i looked for was " How to be a cool teenage boy" ans suprisingly there wasent a webite for that. it was mainly cool clothes for teenage boys so that they look cool. another thing i noticed if for the boys all they had to do was look cool but for girls they had to change who they were all together.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

HW 27- Informal reasurch, Intreviews and Surveys

From interviweing people on the street, my friends and my family and my reaction is that someone of the answers were typical, dipicting someone who is cool as being somene who has money and wears nice clothing and has alot of self confidence. someone of the better answers came from people who were closer to me like my family. im guessing so because they want me to find the coolness within me and not create it on the outside. my aunts definition of someone who is cool was someone who is sucessful, inteligent, confident, reliable. my friends idea of being cool is being yourself. haveing people notice you for the right reasons like being well dressed and well put together. like andy was saying in class not being socially clumsy.

The family member I chose was my cousin and i think hes cool because hes sucsessful and inteligent. hes always buying the latest electronice to stay updated and he has to sides to him, he can be serious and funny. hes always willing to help someone and i always make fun of him and say hes Rico Suave because of how hes always meticulous about how he looks.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Short Story

Kennith fixed his eyes on her, going through each part of her, her hair, her eyes, her skin and her smile. Feeling a strong need to talk to her she stands up from his chair and sits next to her. He says "i couldnt help but notice you had something in your hair, let me take it out for you" feeling the soft strands of her hair and inhaling the sweet smell.

Girl: "Oh really, thanks alot" She smiles and from that day they are inseprible.

(a few weeks later)

Kennith: " we need to talk, i feel like we havent been the same latley, one minute your happy and the next your mad and you take it out on me. i feel like your not the same girl i met a few weeks ago."

Girl: "(deep breath) things have just been rough latley (rolling her eyes in fustration) you cant expect me to tell you everything that goes on in my life."

Kennith: "im the person in your life that you tell everything to, your supposed to trust me." (sensing something bad is about to happen he prepares himself

Girl: "To tell you the truth i just dont like you as much anymore, it wasent what i thought it was going to be and im dissapointed."

Kennith: " why didnt you tell me this before? (picking up his backpack gettin ready to walk out of the conversation."

Girl: "because ithought things would get better and they didnt!(raising her voice) i dont understand why your so upset, we were never serious to begin with."

Kennith: "How the fuck are you gonna do this to me, ive done so much for you and this is wat i get...you were just fucking around with my head werent you...well you know what i dont need a girl like you, a bitch who thinks the world revolves around her only. never call or text me again"

Kennith takes his bag and walks away realizing that this girl is only a lesson to helping him find a better girl for him. He cant help but feel heartbroken on the inisde but knows that theres a girl out there who's gonna appreciate him.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Constructive Exploration of Cool

We just started our new unit of "Cool" which i find to be an intresting topic that everyone can participate in.

when i think about "being cool" some questions that came to mind werehow can we define someone as cool when we all have different ideas of wat cool is? Who came up with the refrence that someone is cool? is there a limit to how cool you can be? is being cool a good or bad thing? is there even such a thing as being cool? what does it mean to be uncool? can you be cool in moderation?

my thoughts about being cool is that yes we may notice a certain person gettin more attention then other people butthat doesnt make them any better then anyone else were all on a equal level. the typical thought of what it means to be cool is someone that everyone likes and theperson who has all the friends and that all the boys or girls like, has the lastest things in clothing and electronics and lastly is physically attractive a large percentage of the time. i think 100 percent of the time being cool is based off of what people see on the outside.

from my point of view someone who is cool is somebody who shares the same intrest as me, someone whos really funny and smells cleean. 2 out of 3 isnt based of looks so kudos to me (lol)

I think there deffinitly different types of cool because everyone has a different idea of what is cool to them. i think that the things we see in other people that we like and wish we had in ourselfs is what we find cool.

I wouldnt say that im cool and i wouldnt say that im uncool. im just myself, i dont base my life off of trying to be cool or uncool. i act the way i please and if people find it cool them great and if people dont find it cool thats fine to, i cant please everyone, mainly to be happy with myself.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Digital Art





I got my first sidekick LX in 10th grade two years ago. It was my very first big digital device...my Reaction is a creepy but my from Katherine Velasquez on Vimeo.



I believe my art is a ,mirror and a hammer because im showing that every way we turn we see digital, with our friends, family and our parents. we cant avoid it so might as well accept it but on the other hand these pictures and videos are just proof of how consumed we are in the digital world.

My reaction to my own art was i laughed at first because i looked like a loser in my video (lol) but also because i realized how worked up i got in my video over one digital device. the amount of joy this one item brought me suprised me. seeing the video was much different then experiencing it. my rection to pictures i had taken in the past was wow i have maybe 100 more pictures of me and other people doing digital things and the pictures themselfs come from a digital item so that didnt come as a suprise to me.

The most intresting part of making my art was that i found it really fun to go throught pictures and videos. i like being digital personally. i know that if i was stranded on a desert island that my digital items wouldnt help me but i like it and i guess im part of those group of people who cant live without there phone and xBox but that doesnt make me a defective person

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

HW 15 Treasure Hunting

My Two partners were Carol and Elivs. I'll start off with carols first.

I really enjoyed reading 10-14 of Carol's blogs. i found them to be very insightful and very well developed, better then mine i would say (LOL) For her latest blog she choose to read the longer excerpt which was a mix of the two shorter ones but with a little more information and i thought her last paragraph was really intresting because she started to ask her own questions which were "I mean sure video games can help stimulate mental skills, but what about ipods? Phones? What's the good in that?"
She also says she thinks that one side will never truley win & i think thats a good thought because asking myself that question now i agree.

I also enjoyed reading her self experiment because its intresting to see how another teenager would go about this and she chose to cut down on her digital time by replacing her digital time with something more "useful" like reading a book on the train instead of listening to her ipod and putting her phone down to help her mother instead which i thought was nice because in my own self experiment i tried then same things. she also tried cutting out compleltly her digital stuff at the time she does it the most and found it didnt work for her...same for me as well.

I think that all of Carol's post are realy good, she knows how to expand and explain her self in a clear understanding way

Monday, October 26, 2009

Second Text

I read the two small excerpts about Video Games and Television.

The main arguments in the Video Game Excerpts were that the video games are filling gaps in our minds that reading books cant fill. that only a small portion of our brains are being used when we read and when we play video games we are exercising our brains, our motor skills and eye-hand coordination. the reading said that "Reading is under stimulating" so maybe playing video games really isnt that bad. the video games have you thinking through out the day trying to figure out what you did wrong when you put it down but books dont.

The main argument for the Television one was that they give you a story line so that you use your mind to figure it out. they leave some things out and put some parts in so that you can piece together the story and use your brain better. they dont make the story line to complicated or else noo one will watch it because they wont be able to use there minds to figure it out.

My reaction to the video game excerpt was that i agreed to a certain point because you really are being more physical but your not really learning much vocabulary but some games like call of duty give you the historical background of the story and you actually learn something.

my reaction to the television excerpt one is i agree that they set up a story line so that we can understand the basic idea only. " all you need to know is that is its a big fancy thing that explodes when wet" the main concept was that television improve's our minds.

M.T. anderson's acept of digitalization is that all the digitalization is hurting us by making us stupider and turning us into robots but the other author is saying that tv and video games are good for you that they stimulate our minds more then activities like reading

Monday, October 19, 2009

Feed Part B. Art or Not?

We were told to consider the possibility that M.T. Anderson's book feed could be seen as a work of art. Asking our self's why he made those creative decisions? Why is Feed portrayed as a tragedy? Is feed a mirror to show us whats really going on with our self's in our own world or is feed a hammer forcing his ideas into our minds?

I personally think that Feed is a work of art in all forms, for its allegory representing us modern day teenagers. For the setting it takes place in things as simple as the language the characters use in the book.

I think that Feed was portrayed as a tragedy because its point was to show the negative side that digitalization has had on modern day teenagers today. it would be wrong to make it into a story book ending because i think this book was meant to show us what we have been to blind to notice. Bert Brecht once said "Art is not a Mirror with which to reflect the World. It is a Hammer with which to shape it." i think this book was meant to be a mirror and not a hammer. a mirror being the reflection of who we are in the digital world, allowing us to see what we have really become.

I also think the setting that M.T. Anderson puts the characters in is art as well because it reflects the kind of world we live in today. everyone in feed begins to develope lesions on the bodies, representing how the enviroment effects our bodies because we are hurting the enviroment so its doing the same back to us.

To be honest idont think the book was sucessful in getting people to understand the real point but i think he was sucsessful in making his idea intoa really good story. I remember andy telling us in class that when this book first came out people were asking what this book symbolized & thats what i mean by it wasent sucessful in getting people to understand. & also that when M.T. anderson told them what it symbolized that people were a little shocked.

i dont think il be able to make mine as artful as his but il sure try.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Feed A Compare & Contrast

I just finished reading Feed and might I say what a sad ending.

There are alot of comparisons from feed to the world us teenagers live in today. I see alot of similarities in the characters in feed and us present day teenagers. The main character Violet is different because her feed wasent implanted unti she was seven years old. Her mind had already matured so her brain was incapable of letting the feed adapt her mind so she is able to speak with her mouth. She prefers to speak with her mouth instead of e-chatting through the feed. this is very similar to teenagers today with our computers and cell phones. We are capable of speaking with our mouths but we choose to text message and aim each other instead. We have the need for an instant connection onstead of waiting till the next time we see each other to talk.

Also because violet is different she is able to use a pen to write, read and knows what life is like without the feed, she is not satisfied with the feed so she has no need for it. Us teenagers arent to the point where we cant read and write because we can but if we called our technoligy today "the feed" then we are satisfied with our own feed because we cant get enough of it. I know that my hand writing would probably be neater if my fingers werent texting so much or typing on the computer and actually using the muscels in my hands to write.

In the feed computers and TV's are directly connected to there brains when there really little. We dont have any kind of technoligy like that but habits like that start when were young children. We get used to watching tv all the time that when its taken away from us we become upset. This can connect to the pop up adds the come up in the brains from the feed. We have pop up adds as well. When we watch tv we have about five minutes of commercials, selling us products and other items.

As I said before us teenagers have the need for instant connection and for things to happen fast because were to inpantient to wait. So we have created another language for ourselfs called abbreviation. the teenagers in the feed abbreviate everything in there E-chatting. We do the same in texting and aim so that our messagers come across faster letting us do and say momre things at once.

When titus & Violet's feed are temporarily damaged they take some REAL time to get to know each other without the feed and find they they have a REAL connection besides the literal technological one. I think this may be the only good thing that feed and us real teenagers have in common. That we cant have a real connection withsomeone through technoligy, that we need to have real interactions to form connections. People dont fall in love with each others screen names, they fall in love with each others personal self.

Feed starts mentioning things about lesions and we can also connect to that because ithink there lesions have to do with the enviroment they live in. We may not get literal lesions but our bodies react differently to our enviroment, weather its a tumor, sickness or death. At the end of feed violet is paralyzed & a vegetable and its because the feed killed her body.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Self Experiment

For my self experiment i tried to cut out one Digital thing in my house that i thought i could manage without and i chose not to watch any TV and use my computer less and only use my sidekick.

when i got home i sat in my room and ate my dinner by myself becuase mymother likes to watch TV while she eats her dinner and did my science homework. instead of turning my computer on to listen to music i used my ipod instead. )saving electricity at that) there were alot of good shows that were going to coming on that day but i wasent going to die if i didnt see it so it didnt really matter to me. so instead i went into my back yard and look at my pond for a little bit. came back into my house and got on the phone and juss sat in my room just talking. nothing else. a few hours later after i was done i took a shower and went to bed. i found i was able to go to bed alot ealier and didnt get up so Bitchy the next morning. i did the same thing no tv, and i found i got to skool on time or ealier. it felt good not to be behind in my shedual.

Reasurch on Digitalization

i went to "google" and typed in The New York Times because they like to publish alot of articles about the biggest things happening in our world now and the article is called "Video-Game Killing Builds Visual Skills, Researchers Report" this article was about how first person shooter games improved visual skills.
the most intresting part of the article was this part (mentioning how it improves you..but in the next paragraph the reality of how it doesnt really help you at all)

''We were really surprised,'' Dr. Bavelier said, adding that as little as 10 hours of play substantially increased visual skills among novice players. ''You get better at a lot of things, not just the game,'' she said.


But Dr. Bavelier emphasized that the improved visual attention skills did not translate to reading, writing and mathematics. Nor is it clear that they lead to higher I.Q. scores, although visual attention and reaction time are important components of many standardized tests.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/29/us/video-game-killing-builds-visual-skills-researchers-report.html

The next website i went to was Wikipedia and i typed in Cell Phone Effects and it took me to there "Mobile phones and driving safety" page.

The most intresting thing i found was when they compared people who drived with there cell phones to people who drove intoxicated to see which would cause more accidents.

"Drivers in the cell-phone condition exhibited a sluggish behavior (i.e., slower reactions) which they attempted to compensate for by increasing their following distance. Drivers in the alcohol condition exhibited a more aggressive driving style, in which they followed closer, necessitating braking with greater force."

"After controlling for driving difficulty and time on task, the study concluded that cell phone drivers exhibited greater impairment than intoxicated drivers."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_and_driving_safety

The last one i did was i went to google and typed in Digitalization affects and i went to this page called "Digital library: benefit or curse?" they talk about how the demand for books is slowley increasing because there making more audio books and things like iPhone are making apps to read the same books on the phones.

"A world without books may not be realized within my generation (or ever), but the move to digitize information is increasing. As books, magazines and other publications become increasingly available on electronic devices, the need for information from libraries has been reduced, and it's not always been for the better."

Friends Interview

The last peeople we had to interview were our own friends. i interviewed my Friends jenise and Jessica

Me and Jenise were texting each other one day and we started talking about digitalization and i said to her, it makes it really hard to live without digital stuff because we need things like 911 to call for help and advances in medicine but we take advantage of the fact tnat while we may need those important things we dont really need those onther things, jenise said "i could have waited till monday to tell you this, i didnt have to text you, and cant you go a day without it"..my responce was NO lol. jenise"s point being that we dont need it so why do we have it.

The next perosn i Interviewed was my Friend Jessica, i asked her how would she feel if i told her she could save 400 dollars month is she took out all her digital stuff. she said " that would be great but its never going to happen because i need to stay in contact with people all the time, i update my facebook all the time and i check my mail all the time, im an adult i need stuff like that, you teenagers dont really need that until you have real important things to worry about"

I didnt agree with her, i have important things too, to look after but sence ive been brainwashed by digitalization ofcorse i wuld say that lol

Stranger Interwiew

Our task was to interview people on the street and ask them what they thought about digitalization and ask question we thought would get a good responce, not just typical answers everyone gives.

The first person i interviewed was a woman named Jennifer. I asked her how would she feel if i took her cell phone away from her for 24 hours. she told me " i would feel very disconnected from my world. its hard enough having to keep up with todays technoligy that without it simplifying life for me i wouldnt be able to function. i would be stressed as well."

I think that was an honest answer, a little typical but atleats she admited to it.

The next person i interviewed was a Man named Chris. I asked him did he think we are humans living in a technilogical world or the technoligy is living with us, in other words do we control technoligy or does technoligy control us. He said " thats a good question, i think that the technoligy controls us, we seam to be updating it as frequently as possible but the results is our minds change to adapt to the new technoligy. new genertaion teenagers arent adapting to the living enviroment anymore there adapting to the new technoligy because it controls everyone."

I thought his answers were really good, not regurgitated.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Parental Interview

So i sat down with my mother, who's name is Maribel and i asked her aview questions about our everyday digitalization experience. i asked her three questions only because she really wanted to see an episode of stargate SG 1 so i had to be quick.

#1- "do you actually feel more connected with people because we have all this digitalizaion or do you feel less connected because its the technoligy talking for us?"

#2- "do u feel happier with or without digitalization, and if so with it , then is it a false happiness because its only temperarily making you happy becuase its there at the moment?"

#3-"do you think our generation of teenagers are smarter because we are able to understand the new technoligy better then someone like you who grew up in a time period where all you had was a TV"

her responce was...

#1-" i feel more connected with people like family becuase its so easy just to open my flip phone and go throught my 'my faves' and one click and il be talking to Titi (my Aunt)but back when i was little we never had cell phones to call people. i remember when the cell phone first came out they were so big and clunky and as the years went by things got smaller and everything became so much easier"

#2-" i do feel like its a false sence of happiness because when there isnt anything to watch on tv we feel bored, so the technoligy itself is only making us tempirarly happy until it dissapoints us by not doing what we want it to do. im not gonna lie i cant help but love watching my stargate SG 1 but there other things we could be doing like reading."

#3-" I wouldnt say you guys are smarter because you can figure out how to sync an ipod becuase it doesnt compare to good hard work like doing accounting for a job or putting your mind to figuring it out for urselfs"

Monday, September 14, 2009

Digitalization

So as i sit at my computer table, i have my itunes running, my cell phone is to the right of me and my computer is running as well. Thats three digital sources all at the same time. i cant do my homework without it so what does that say about how i have adapted to digitalization. Life seams to be so much more important with it, it occupies our time and gives us something to do. we rely on it everday and its obvious that we cant live without it.everyone craves the newest devices, and the newest devices do more for us and make life one big shortcut.
what ive come to notice is Digitalization is not perfect, we hype it up so make it seam like its indistuctable when were putting all our trust into a piece of technoligy that isnt perfect. things break, malfuction, crash, blow fuses, explode in come cases, catch fire, shut down. it cant last forever so when it suddenly stops working what are we going to do? Can we stop living digitally? Are we acting differently because of it? How have we evolved mentally, physically and emotionally sence it has begun?