HW #6 Part 2 - Thoughts on the VIDEO project:

I made the video on Monday morning almost right after I woke up. I grabbed my moms Flip video recorder and took it around my house. I choose to show my dad working at his desk because he is the first person I see EVERY morning from my bedroom window, his office is at home and he is a film maker so he constantly has headphones on (in that particular shot he has his hood on because he did not wanna be on film that early) he is always either busy writing emails or editing his films on final cut pro. Most mornings when I don't have school I veg in front of the television (most of the times I watch in my parents room, they have the nice flat screen.) I normally watch for a few hours cause I guess my body has been trained not to function very well with out my TV, it is a transition from lounging in PJS to getting up, taking a shower, getting dressed and leaving for the rest of the day.

When I watched back the film I shoot I felt extremely self conscious, I felt like the look on my face when I watch a screen was almost zombie like, my mouth was open and eyes wide open to the TV screen. It seemed like nothing else around me mattered. I was clearly very immersed in what i was watching but it took me a few minutes of aimless flipping and clicking the remote around to settle on a show.

Over all I noticed one thing we may depend on the technology but boy, let me tell you, its not perfect! Uploading the video proved to be a huge problem! At first the file was too big for vimeo, so instead of going back to the final cut pro I tried all my other options. I created a youtube account but was not receiving the confirmation email to move forward. Finally I asked my mom if I could use hers but she had forgotten her password, after 20 minutes of trying the same thing over and over again it worked. I was logged in and the uploading process started. according to the screen it should take about another three hours to upload :/

HW #7 Interviews and Surveys

**Interview with 15 year old cousin (done over AIM)**
About how much time daily would you say you spend using electronics?
I spend practically my whole day on my phone, but since im in skool I try not 2 use it as much, but @ home I spend about 5 hours on my phone. Im probably on the computer for 2 hours and I spend an hour or less watching TV. When Im home I try and escape from the everyone so I listen 2 my ipod about 3 hours.

why so much time on ur phone oppose to everything else?
Because I can do a lot on my fone I can text and go on AIM 2 tlk 2 my friends, I can go on the Internet, and I can do hw on my sidekick. My life is practically on there! Last Friday I 4got my fone @ home and I felt so displaced from the world and I cudnt focus cuz all I wanted was my fone.

Is that healthy?
Its not healthy because 1st off its bad 2 b that addicted 2 anything and also the Internet and most things digital r used for entertainment, it stops you from being able 2 so nething productive. I dont think it really makes me ne smarter.

Overall is it POSITIVE or NEGATIVE?
I think it has both positive and negative effects like its good cuz u can talk 2 friends and other ppl easier and connecting w/ ppl is quicker bcuz back then 4 instance we had 2 send a letter 2 a person far away which wud take 4ever and now all we have 2 do is fire off a quick email or text. But its bad cuz it dominates all our free time and things such as gossip tends 2 spread faster cuz of it.

Could you live without your phone?
I need my fone I can't survive a week w/o my fone id probly b able 2 focus more w/o it but life wudnt b fun and id feel away from the world.

**Middled aged man I stopped to talk to who was in the middle of grocery shopping at the 14th street farmers market**
I spend most of my time reading, I own a TV but am always in another room when my wife is watching her silly shows at night. The constant sounds that come out of that box drive me nuts, there is nothing that i feel is crucial to watch, so i don't spend my time wasted by flipping thought thousands of channels. How ever I do spend a far amount of time on my computer, working and on the phone. Overall we should spend less time away from screens and digital items and more time on activities that actualy require us to use our minds and imagination.

**Interview with BEST FRIEND Binta (also done over AIM, just copied and pasted)**
How does the digital world effect your everyday life?
It affects my life profoundly, most of my conversations are held over text message, it provides you with a confidence that you normally would have to work to achieve through actually talking verbally with someone, but for some reason when you're texting or talking to someone on the phone it's so much easier to talk to someone...it also diminshes the need to do things the "old fashioned" way. if theres something i want to figure out, i wont think to look in a book to find out information about it, i'll just be like "oh, i'll google it". My phone is always by my side, so i'll find myself talking to someone and texting someone else at the same time, so it lessens the intamacy of conversations. They're also very distracting..digital things..they give you something to do besides what you're actaually supposed to be doing...

Do you think that effects our develpoment in social skills?
of course..it takes away from our conversational and people skills..we're so used to talking to people through a screen that we may not seem as articulate in person.

How much time do you spend using technology?
well my phone is an all day thing so from probably 8-12. I usually spend like 3 hours on the computer daily. I dont watch that much tv, and yeahh.......

HW #2 - 25 Questions Personal/Political

1. Name: Francesca Taylor
2. Section: C3
3. Birthdate: December 8th 1992
4. Neighborhood: Tribeca
5. Favorite musicians: Kings of leon, Radiohead, The gossip, Asher Roth, Kid Cudi, Lil wayne, Moby ( too many to name but I listen to all kinds.)
6. Favorite films: Crash
7. Favorite books: Running with scissors
8. 3 students you already know and like in this section: Stephanie A, Binta B, Nora A
9. Main things you do when not at school: Hangout with my friends
10. Average daily amount of time you use for TV-IMin-/websurfing/social networking (Facebook)/videogames (in hours) – please specify hours per day for each form: of electronic stimulation.
TV- 3-4 hours
Phone - 2-3
Texting-All day
Computer - 4-5
(Consider the fact that I will be doing many of these at the same time)
11. Guardians’ names and what they do for a living or an interesting hobby:
Lynn Foss - Graphic designer
Fred Taylor - Film producer and director
12. Favorite teachers from SOF and why:
Rob- very patient and I learned a lot, I can go to him with a lot of my problems
Cricket- I was never bored in her class she was an amazing teacher
Deb- was able to keep everyone on take and everyone respected her
13. The 3 main reasons, in order of importance, that you come to school:
1st: Friends
2nd: To learn
3rd: Because I have to!
14. List 1-3 talents you have (e.g. trombone)
painting
drawing
meeting new people
15. What’s one of the main questions you think about intellectually?
16. Your email address: tribeca92@nyc.rr.com
17. Your cell phone # (or home phone) 917 533 2219
18. Your guardians’ phone numbers and email addresses:
Lynnfoss@nyc.rr.com
home phone: 212 227 1343
19. Are there very good reasons to avoid bothering your family unless necessary? no
20. What are your academic strengths? writing
21. What are your academic weaknesses? reading and test taking
22. Why did you sign up for this course (or if you did’t, why did you sign up for what you signed up for, and how upset are you)? I enjoyed last years class and i felt i was able to take a lot away.
23. What are a few interesting ideas you have about the digital/electronic environment of teenagers in NYC today?
Our lives are based around everything digital
We use it as a way to make situations in out daily lives less awkward
24. What are a few interesting ideas you have about the tendency of people to make masks for themselves for daily life – do you think most people are masked even to themselves?
25. What are a few interesting ideas you have about how school has shaped how you see the world?
Specifically this class has opened my eyes to think harder and deeper about obvious topics that are not paid much attention to.

HW #5 Response to triangle comments

Jacara,
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog and comment on it. You are very good at making the writer feel like they brought up some interesting points. You made it clear that you for the most part understood the points I was trying to make, by re-stating them in your own words. I liked how you challenged my thinking by asking me a few questions and I found your suggestion about how you would like me to talk more about "change in habits" helpful. I am not proud of the fact that I am only able to read from a digital clock but I do think it proves a point about how bad the influence of the digital world has on our lives. what is even more interesting is the fact that we do not think about it unless we are forced to. Before we started talking about this idea of "digital" I did not realize the affect it was having on me. Because we don't take the time to think and realize the negative affects we don't do anything to stop the on going trend. Thanks again for taking the time to comment my post. :)

Ian,
I enjoyed reading your comments and what you had to say about what I wrote. I liked how you restated some of my ideas in your own words to let me know you understood what i was talking about. I also appreciate that you asked me some questions in hopes to further my thinking. You used a good example that i myself did not think of, which was how receiving letters is a very rare occurrence now a day. Still to this day i always ask my mom is i get any mail cause its exciting to feel kinda special for a moment, all that comes seems to be bills, bills and more bills, where as most of what i receive is via email. I really liked your idea of taking away everything "digital" from a group of people and throwing them in the woods as an experiment to see how well they adapt. My prediction based on how i think i would react would be to freak out and lose it. Thanks again for reading! :)

Homework #4 - Triangle comments to Ian and Jacara

Jacara,
You started off your thoughts with an interesting idea about how the overwhelming influence the digital age has on our lives, creates a sense of laziness. People no longer have to get up to get what they want. Your idea makes me think, at any moment we can surf the Internet, shopping online for just about anything. On a computer or television screen products are simply a totally flat image, that we can not touch or try on. so what makes them so attractive to the consumers? Its really odd when you think hard about it, one minute its simply a figure of your imagination and in the matter of a few days or weeks its comes to life and is personally delivered to your door step where it is a real tangible objects (seems almost like magic).

Further reading your homework assignment i appreciate the fact that although you can criticize how the digital age is affecting our generation (for the worse), you still admit to falling under the norm as well.

You mention that we associate "the future" with the rapid advancement of technology. I'm curious to know where that idea all started. As humans evolved in to smarter people technology advanced, thinking about it, how much good did it actually do for the human race. Is it all for nothing since the downfall seems to be happening as i write this blog entry? Why have we come so far just to end it all?

Overall I really enjoyed your entries because I was better able to expand my thoughts on the topic. You where able to clearly express most of your ideas. I know if you had continued to add on and write more, even more amazing ideas would have come up Make sure to re-read your work over for any typos (I know no one likes to proof read, as you might find typos in mine, but its always a good idea!

Ian!
I see that you took the time to go back and write a second draft of your thoughts :) I really enjoyed what you had to say and you bring up a few good points that I never really thought about myself. You are able to remember experiences you have with people (actual human people) more than experiences you have with screens and digitalized personalities. The Memories that are personal to you mean more than the ones that are not.

Another interesting idea you bring up is that when humans are put in a situation where not much activity is happening, ill steal your example of sitting in a chair. Our mind tries to fight the fact that we are sitting in the chair, but it really only makes you think harder about that fact that you are in the chair, where as when you state at a screen you only notice that and nothing around you. You become alienated and almost zombie like. Although this is a really interesting point i would love to see you expand on it even more and relate it back to how it is involved with the fast paced world and the digital age. Why are our minds trained the the way they are? and do you think it has to do with the influence the media has on our everyday life?

You touch down on the good and bad points of having technology in your life, how you admit to spending hours playing games but with out screens you would not be able to do some of the things that ultimately make you smarted like communicating with people across the world.

Overall i really liked the points you brought up, next time i would double check your spelling, but then again it made it all the more original. :)

In class add on to HW

On a personal note cell phones have become an obsession of mime. It goes with me EVERYWHERE, im not proud of it but i will admitt we have been through lots of hards times together and i try and take as good care of it as possible. Just a month ago it took a nasty fall in the toliet bowl (clean water... well as clean as it can be considering everything) and got stuck in the bottom for what felt like 20 minutes. My first instinct was to reach down and pull it out, so i did, after my many failed attempts it was my mom turn next. Luckily she got it out but it seemed to be completly ruined. I panicked and did everything to save it, i tried to get all the water out of the screens sticking it in a bowl of dry rice. Nothing was working and i convinved my mom after hours of harassing her that i needed a phone. 2:00 the same day i was in line paying for the same phone i already had as soon as the new phone was activated an incomnig flow of 19 new txt messages popped up in my outbox and my life seemed back to normal.

As much time as i am on the phone most of it is having multiple conversations over txt messaging or AIM conversations, not even actually being surved for its main purpose. My parents have discovered that if they ever want to get in contact with me and i am not answering my phone know to send me a txt and i respond almost everytime 5 mintues later. They don't even bother to leave voicemails cause i never check it. People have converations through screens and keyboreds cause they are places that being on the phone is not accebtable (school and office enviornments), Students can normally pull off txting through a teachers lecture of lesson but would not beable to pull off talking in front of them.

HW assignment #3: Thoughts on the Digital world (1st blog post)

When I think about the term "digital" many thoughts come to mine, I think; computers (facebook, myspace and AIM), cell phones, television and just about everything we come across in our everyday lives. To be honest I never questioned how the digital media effected my life, I never thought much of it and just accepted it for what it was. Every since I was little I always had some sort of new "gadget" that was the new and hot thing, 10 years ago it was the huge and heavy black and white game boys or the classic CD player. Today i can safely say we have come a long way! Just 24 hour later of being introduced to the topic in class, i was able to make a embarrassing yet very relevant connection to how the overwhelming influence of "everything digital" had directly effected my life. In Emily Birdens room Binta and I discovered it was not as easy to set a clock as we expected. I was the first to take it off the wall before i realized i did not actually know what i was doing. It took about 7 trys, 15 minutes, Ms. Cole and Emily trying to explain to us how to operate this thing, and countless laughs and looks of astonishment to set the clock to exactly 2:57. I don't remember being taught how to tell time in first grade and the only watch i ever owned was a Baby-G which was digital as well. This really made me pause and think! How is the digital world effecting our education, and how bad is it gonna get? Seems like technology is being more and more advanced every second of everyday. Most of us feel lost and just panic if they forget the cell at home or god-forbid the cable box is out! We freak because we have not been trained to adapt any differently. we wonder how people were able to survive with out any of those crucial items, but the truth is we did it and not even that many years ago (computers were just becoming a hot item on the market in the 90's, you used to be able to pick from a variety of bubble-gum colored I Macs that weighed about 50 pounds.)