Monday, February 2, 2009

Marys Journal Comments on Others

The first Comment that i wrote was for "Arie and others" group. This was the lab that they created and they dressed up and tried to live the life of a hobo for a weekend. This is my Comment:

I really thought that this lab was very creative and a smart thing to do.. It would be really hard for me to not shower and to smell really bad. when you all talked about how no one really wanted to talk to you cause you smelled i thought it was really funny but it is sort of bad for social capital if no one will talk to you. But it was kind of cool that all of you got that experience of what it was like to be not as fortunate as other people. Homeless people always seem really alone and almost threatening because you think that they are faking it or that they have done something bad because they dont have money or a home but they are just trying their best to survive.I really wish i could have been there when your group acted like hobos because it seemed very beneficial.Written By: Mary Clements from the 1120 class

Sunday, February 1, 2009

speed kills




Cars are an ideal in every ones lives these days. Without cars, the majority of Americans would not be able to commute to work, grocery stores, to visit a friends, run errands, etc. This is because if you do not live in a city, buses and taxis aren't that easy to get. So, for us, we would not be able to function right. I experimented with this on a Saturday and Sunday. Saturday I was going to go about my regular routine and use my car as a transportation like I usually do. However, on Sunday I was going to rethink if there were other ways of getting me to where I needed to go without a vehicle. This was a difficult task.

Saturday- I was picked up in a car at 9am to go home. I got home at about 9:35am. I returned back to my car at 11:00am and got to my desired area at 11:20am. Back in my car at 3pm for 30 minutes and used my car yet again at 7pm for 10 minutes and returned with it 11:30pm for 10 minutes.
Sunday- It was so hard not to use a car, yet I did have to use one 3 times. My only other option was to walk...I guess this is what you get for not living in the city.

All in all, I had used my car for one hour and 45 minutes on a regular day. I had lost an 105 minutes of an opportunity to build social capitol. I was not interacting with anyone besides my immediate family for that time and this was just one day out of the week. If every hour in the car was added up for a week, it would really show how commuting like this is weakening social capital. As I stated on Sunday, my only other option was to walk, and that would just not be practical. So, yes, speed does kill communities.

vacations







Vacations are a terrific getaway for all Americans, yet they help build as well as destroy social capital. It is a known fact that the average American takes about 13 vacations days a year. Indeed, that is not a lot of days off, but if any more were taken off social capital would gradually start to be destroyed. This is because if we vacation out of the US, peoples' roots become weaker and you are not there to continue to build the relationships that you already have with your community and comrades. Your community will then start building stronger social capital with others and you will not be as included. Yes, 88 percent of Americans take their electronic devices while on vacation, but those devices such as, cell phones, are also known to weaken social capital. In my own opinion, 25 days of out of the 365 days in the years, is the perfect amount of vacation time. It's not too much to actually permanently destroy your social capital but it also doesn't leave you over-worked. In Korea and Japan 25 days is average vacation time.

Sara just got back from a vacation to Mexico which was 7 days. Her social capital was indeed a little weaker due to the fact that she wasn't in contact, even with her cell phone, for many days and didn't know how anyone in her community was. However, Sara was bridging social capital because she met and became friends with many people that were of a different race. It was great! So, even though vacationing weakens social capital it also bridges social capital as well as relieves stress from your work!

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

cellular devices







By: Dawn,Mary,and Sara

Americans are starting to depend on technology much more then we ever thought could happen. There's things like facebook,cell phones, telephones, texting, Instant Messaging,Myspace,Email,Fax,and much more. What happened to old fashioned letters or delivering messages by voice?? Well so much has changed and we did an experiment to see if I could last 31 hours without using a cell phone. Since I was sick Tuesday and Wednesday, I didn't go to school and I was sleeping the majority of the time so that part wasn't as hard to not use a cell phone. But when I was at home by myself and I was resting, it was really hard to not just take a peek at my phone just to see if i had 1 text message. I would constantly think about checking it whenever I walked by my dresser, but then I told my mom what I had to do for an experiment and convinced her to take it from me so I wouldn't be in reach of it. Teens these days are becoming upsessed with cell phones and it's almost worse than kids and television. Since cell phones seem to be the "cool and mature" thing, this leads more people to purchase them. But it probably won't last for too long cause soon enough there will be another new technology that is even more cool and updated than a cell phone. But hopefully, we can track back a little to more traditional things so we don't become isolated and distant from our friends,families, and peers.

~Dawn,Mary, and Sara 11:20

Facebook


Mary C., Dawn A., Sara D. 11:20
We believe that socail networking sites have a very positive effect on social capital. Myspace and Facebook allows you to keep in touch with close friends, family, and old friends. Facebook and Myspace have a huge effect on socail capital because it allows you to become better friends with the people you only 'sorta knew' before. By using these websites you can also become friends with your friends' friends in turn expanding socail capital even more. These websites allow us to have another form of communication other than phones. In this day in age almost everyone has a facebook or myspace page which makes communication possible with almost everyone.

Importance of the newspaper




Hey! Its Dawn,Mary,and Sara from 1120 civics class and we did lab #9 that had to do with how newspapers help us and we wrote a letter to the Winston Salem Journal and heres what it said:

A letter to the Winston Salem Journal-This is a student from UNCSA and for civics and economics class there was an assignment to think about how the local newspapers help build the social capital and community. I'm writing this letter because the Winston Salem Journal is a great social connector in our town and it informs us and enlightens us. But, there has been a lot of debating over declining newspaper reading and many newspapers have been folding. But I feel that the Winston Salem Journal helps our socical capital and brings our town closer together. When more people read the newspapers, more people are informed about whats going on and with all the information that the newspapers provide, it helps the public create a social capital and live easily as a community. During this point in time the newspapers are what we need to help our community and so keep up the good work! Thanks for all of the effort, time, and hard work that the Winston Salem Journal does to help the people in Winston Salem.If you'd like to reply please emailmclemen1@pop.ncarts.eduThanksWe really do believe that the newspapers help us and our community and thats why we wrote to the Winston Salem Journal. We dont want to see the newspaper companies go out of business and there becomes only tv news because the newspapers were original and were there before tv came out. Most grown ups are more into newspapers and they help their children learn about newspapers too. Theres so much change to come in the coming up years so why not keep something traditional??

thanks~Mary Dawn and Sara 11:20

Good friends




Dawn, Mary, Sara 11:20
We think that there are less 'close friends' on average than there used to be because we all have more acquaintances. In this point in time people on average have a lot of friends but fewer close friends. Technology has gotten better so now we can keep in contact with more people instead of just a few that you are really close with. Now a days, there are inventions like a cell phone. Cell phones give people the oppertunity to call friends and family through a wireless device and text message which is typing in words on a phone. Cell phones make it easier to talk to friends and keep in contact with each other but it makes us actually hang out with people less because we don't need to see them to talk. This can make you friends with a lot of poeple but it allows to drift from people too because we aren't actually seeing our close friends as much. With texting and facebook and all that other technology people can talk to a wider range of people and be in many different social groups but not necessarily be close with many people.