Mentorship 2

Here is the evidence I have completed 25 hours
Mentorship

Literal

• Amy Crow, San Dimas Library 

•  acrow@library.lacounty.gov

Interpretative

• I was able to see how essential social media networks are for a business by researching and writing a 8 page paper on how to integrate it to a library. This is the most important thing I gained in mentorship because it gave me a taste to learn how to write a business plan as well as observe and analyze a Facebook page without bias.  

Applied

• This helped me answer my EQ because I noticed how people interact with businesses, which is definitely a lot different in how they act on their actual page with their actual friends. 

Tab for a Cause

Social media networking has created innovative ways to help others through a relatively easy effort. Here's one of the most recent efforts I have made to be more charitable through social media, which is signing up and participating in Tap for a Cause.

 Tap for a Cause is basically a way to donate money by surfing the web. Under the Learn More tab on their page, it explains how they do it and what it means to others. I signed up for this and chose to donate to Room to Read, and at this moment I have 8 tabs opened. I plan to continue implementing this in my daily routine, and hope I can encourage others to do so as well!

Of course, I found this on tumblr.

2-Hour Presentation is finally done!

I honestly had no clue what it would feel like to have accomplished this. For the last four years, it really didn't interest me because I had the false misconception that this 2-hour thing was not a big deal. But. It is. And, it's definitely worth all the time and dedication to researching about something you find so intriguing and worthwild.

Here's the blogspot I created for my 2-hour presentation.
http://alonetogether2013.blogspot.com/

Arigato ~

Blog 26: Senior Project Reflection

(1) Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your 2-Hour Presentation and/or your senior project? Why?

One of the things I am most proud of about my 2-Hour Presentation is being able to present a “non traditional” presentation by using my powerpoint effectively. During my 2-Hour, the most essential thing I wanted to achieve was to convey a message to all the students that my project isn’t really about social media networks, but about ourselves (how we live our life, and why things are the way they are). I am so very proud of myself of being able to accomplish this by taking accountability for my studies and dedicating myself to research based learning while applying ESA that Mrs. Pittman taught us. I’m very proud of accomplishing all of these things because it really gave me flesh to my topic and allowed me to communicate to other students my genuine passion for the online world. In addition to this, what all these things have allowed me to do is to take a step back from my project and see what I have done and say, “wow, it all makes sense.”

(2) Questions to Consider

a. What assessment would you give yourself on your 2-Hour Presentation (self-assessment)?

AE       P          AP       CR       NC

b. What assessment would you give yourself on your overall senior project (self-assessment)?

AE       P      /    AP       CR       NC

(3) What worked for you in your senior project?

What worked for my senior project was my ability to: have a conversation with teachers about the progress of my topic, being able to effectively apply my research to my project, interviewing people who use online media, taking a sociology class at calpoly that allowed me to find the foundation of the human aspect of my project, the Technology Entertainment and Design network, utilizing expert source analysis on research, all three presentations, research checks, applying mathematical language to my project, having a 65 slide powerpoint (lol), my room environment/sponge activity, utilizing online media to enhance my project (my blogspot, my blogspot for my 2-Hour).

More importantly, the thing that worked most for my senior project was my growing interest in my topic and passion for it by the end of the senior year experience.  

(4) (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would have you done differently to improve your senior project if you could go back in time?

What didn’t work was seriously my mentorship. Lacking a mentor really weakened my findings due to the lack of experience in the field I had with an expert. I wish I would had tried more face-to-face efforts versus via email or telephone, because if I were to had networked myself out like this, I would had most likely found a nice PR firm or even social media networker and had been able to improve my senior project.

(5) Finding Value

How has the senior project been helpful to you in your future endeavors?   Be specific and use examples.

I am an aspiring journalist, in fact I am actually going to CalState Fullerton aiming to major in communications with a concentration of journalism. With this in mind, my senior project has prepared me to conduct investigative projects and heavily research. In addition to these aspects, my senior project taught me the importance of networking yourself out there as well as dedicating yourself to a goal.

For example, research based learning was essential to my project. By understanding how to apply Expert Source Analysis on nearly every source I accumulated, I learned that to have valuable findings, you have to expand outside of Google. My senior project has given me the reality that talking to people, whether it be through formal or informal interviews or even mere conversations, is something that helps give a person validity. Validity is important for a journalist to establish. This is because, it shows a lot about someone's character if they are  not only willing to dedicate themselves to the books and online sphere, but to talk to people who have experience in the question you are investigating.

Although this was an area I failed in my project, I learned that networking yourself out there opens many doors that leads to endless possibilities of success. Thanks to the senior project, I now know that to establish relationships with people, especially experts, limiting yourself to email and phone does not get you anywhere. 

Despite not going anywhere as far as mentorship, I learned that if you have dedication for something, things sorta just fall into place. I don't really know how to describe it in any way besides this, because dedication is the drive of how far we push ourselves to achieve success. For example, my dedication and passion towards my topic enabled me to really establish valuable findings and understanding to social networks. This understanding and value helped other students grasp the material taught in my 2-hour, because of the fact that: because it mattered to me, it mattered to them.

In conclusion, the senior project ultimately really allowed me to experience what not to do when doing investigative research projects.

Mentorship 1

Literal

• Mentorship log
• Amanda Riddle @ LA Youth ariddle@layouth.com
• Amy Crow @ San Dimas library (909) 599-6738)

    
Interpretive

• The aspect of mentorship for my project failed. I failed to maintain a stable mentorship where I learned how to utilize social media networking to better the community. Although this is the reality of my mentorship component, I did gain a lot from the experience of finding a mentor. I think that the biggest lesson for me was that I had to learn how to network out to people outside of email, but way too late. I believe that emailing was the biggest mistake I made while looking for a mentor, because it did not allow people to take me seriously when I asked to job shadow due to the specialty of my topic. I feel that if I were to had networked and met people, I would had never gotten myself in this predicament and been somewhere great as far as mentorship goes. 
  
  I hope to take what I learned from the failure of my mentorship and apply it to my life after senior project, since it is so essential to stand out from emails nowadays. I am happy that I learned this before I entered the work force, however it is a bummer it costed me my senior project. But, I am staying positive and know that the research I did to compensate for my mentorship will be seamlessly applied to my 2 hour and I will do good :) 

  
Applied

• Surprisingly, my mentorship experience really reestablished the relevance and truth about my EQ. Because I relied on email, I failed to meet the expectations I set for myself in finding a mentor. Although I did not job shadow under a social networker, or can find any meaningful relevance of LA Youth to my EQ (not to say that there was not any), I realized that I myself have been affected my social media networking and fit my answers. I see an example in myself of how it has changed our lifestyles, based on the fact that I was too scared to network out from my comfort zone, as well as belonging to the group of people that see it normal to base communication off of email. 

*This is part 1 of my mentorship blog; I plan to update this when I complete all 50 hours like everyone else. 

Alone together

Four things that stood out to me during my most important piece of research. 

"Why does this matter? It matters to me because I think we're setting ourselves up for trouble -- trouble certainly in how we relate to each other, but also trouble in how we relate to ourselves and our capacity for self-reflection. We're getting used to a new way of being alone together. People want to be with each other, but also elsewhere -- connected to all the different places they want to be. People want to customize their lives. They want to go in and out of all the places they are because the thing that matters most to them is control over where they put their attention. So you want to go to that board meeting, but you only want to pay attention to the bits that interest you. And some people think that's a good thing. But you can end up hiding from each other, even as we're all constantly connected to each other."

"Human relationships are rich and they're messy and they're demanding. And we clean them up with technology. And when we do, one of the things that can happen is that we sacrifice conversation for mere connection. We short-change ourselves. And over time, we seem to forget this, or we seem to stop caring."

"And I believe it's because technology appeals to us most where we are most vulnerable. And we are vulnerable. We're lonely, but we're afraid of intimacy. And so from social networks to sociable robots, we're designing technologies that will give us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. We turn to technology to help us feel connected in ways we can comfortably control. But we're not so comfortable. We are not so much in control.

These days, those phones in our pockets are changing our minds and hearts because they offer us three gratifying fantasies. One, that we can put our attention wherever we want it to be; two, that we will always be heard; and three, that we will never have to be alone. And that third idea, that we will never have to be alone, is central to changing our psyches. Because the moment that people are alone, even for a few seconds, they become anxious, they panic, they fidget, they reach for a device. Just think of people at a checkout line or at a red light. Being alone feels like a problem that needs to be solved. And so people try to solve it by connecting. But here, connection is more like a symptom than a cure. It expresses, but it doesn't solve, an underlying problem. But more than a symptom, constant connection is changing the way people think of themselves. It's shaping a new way of being."

"Technology is making a bid to redefine human connection -- how we care for each other,how we care for ourselves -- but it's also giving us the opportunity to affirm our values and our direction. I'm optimistic. We have everything we need to start. We have each other. And we have the greatest chance of success if we recognize our vulnerability. That we listen when technology says it will take something complicated and promises something simpler."

Exit interview questions

(1) What is your essential question?  What is the best answer to your question and why?

The question, how has social media most affected the ways Americans interact?, has been the drive of my entire senior year and focus for my senior project regarding social media networking. After finding three answers regarding how Americans see the world, themselves, and others, my best answer to my project is that American culture norms and values have changed. Throughout my senior project, whether I would be reading articles talking about how people are becoming more rude or interviewing sociologist professors on their opinion on the identity crisis we are facing today, all my research had an underlying foundation of a change in American culture norms and value. And, to attempt to define culture, that is a beast in itself. So, instead, I coined the term culture norms and values to be vague, but specific in my wording of my answer. Because, essentially the way we interact with one another, whether it is face-to-face or online, are mostly things that we once found disturbing or unacceptable within the last 20 years. With this understanding, my best answer had to be the culture and value shift, because the way we communicate has changed society, and society has changed our culture, vice versa.

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

Foundation 
First and foremost, arriving to the best answer was always there, but it took a "duh!" moment to actually see it. From the beginning of the year when I did a sudden change of senior topics, I have developed a genuine passion for my topic. Sure I could consider myself an expert of the use of social media networking, but researching about it and its future in our society was always mindblowing to me. Initially I was intrigued with the social impact of social media, since the advent of the Arab Springs and the current events going on in the Middle East really made a mark on me. However, I struggled to shift my focus onto one area of the globe since everything interested me, anything regarding political activism was something I could do a 2 hour on!

And luckily, Mrs. Ortega was by my side throughout the senior project. She was there when we changed it together, and there when she gave me a direction as to where to take it now after exposing myself to different aspects of social media networking. After sitting down and formulating my essential question with her and Mrs. Pittman (whom, without her, I would never had the idea to focus it onto one specific demographic!), I had a complete idea on the foundation of my essential question: to teach a revealing, and profound lesson to the students during my 2 hour about themselves.  

Potential answers & best answer
Social media networking has equipped Americans to perfect their identities, and be a part of filter bubbles online. In Ethan Zuckerman's Listening to Global Voices, it was brought to my attention that, as Americans, we believe we have a wide sense of the world, but we don't. The world is getting wider, problems are becoming global, but we still limit ourselves to people that are both close in proximity and very similar to us in the first place. After completing my independent component two, I realized that being who you want to be online, having control of it, and not being afraid gave flesh to my second answer regarding identity.

With the accumulated research and experience with my project, Sherry Turkle's Connected, but alone?, formulated my best answer that whether we perfect our identities or close ourselves off from the world, what is accepted in society has shifted to accustom the social media networking agenda.  

(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

The biggest problem that I encountered during my senior project was finding mentorship. Because I changed my project at the end of September, I had to turn down CalPoly's spot for me to help out with their rose parade float. With the help of Mrs. Ortega, I got in contact with LA Youth and became a staff writer. This experience was helping me gain an understanding of the journalistic aspect of my project, until it closed down in February and left me with no mentorship again. To resolve this, I focused heavily on research to gain a deeper understanding of my topic so I could apply it to my presentations while talking to other teachers for a possible break through. At the moment, I am facing this problem of mentorship again, however this time, I am going to follow up with a few missed opportunities and hope for the best.

A few other problems I faced during my senior project was my independent component two and designing engaging activities for my two hour. I am a type of worker to set high expectations for myself, however for my IC 2, I feel that I did not meet the goal I set for myself and dropped the ball. I wanted to help others with social media, and in the end I only managed to meet my hours, and that was all. To resolve this, I am teaming up with Angel to create a facebook page for her blanket drive to practice my skills as a social marketeer. To resolve my activities dilemma since I had no idea how to incorporate my findings with students, I spoke with Mrs. Pittman who suggested specific social experiments as an activity to serve as a revealing experience for students.

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

The two most significant sources I used to answer my essential question was my interview with Dr. Dennis Loo and Sherry Turkle's Connected, but alone? 

My interview with my sociologist professor at CalPoly Pomona, Dr. Loo, provided me with insight on the human aspect of my project rather than the technological side of it. I gained an understanding on social groups, American norms, newsmedia, and the essence of sociology.

Sherry Turkle's Connected, but alone? video featured on TED was the piece of research that led me to my best answer. I gained a huge understanding of how social media has affected our culture norms and american value system, while pointing out the bad side of social media and coining the term for me "alone together." 

(5) What is your product and why?

-The product I gained from my senior project is knowing how to utilize research-based learning to enhance investigative projects. As mentioned, I had a terrible time getting the necessary mentorship needed in a typical senior project. And, to resolve this problem, I turned to research to gain a deeper understanding for social media myself. 

While completing the Expert Source Analysis component for Mrs. Pittman was very helpful to me for my project, taking college courses tied it all together. I was further exposed to research tools with the CalPoly Database, and was expected to use it as I took college courses there. With the combination of the component and research paper I wrote for one of my classes, I realized how essential it was to apply this knowledge to my topic, since mine is especially one of those topics that can get funky Google results on the first page.  And, not only that, learning how to apply my research to my project is a practice I am very glad I learned this year, since I wish to continue investigative projects in my future career as a journalist. 

Just to make it a bit easier:

My working bib is here and my towers is here.

2014 interview

1.  Who did you interview and what house are they in? I interviewed North house's Regina Ongowarsito.
2.  What ideas do you have for your senior project and why? Regina has no ideas what she wants to do with her senior project because she expressed that she is not interested in anything and won't commit to something that she is not passionate about. 
3.  What do you plan to do for your summer 10 hour mentorship experience? For 10 hour mentorship experience, Regina has no idea what she is going to do either. She explained she has the motivation to do something, but is waiting for the right moment and opportunity to do anything with it. 
4.  What do you hope to see or expect to see in watching the 2013 2-hour presentations? Regina doesn't expect anything for the two hour presentations which is her take on most things. She mentioned how she didn't even know that presentations were coming up, and from what she has heard from previous classes and other juniors, they all sound so different thus hard to expect anything. 
5A.  What questions do you have that I can answer about senior year or senior project (or what additional information did you tell them about senior year or senior project)? 
5B. How hard is senior year? At first, I explained to her that every year at iPoly is hard, just in different ways obviously. And, so for senior year, you're pretty much on your own in a lot of ways, while at the same time able to be there for others for their projects. I gave her a brief summary of each and every component, first explaining model assembly and the difficulties of making a bill and working with a group (a thing that I had the most difficulty with this year). I told her that a lot of the difficulty that people have for senior year is procrastination and missing deadlines, and in reality, sometimes even the senior topic itself. But, if you have a passion for it, then doing research checks, independent components, and mentorship will be an enjoyable experience. Overall, to finish my answer, I said "Senior year is what you make it, if you want it to be hard, then you make it hard on yourself and nothing else." 
5C. What should I do for my project? This one was the hardest question to answer because I genuinely wanted to help Regina since I was in the same position as she was last year. So, instead of answering, I asked her a question back: Even if you say you have no passion, what do you enjoy doing anyway? We all like something. I brought up how she's a good singer, since she is in my music class, and gave her ideas off of that. After we discussed taking a path in music, she confessed that music probably wouldn't be something she would like doing for a whole year and, if she did, it would have to have a psychological spin to it. Changing the topic then, I gave her examples of corky senior projects since I knew she would like something outside of the box. The final point I made about the selection of her project was to decide on a project you can get mentorship in, since that was a huge weak area in my project. 
5D. What exactly is mentorship? To answer this question, I gave her a short, but to the point, definition of mentorship. I explained to her that mentorship is a type of job shadowing that is required by the project that brings life to your answers and a deeper understanding of whatever topic you select. I also brought up the point on how essential it is for a project, that if it does not go good for you, you only have your research to rely on. I shared with her my difficulty of finding mentorship, and urged her to find her contacts as soon as she could before it was too late since 50 hours is required for the project.
5E. Can you talk to Cris Hernandez for me? While I talked about senior projects that my class is doing this year, Regina was immediately interested in Cris Hernandez's topic involving video games. Because Regina plays a lot of video games, she would be interested in pursuing a topic about her favorite way to spend her free time. At first, she didn't know that a topic could be about video games, so if I could get her and Cris talking, then she may get started early with her project and produce something great. 

Final 3-Column Chart

Final 3-Column Chart

Blog 21: Independent Component 2

LITERAL

(a) I, Mariah Caputo, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.

(b) "Catfish: The TV Show › Watch Video." Catfish: The TV Show Full Episodes. MTV, n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2013. http://www.mtv.com/shows/catfish/video.jhtml?filter=fulleps

(c) IC Hour Log

(d) I have completed interviewing people who have had online connections, while creating a blog on a popular blog site, Tumblr, and networking in order to post their stories once I reach a particular follower count.  

INTERPRETIVE

My work demonstrates 30 hours of work primarily the significant parts of interviewing, maintaining the blog, and watching other people's stories via the MTV television show Catfish. 

Interviewing I used my iPhone to record interviews I did with people. Two of the three interviews I was able to conduct were face-to-face and people I knew, while the third interview was via skype with a person who I recently met through networking on tumblr. Despite only had been capable of interviewing three people, it was time consuming to transcript 15-20 minute interviews. 

Interview 1

Interview 2

Interview 3

Blog maintenance I used the popular social network site for teen blogs, Tumblr, to execute my project. I created it and put my efforts to make it aesthetically pleasing and fit what a "tumblr famous" blog would be like. I spent a large amount of time customizing and writing the appropriate sections, while contacting fellow seniors to help me with promoting my blog and designing a logo for it. Aside from aesthetics, I was dedicated to networking. I took the time to explore the tags on Tumblr to follow blogs and send a greeting to every LDR, follow4follow, promo4promo, etc. blog and gained followers that introduced myself and asked if they would be willing to help with my project. I did not reblog or create many original posts, due to the fact I was concerned with putting my name out there first by communicating with people to make friends in this unfamiliar community versus reblogging pictures that did not promise follower counts.
California Chocolate
Scripted asks 

Background research Aside from interviewing, I looked towards already existing projects to find inspiration on what types of questions I should ask people as well as how to present myself. This step was critical to my IC because if I had not watched the MTV series of Catfish then my understanding of the subject would not be as in depth as it is now. Of the 11 episodes, I watched 7 episodes and took notes and reaction observations.
MTV Catfish
Previous blogs

APPLIED

My independent component made my answer, that Americans' identities have been the most affected of the three effects social media has had on us. real. This independent component allowed me to see my project in a journalistic angle and conduct interviews with real people, not articles. I feel that the most expert people in the field, are the ones whose lives have been changed by social media and the ones who are an expert in its use, not anything less or more. 

For example, in my second interview, the interviewee had given the example of how they had experienced themselves a person they were romantically involved with not being who they said they were. This event in this person's life helped them explain to me better understand my research I have compiled up until this point about identity by clearly connecting the two together. 

Another example of how my IC helped was watching Catfish. This show was not entertainment for me, but a view of how far people can go to be someone they are not. By seeing the process the TV cast commits to each person on the show, it helped me prove my answer on how hugely social media has impacted us from how we use it to operate and create false personas. 

And finally, by creating a tumblr blog, it helped prove my answer that the way we interact with other Americans (or people, really) has changed because of social media. By actually doing the process that people who want to become "tumblr famous" (a blogger with more than 5,000 followers), I discovered that it takes time, but mostly luck to achieve it. I realized how essential it was to network with others through any possible forum of communication, thus why I spent so much more time messaging blogs instead of reblogging photos, another practice a person who is not there for a follower count but to express themselves. 

Catfish, the documentary.

This is the remarkable story of the raw reality of what it means to be human and the conflict it has as we enter into the new age media world.

Here is the basis plot and storyline as found on Wikipedia, while here's what I have to say about it:

"When we change the way we communicate, we change society," as my favorite social networker, Clay Shirky, says. I find this statement to hold absolute truth, one of the truest things that is essential for society of all times. Communication is the key of a functional society; whether it be through sound, word, image, or thought. Expression through any of these mediums conveys a message from person A to person B, a beautiful interaction that is what makes life life.

And, we are living in a world where we can do all of these expressions at once. This remarkable truth that we can now communicate with others with whatever medium, expression, message, or whatever you want to call it, makes this communication perfect. It helps perfects society in this small area, because now we are capable of doing the things never thought possible. Moving images associated with words, the ability to see a person you have no seen in a long time only inches away from you on a screen, the power you have to be you.

It's so perfect, that I feel we as a society do not yet fully know how to use it.

Catfish the strong story of a man who has been lied to, manipulated, and humiliated by the power of a single woman, only is the reminder of one thing: social media networking is perfect. It is. I will argue this not because of any technical media landscape models or features a website could offer, because that is minuscule and nothing compared to the human mind.

Because, social media networking is perfect in its way that it can convince the human mind it can be perfect, too. In an interview I conducted with CalPoly sociology professor, Dr. Loo, addressed this idea as well by saying that our DNA is not completely adjusted nor evolved to the fact that we can adopt so many identities.

In fact, identities are reeking from the social media landscape right now. As I type, I can become one person or another at my disposal. Nothing is stopping me, and Catfish, again, is a sole reminder of this fact. As unfortunate it is for the individuals on the other side of the screen who are being lied to, we can convince our minds that the picture we see on the screen is who we are talking to.

And, it is sad. I find it sad that as beautiful as the Internet is, it can cause so much pain and heartache to those victim to its perfection. I like to see it as this: we are human beings on perfect machines, not perfect human beings on machines.

This notion was only reconfirmed by the follow-up video that I found on YouTube while finding the trailer for readers on this blog. Take a look at it, cheers.

California Chocolate, California Chocolate, California Chocolate~

http://californiachocolate.tumblr.com/

"And as a part of a digital generation, this box of chocolate is more than what meets the eye. When we logon to our desired social network, we are a part of a whole new world that is filled with all types of mysteries and questions. We meet the most unexpected people, the ones that may or may not stay with us for the rest of our lives. We are real people on perfect machines, capable of finding love, finding the one who understands you the most as a best friend, or the creepiest person you ever met.

And, I want to hear your story. Your box of chocolate. You. This is a place where we can share each other’s adventures, one “box” at a time. A place where your long distance relationship, online best friend, or internet story can make it off your blog.

A place where we are all humans on perfect machines."

Today's interesting find:

Lost Generation.

I’m a part of Lost Generation

and I refuse to believe that

I can change the world

I realize this may be a shock but

“Happiness comes from within”

is a lie, and

“Money will make me happy”

So in thirty years I’ll tell my children

They are not the most important thing in my life

My employer will know that

I have my priority straight because

Work

Is more important than

Family

I tell you this

Once upon a time

Families stay together

But this will not be true in my era

This is a quick fix society

Experts tell me

Thirty years from now I will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of my divorce

I do not concede that

I will live in a country of my own making

In the future

Environmental destruction will be the norm

No longer can it be said that

My peers and I care about this earth

It will be evident that

My generation is apathetic and lethargic

It is foolish to presume that

There is hope

And all of this will come true unless we reverse it.

found on did-you-kno.tumblr.com

Blog 20: Three Column Chart

3 Column Chart link

Today's mind-blowing story:

Found on http://anarcho-queer.tumblr.com/

Blog 19: Senior Project and ESLRs

1.  What ESLR have you excelled in most in your senior project? 

• Effective learner 

2.  Please explain why you think you have excelled in this ESLR.

• From what I have learned by my senior project and others, I understand two things: senior project is either career or interest orientated. With this being said, social media networking is both a interest of mine as well as a possible future after school. Therefore, despite not being able to find a mentor, I have excelled in being an effective learner by taking responsibility for my own learning. I continue to look for mentorship, as well as research and take pride in my topic. And in addition to research and mentorship, I love sharing my topic with others and seek creative ways to engage others with my topic. 

3.  Provide evidence from your senior project to support your claim (evidence is a photo of something you are doing, photo of something you made, etc).

• My independent component (1) is an example of taking responsibility of my learning by seeking resources (CalPoly Sociology class, Dr. Loo) to further my knowledge and understanding for social media networking and society itself. 
• Click here to see both lecture notes and book notes! 

Blog 18: 2-Hour Meeting Answer #3

1.  What is your essential question? 

• How has social media most affected the ways Americans interact? 

2.  What is your third answer to your essential question (write your third answer in a complete sentence)?

• Social media has made it easier for Americans to adopt second lives.

3.  What are three details to support or justify your second answer (details are examples or facts)?

• For example, anonymity and virtual discussion eliminates the pressures of face-to-face interaction. In fact, it is apparent in a recently story written by Anita Felicelli called "Stepping out from behind the email", where the author met and married her husband through email. Although anonymity was not a huge factor, Felicelli makes a point to explain that because of the perfection and the way that only a correspondent to anyone's online interaction usually sees the best of you online.  
• In addition to this story, a MTV docudrama, created by Nev Schulman, Ariel Schulman, and Max Joseph, called Catfish also captures the way social media affected Americans. By helping online couples meet for the first time, it gives life to what (author) described in her story, as well as the potential conflicting roles on people and their life online.
• In fact, after interviewing CalPoly Sociologist professor, Dr. Dennis Loo, Dr. Loo also described the affects of social media and our identified by explaining that it is not in our DNA to have our private lives in public. By using examples from political sex scandals and public scandals in general, Dr. Loo helped me understand this point by distinguishing between social and personal identities. (Social identities are no longer private, while personal is private.)

4.  What source helped you prove this answer is justified for your essential question?

• Loo, Dennis. Personal interview. 6 Feb. 2013. 

5.  What do you plan to study next and why?

• I plan to study the infrastructure of the current social media giants in America (Facebook and Twitter) and "dead" giants that once dominated the platform (MySpace, Geocities, etc.)  By understanding what different ideologies, policies, and what they have to offer to the user, I can start to understand how and why we use these in a market perspective. 

Works Cited

• Felicelli, Anita. "Stepping Out From Behind the E-mail — Modern Love." The New York Times. The New York Times, 03 Feb. 2013. Web. 06 Feb. 2013.

• Catfish. MTV. 12. Nov. 2012.

What's trending?

Infographics on American Internet social media counterparts in China.

Infographics on the role of social media on London riots.

And a pep talk from kid President.

Blog 17: fourth interview questions

1. How has social media most affected the ways Americans interact?
2. How does social media relate to the news corporations?
3. Can there be an effective news corporation without social media?
4. How has social media changed the face of interaction with others?
5. What was the original intent of the internet? 
6. What has the internet become since it's creation? 
7. How does the original intent of the internet contrast with the use of the internet today? 
8. What is something you can see happening in the future of the internet?
9. What have been some under reported stories that require public attention? 
10. Why are some stories more reported than others?  
11. Is it Americans fault that we do not use search engines or other means to learn about under reported stories? 
12. What are some ways Americans could search for under reported stories?
13. What are the key differences between social identity and personal identity? 
14. How has social media affected these identities? 
15. What are the dangers of using social media on one's identity? 
16. What are the benefits of using social media on one's identity? 
17. How connected and represented are we now because of social media?
18. Why has social media became such a social phenomena? 
19. Should the internet be free and uncensored? 
20. How can American social media compare with other society's choice of social media? (i.e. Chinese counterparts)