The Last Dance

America is the land of social class and division. The books, discussions and short stories we’ve had this year have brought about two key topics: social class, and the division amongst these social classes. “I am still afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and as I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth,” says Nick in The Great Gatsby. Nick is saying that people aren’t just born into wealth or poverty, they are born into more morally correct homes. He also says that these are unequal at birth meaning that not everyone is given a fair opportunity which is true and has been true for a very long time. Later in the book Nick says to Gatsby, “They’re a rotten crowd, you’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.” By using the word worth it makes it seem like Nick is saying the Gatsby has more value than the crowd that Nick is talking about. This is the separation between the social classes, just because Gatsby has more money does not mean that he should be, “worth,” more. These themes of social class and separation have been found in many different books and short stories that we’ve read this year. One of the main divisions between social classes is connected to race. Historically, different races have achieved very different levels of success regarding not only money but also quality of life. In the book, The Color of Water, one of the main characters named James says, “White folks, she [his mom] felt, were implicitly evil toward blacks, yet she forced us to go to white schools to get the best education.” Even though during this time white people were “implicitly evil” which means they are evil with intention, the black people feel the need to go to the white school in order to hopefully achieve the same education that the white people have been granted. This theme of social separation is caused by many different things but after reviewing the books we’ve read and the discussions we’ve had I’ve found that racism is one of the leading factors. The books we’ve read have provided some very interesting things to think about regarding social class and separation, but I think the discussions we’ve had as a class have provided the best insight into this. The most interesting thing I thought was when we were having a discussion and we were talking about, “nice neighborhoods.” We spent a lot of time talking about what makes a neighborhood nice and as a class we agreed that there is a big difference between a nice neighborhood and a wealthy neighborhood. This is one of the most important discussions we had when talking about the separation of social class because it goes into how social class division is on so many different levels, race, wealth and overall quality of life. 

The Quarantine Journal

#1: 3/20/20
From what I can tell my neighborhood is all staying home, I don’t see any cars driving by my house and I don’t see anyone walking on my street both of which I typically we everyday. My family is also staying inside the house except for essential trips so it’s kind of hard to tell what’s going on in my community but from what I can see out of my window and what my friends are telling me, my neighborhood is pretty much all quaritened up.

#2: 3/30/20
We just finished our, “spring break,” if you can even call it that. I spent 100% of the break inside my house, a majority of that time was spent in my room playing videogames with my friends which was fun. Being able to play with my friends is really nice, since we can’t see anyone in person it’s a nice way to be able to communicate with my friends without seeing them in person.

#3: 4/1/20
Recently I’ve been watching a lot more TV since we can’t do as much. I’m rewatching the office since its going to get taken off Netflix soon. I’ve also been listening to a lot of music, Lil Uzi Vert released Eterna Atake so I’ve been listening to that a lot. I heard that Netflix is releasing a new show called space force with Steve Carrell, its a workplace comedy about a new sixth branch of the military, Space Force. It’s going to come out at the end of May so I’m definitely going to watch that when it comes out.

#4: 4/3/20
One thing I wanted to talk about in this entry is zoom. It’s very interesting how much zoom is being used. Everyone in my family uses zoom almost everyday for school and work. My brothers basketball coach started using zoom just to give the kids workouts which I thought was bizarre but then I remembered that theres no other way for them to make any money since no one can play sports in groups.

#5: 4/6/20
I went on a drive today because I needed to get out of my house. As I drove down Sheridan Road, I noticed that there were a lot of people going for walks and bike rides and as I passed the beach parking lot there were a lot of cars. I was very surprised by how many people I saw especially because the weather wasn’t that nice. I think people are getting out of their house more now because they’ve been told that they can’t which is very interesting. I’m also constantly seeing videos of a lot of people that are out of their homes for non-essential things which I think is very stupid because if everyone just did their part then this wouldn’t take as long.

#6: 4/8/20
The second week of the blue, green, grey online learning is about to end and I have to say that I like this a lot better then the less structured classes before spring break. Before spring break I would finish all my classes relatively quickly and then play videogames and watch tv for the rest of the day but with this schedule I’m spending more time on school which is nice because it takes up more of the day and then I value my free time more. When I have unlimited free time I get bored really easily and the days go by very slowly but with this new schedule the days are going by faster which is nice.

Junior Theme Reflection

Social Media Addiction

Abstract

Over the past few months I have been extensively researching social media addictions: its causes, its effects, and the aspects that make it so addicting. I chose this topic because social media has become a daily use for a majority of the people I know; including myself. Before writing this paper I didn’t think social media addiction was a real issue, more of an excuse for being on your phone so much. However, after finishing my research I’ve found that this is a serious problem that isn’t talked about enough. 

Reflection

    I was surprised by many things that I found throughout my research, most perhaps by the amount of people that suffer from social media addictions. It is estimated that 210 million people suffer from social media and internet addictions worldwide (Longstreet). When I was trying to find a subject to research and stumbled onto social media addictions, I originally assumed that it was problematic but not a huge issue, now I know that it affects millions of people and has very serious problems associated with it. Expert on the subject Adam Alter, who recently wrote a book on social media addictions, said, “All addiction essentially involves the treatment of a psychological need that isn’t met elsewhere: insecurity, loneliness, anxiety, and so on. Social media addiction is this way too.” In this way social media is very similar to substance addictions which is a huge issue. I also found it quite interesting that Alter said that teens were more susceptible to social media addictions because, “Teens are susceptible because they’re at a developmental stage that makes them prone to social insecurity.” I had no idea that social media addiction was this big of an issue, now more than ever. The world is becoming more and more digital and as people start spending more and more time on social media rather than face to face people are going to start becoming addicted to social media because they depend on it just how other substance addictions work, you depend on it so you keep going back to it. I’m very passionate about trying to resolve this issue because on its current trajectory this problem is only going to get worse. In my research I found that breaks from social media as well as time restrictions can help keep people from being addicted. 

Longstreet, Phil, and Stoney Brooks. “Life Satisfaction: A Key to Managing Internet & Social Media Addiction.” Technology in Society, Pergamon, 28 May 2017, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160791X16301634.

Between The World and Me

“Americans believe in the reality of “race” as a defined, indubitable feature of the natural world,” says Tanahasee Coates in his book Between the World and Me. Racism happens not because of people’s differences, but because of the historical separation of different races. Laquan McDonald had his life taken away because of his race. He was shot 16 times by Officer Jason Van Dyke who said he “felt threatened” by Laquan. This case was disputed for a long time, Officer Van Dyke argued that Laquan was lunging at him with a weapon and only shot him once in response. Eventually the dash cam footage was released and everyone saw that Laquan was walking away when the officer shot him 16 times even after he had already collapsed. All of this because a police officer felt threatened by someone whos skin was a different color then his.
Racism can be traced to humans’ natural dislike for people different than themselves. Differences threaten ones’ sense of self and safety on a very instinctive level. This is what caused Officer Van Dyke to fire at Laquan. Had it been a white man in a suit the story would have been very different and that’s what’s sad about the world we live in. “In America, it is tradition to destroy black body--it is heritage.” Tanahasee Coates could not be more right. Racism can be tracked to virtually the beginning of civilization in Ancient Mesopotamia where kings would take slaves from different lands and use them to better their kingdom. In Between the World and Me, Coates is paving the way for his son to survive and succeed in this world where racism is a problem that he is going to encounter.
Racism is outdated, in a day and age where people are more different than ever, racism should start to fade but unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be happening. Often people will go out of their way to not be racist which isn’t horrible but in the eyes of Tanahasee Coates it isn’t good. While talking about the struggle of black people on television, “the host flashed a widely shared picture of an eleven-year-old black boy tearfully hugging a white police officer. Then she asked me about “hope.” And I knew then that I had failed.” He is saying he failed, not because his point didn’t get across. He failed because he was trying to get her to understand, not to have her look at the bright side because in reality there isn’t a bright side.
  In a perfect world Laquan McDonald would still be alive because the officer wouldn’t have felt the need to shoot him 16 times. While the death of Laquan is 100% the police officers fault, the stereotype that poor black men are always dangerous is very damaging to society and especially police officers that get into these types of situations. Tanahassee Coates knows believes that racism exists because of the historical separation of black people and white people and I have to agree. While this isn’t the only reason, history plays a major role in how race is viewed and how race turned into racism.

Social Media

While social media can often be a great tool for talking to friends and meeting new people, it is also the source of a lot of negative things. Im not going to be talking about the negative aspects of social media, instead focusing on how these giant social media companies make their apps and websites addictive and how this addiction has lead to a change in values over the years.

Social media giants have many different strategies to make keep people on social media every day for hours at a time. One of the strategies they used is called the infinite scroll method, which basically has users continue scrolling without ever having to click anything, "If you don't give your brain time to catch up with your impulses, you just keep scrolling," says a former engineer of the computer user face company, Humanized. Another tactic used is one by snapchat, 'streaks' which is a number that appears next to someones name representing how many days in a row you've 'snapped' them. People will often get upset when they lose a streak so this tactic is a way to make sure that people are on snapchat every day. (https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44640959)

At this point in time it is very uncommon for someone to not have social media, almost everyone has some form of social media and most people probably have multiple accounts across many different social media platforms at this point having a social media platform is almost an expectation from society. So while maybe 15-20 years ago communities valued people talking in real life and spending time with each other in person, it seems now that communities are more focused on spending time on social media instead of spending time with real people in real life.

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