Ethnographology

The Apple store is a famous technology that amerces their customers into the wonders of their products and technology but also giving off a sense of peace and tranquility. The store is architecturally designed to bring the customer into the world of technology and embrace the future. The Apple store accomplishes this through the simplicity of their store. On the outside of the Apple store, located in the North Shore mall, The store has a solid black border around it with two giant glass windows of either side of the entrance. Right next to the entrance into the store is a bright logo of the apple on both sides. The clear glass walls on the outside allows all the people from outside to be able to look into the store and sometimes even be drawn to going inside. When first walking into the store, the first thing I noticed was how well lite the store was. The store had bright ceiling lights that ran across the whole store and different light that would shine onto their products which allows them to stand out better from the rest of the store. The store is also very simple with their designs inside. The floor was a shiny hardwood that seemed to be brand new and the walls were a plain beige color. Most of the walls were filled with shelves of their products or screens that showed off their newest products. The walls were not crowded but each shelf was packed with either ipods, ipads, laptops or iphones. The only thing else in the store, besides the people, were five long white tables. Four of these tables had the products displayed on them and allowed customers to walk right up to them and interact and use any product. The last table was in the back, going horizontally, which had four cash registers and workers behind them. The customers inside a door are almost entirely on a product of some kind. Inside the store, customers surround the product tables to either use them or talk to an employee about them. When you walk into the Apple store you are also immediately hit with a bunch of noise. Most of the noise is coming from either customers asking questions about a certain item or the Apple employees or geniuses explain a product. You can also faintly hear the sounds of customers playing with the products. You can hear people typing away on a laptop and people playing mini games on the iphones.

The customers inside the store come from different backgrounds and have nothing in common besides the store itself. When I first walked into the store there were about twenty customers already in there. The customers ranged from young children who enjoyed playing games on the devices to somewhat elders who are looking for a new phone. The customers never seemed upset inside the store, even if they had to wait for the Apple geniuses. the customers seemed to enjoy coming into the store even if they did not purchase an item. When I waited outside the store I saw roughly eighty people walk in and out of the store. Out of those eighty some people I had only counted eleven customers who bought an item at the store. I also noticed that most of the people who went inside the store were part of a younger generation but there was a handful of elders who went inside. The employees inside the store were also mainly in the lower age group. The oldest employee I saw was roughly in his forties. When I originally went inside the store I talked to an employee about getting a new laptop. the employee who helped me was named Melissa and was a pretty young woman who was in her early twenties. Melissa had curly brown hair that went down to her shoulders  and wore black bordered glasses. She was also wearing the apple-watch and before she came to help me she was showing it off to different customers.  She talked kind of fast and and smiled after almost every sentence. She was a very patient employee and answered all my questions about the product. She did try to push me on buying the laptop but after I told her I had no money on me she backed off but still continued to answer all my questions.

The customers inside of the Apple store were all different and it was difficult to observe each individual customer but there were a handful of customers that stood out during my observation. The first customer I observed intensely was a young women with her two children. The woman was about thirty years old and her two young boys were around the ages of eight and ten. My attention was drawn to the family because of the children running around the store and misbehaving. the woman was wearing a light blue-fuzzy north-face jacket and wearing black leggings and also had running shoes on. The young woman was also very well in shape and looked like she was a runner. Her boys were both wearing puffy winter coats. The oldest son had a red coat on with a star wars t-shirt underneath and also wore a solid blue beanie hat. He was running around with navy blue jogger pants on. The younger son had blonde hair like his mother but was much paler than both his mother and brother. He had a black coat but was not wearing it. He was wearing a red Spider Man t-shirt and he had blue jeans on and had light up shoes that kept going off every time he stepped onto the ground. The two boys were running around just chasing each other and would only stop momentarily when the mother scolded them or they saw an electronic device they wanted to use. The mother couldn’t control her boys because she was distracted by talking to an employee, named Michael, on purchasing an iwatch. Michael was in his mid-twenties and had short black hear and a thick beard. The lady was very interested in purchasing the iwatch for her husband. She kept asking about the features of the watch and was very concern with what color it came in. Michael demonstrated all the features of the iwatch for about twenty minutes and seemed to be happy to show it off. After about another ten minutes of discussing colors, the woman decides to back off on purchasing the item. She called for her two boys but only the oldest came to her side. She had to go grab her younger son who was playing a game on an ipad. When she pulled her son away from the game, the child got very upset and started crying and screamed and got all red in the face. She had to almost drag her son out of the store  and had her head down with a feeling of being ashamed.

The next customer I paid attention to was a young man who walked into the store to try to get his phone fixed. The guy was in his early twenties but was already bald and had a beard. He was wearing a red and blue polo shirt and had a black coat with him. He was a short guy, maybe an inch or two over five feet. The man walked laps around the store waiting for an employee to help him. After five minutes of waiting an employee finally was able to help him out. The employee was another young woman but she was short and bigger in size compared to the other employees. She was talking to the young man for about five to ten minutes before he started to raise his voice at her. I believe the conversation was that the man needed her to file a form stating that his phone needs to be fixed and its malfunctioning but she wouldn’t do it until his phone company would validate that his phone was not having a problem on their side. The two kept repeating their points until he finally called up the phone company. It took a long time before he was able to talk to someone at his phone provider company and when he finally did  he immediately handed the phone off to the woman. The woman was on the phone with the company for a long time and I had to leave before I was able to see what finally happened. However, during the entire phone call both the man and the employee kept getting more annoyed and angry the longer they were their but the man did not leave because he knew how important his phone is.

During my fieldwork I saw a lot more people than I anticipated. During the few hours I spent inside and outside the store, I observed a vast variety of customers and employees. These people were drawn to the store just to see and test out the latest devices. The Apple store is the perfect representation the impact of technology on society. The store brought all these different people together because of technology. It shows how important technology has become since people will take time out of their day to simply look at the newest devices. The Apple store has designed to bring people throughout all paths of life together for the common love and need of technology

 

 

Reading Journal 1

In the article entitled, How Might Video Game Be Good for Us, the author addresses the top questions and concerns many people have about video games and the effects they have on people today. The article, written by Jane MCGonigal, makes the reader first compliment on how something can be classified as good and for the reader to first debate the topic in their head before continuing the reading. Jane directly addresses the top questions that society has  on video games and she breaks down the article into three main points which are do video games improve our skills, do video games bring happiness to players and what is their purpose of video games in society.  I like the way she set up this article because it helps the reader identify what  it means if video games are good or bad for us. She takes a very scientific and research based approach to each question. She uses a lot of research that has been done on video game players to back up her claim that these games help improve different skills and help people of all ages. By taking this approach she backs up her claim with hard scientific evidence in which people cannot dispute her claims.  She also interviewed actual video game players to see their true feeling about games and the effects they have on them. Lastly, Jane shows what Philosopher’s think on the topic of video games. She talks about how philosophers say that gaming is good because it helps people enjoy life more. She makes the point that people only play video games because it distracts them from their bad lives and makes them fell happy for a bit and that is a good enough impact for video games to be considered important and good.

This is a well written article and the author provides good facts to back up her statements. I was really surprised by the interviews she did with other gamers. Th interviews talked about how people play video games because it takes them away and calms them down and that is how I fell when I play video games as well. The other surprising thing about this article was all the scientific research she showed on video gaming and all the different benefits it can have on people. I found it interesting that different video games help improve different parts of our skills. I recommend this article for anyone who is curious about  whether or not video games are good in society. Overall I would give this article a thumbs up!

Writing exercise; four sentences and a scene

  • My hometown was a wonderful  place to grow up.
    • My hometown of Fairhaven is filled with kindhearted people and breathtaking scenery that made any season of the year feel magical and had the perfect location of being on the water in which sailboats filled the harbor and the ports.
  • Laci had a rather eccentric style.
    • Laci always wore thick handmade gray wool sweaters each having a different animal face on them and it never matched her  bedazzled alligator skin boots or her Davy Crockett raccoon hat.
  • Mr. Brown is the worst teacher I’ve ever had.
    • Professor Brown is a horrible educator due to his poor teaching style and short temper that made any of his students afraid to ask questions and participate in class which caused them to never truly understand the subject.
  • The room seemed very dull.
    • The room was very tasteless in style with a boring beige paint on the walls and having long rectangular metal tables with wooden chairs in it all facing a dusty chalk board in the front of the room with only one old ceiling fan to keep the entire room cool.

Scene:

I walked into the small restaurant and was immediately hit with the delicious smell of the Chinese food that I had been craving for all day. I went to the front counter to pick up my order. The women behind the counter was the same petite old Chinese women that is always working there. She has a big smile on her face that always seems to get bigger each time you enter the restaurant and she was always eating mints that she kept in a big bowl for costumes to have. I told the old woman ” I’m picking up an order for Ryan.” She then quickly typed onto her keyboard , hitting each key harder than the last. She looked up at me and softly spoke “Its gonna be just a few more minutes sweetheart.”  I told her it was no problem and I took a seat next to the front desk and waited for my order. As I sat there I looked around the restaurant and noticed that there were only a dozen people in the entire restaurant and most of them were middle aged men drinking at the bar by themselves. Suddenly a waitress came out and I had hoped she was carrying my food but unfortunately she had a family of five’s food. The family seemed as thrilled to see her as I was seconds ago and they dug right into their food before she was even done serving out all the plates. The food smelt delicious though and I could even taste the exquisite Chinese vegetable stir fry which I had also ordered. The strongest smell was the unique spices that they used and it filled the entire restaurant.  As my stomach growled heavily and my lips salivated at the smell of the stir fry I had pulled out my phone to talk to my phones while I waited. Not five seconds after I pulled out my phone the little old lady said to me “Your order is all set. Have a nice day.” I got up and quickly grabbed the big carryout bag that appeared to be bigger than the woman behind the desk. Now being satisfied that I had my supper, I was walking to my car and the only thing I was thinking about was what to write my homework on.

Technology Memoir Rough Draft

Technology has always been seen as this great invention that allows us to connect more with society. Many people believed technology brings people together and makes the world more connected. I never truly believed this and in fact, I thought technology was separating people from one another. I believed in this until my freshman year in year in high school and how technology helped me make my first new friend. Before I went to Bishop Connolly High School, I went to a small private school in my hometown of Fairhaven. In my class I had about twenty other students and most of us have been together since the first grade. The difficult part of not having a lot of classmates is that it is hard to find people that share your common interest. My biggest interest at that time and still now is Pokémon games. Unfortunately, Pokémon wasn’t cool back in middle school so I never got to share it with anyone and so I kept it to myself.

At my high school I didn’t know one person, I left all my friends behind to start over. I was a shy student and kept to myself a lot. I never talked about Pokémon in high school because I thought it wouldn’t be popular. However, one day I was having a very difficult morning. My Portuguese teacher had yelled at me for not being able to properly introduce myself yet in Portuguese. I never had been able to grasp foreign language well and it clearly showed in that class. My teacher, Mr. Barbosa, said “If you aren’t going to apply yourself in my class then don’t waste my time and go to the library to do work.” I packed up my bag and left with my head down so no one could see my embarrassment. I had never been kicked out of a class before and I felt ashamed. I walked into a library that was filled with strangers each one more intimidating than the last. I sat down in a table next to this kid named Drew who appeared to be half asleep and listening to music. I didn’t know a lot about Drew except that he was in my grade and he played soccer but I still never talked to him. He was a Portuguese skinny kid but had a beard like an old man. He always talked fast and had a feint smell of fish on him since his family owned a fish market.

When I sat down he barely even looked at me and was still jamming out to his music. I sat there quietly trying to focus on doing Algebra homework but I couldn’t stop thinking about Portuguese class and how much of a failure I felt. The only thing that calms me down in times of trouble is playing Pokémon. I closed up my algebra book and opened up my laptop and went online to play Pokémon. I was playing for about five minutes when I could feel somebody breathing down my neck and looking over my shoulder. I turned around, hoping it wasn’t Mr. Barbosa, and it was Drew with eyes wide open and a big smile on his face. He said “Oh shit! You playing Pokemon? Do you have an Eevee? I need one!” He said it loud enough that it could be heard on the other side of the silent library. I was astonished what he just said and my jaw dropped a bit. I never heard anyone openly talk about Pokemon and with so much enthusiasm. I said to him “Yeah but not with me. Do you play a lot of Pokémon?” He immediately responded “Hell yeah! I just want an Eevee though and I can’t find one.” Drew than took out a Nintendo DS from his pocket and turned it on and was so enthusiastic about showing me all his Pokémon his game. We continued to talk that whole period and even into lunch about Pokemon. We talked about our favorite Pokemon and our favorite games and we even told stupid jokes.

Before I knew it, Drew introduced me to other classmates that liked Pokemon. He introduced me to Mosely, Evan and Mitchell. Most of these kids I had classes with and they were as shy as me. Drew had us all sit together at a lunch table and we all talked about Pokemon. I guess you could say that we were a nerd table but nobody even cared. Our other classmates didn’t even care and I realized that high school was completely different from middle school. In each of my freshman classes I had at least one of these fellow Pokémon trainers with me and we always sat next to each other. In the next four years we all became very close friends. There were days in which we would all be playing online while in class. Pokemon help me meet my four best friends and it’s thanks to Pokemon that high school was an amazing time for me.

Technology, in my case it was Pokemon, forms a bond with people you never would have assumed in the first place. It truly brings people together and creates a community that wasn’t originally there. It is thanks to technology that my friends and I are still close and still play Pokemon to this day with each other. It helped me realize to always be myself and never be ashamed for liking certain things. When you be yourself, others will like you more and you’ll like yourself more too. Pokemon has taught me many things but none more importantly than always be true to yourself.

“This I Believe” Memoir

In the memoir entitled ” I Believe In The Car Radio“, written by Molly Walter, she recalls the details in which technology was able to make her day better and make her reconnect to her past. The memoir retells the story of Molly Walter having a difficult day and how on the way home, the car radio was able to completely change her mood and brighten her day. In the story, the song ” Blinded by he Light” by Manfred’s Mann Earth Band came on the radio and Molly begins to sing along to the song. This specific song brings back memories of her youth and with her mother. The song playing on the radio changed her mood completely by remembering the good times and not focusing on the bad times. It reminded her that the small things can be the most enjoyable and the most important.

This  memoir shows how technology can affect someone’s day, mood or even life. When the radio played ” Blinded by the Light”, the song immediately changed Molly Walter’s mood. It brought back good time form her past and made her realize the importance of enjoying the small moments. The radio allows Molly to reconnect to parts of her life that might not be the most important but are enjoyable times in her life. I like this memoir because it shows the spectrum that technology can have on people. It shows how technology can actually reconnect us with ourselves and our memories. This memoir gave me ideas on a specific memory in which technology was able to help me make new friends. This memoir demonstrates the ideas I have on technology in which it connects people in different ways and helps people  reconnect with themselves.

Introduction

I personally have never been much of a fan of writing. Throughout my life I have always felt writing as more of a chore than a pleasure in my eyes. It was always hard to write ten page papers on a topic that did not intrigue at all.  I would always procrastinate my writing because it was simply a tedious  task that I had to do every week in high school. However, when I am writing about a subject that I know very well or a topic that interests me then I put a lot of work and effort into it. My writing truly reflects my mind in which if I do not like the topic my writing will reflect that in a lack of effort. When the topic is interesting though, my true writing skills come out. I actually enjoy writing  when the topic is fascinating to me. I always do multiple drafts and plan out all my ideas and how I want the essay to flow. I put a lot of work into my work when the topic is close to me and I take pride in my writing. On a normal day I, like many other people, do not write essays randomly. The only writing that I ever do for myself is a bit of poetry. I actually have a twelve page Pokemon poem that I have been working on since 2014. I occasionally write a few random poetry lines every now and then. This poem  is the last writing I have ever done that I did purely because I enjoyed it. My writing history can be simply summed up that when I am interested in a topic I will pour my heart onto a page and give it my best effort and truly take pride in my writing.

Three points that I truly connected with in the readings were:

  • Myth #2: Writers only start writing when they have everything
    figured out

    • I really connect with this point because I have, on multiple occasions, figured out new sub-topics to address halfway through writing a paper. I always plan out what I want to address in my essays but I  usually end up adding new subjects in my essays in the midst of all my writing. When I write, my brain becomes so much more active and I remember certain topics or resources that I can use in my essays that I didn’t think of when I was brainstorming topics for the paper earlier
  • Myth #7: Never use “I”
    • Throughout all of my education I was taught to avoid using “I” in any essay that wasn’t a personal essay. I have become accustomed to never using “I” in my writing unless its a casual document. I am pleased to learn that it is accepted to sometimes use the word”I”, because it took me forever to restructure a sentence so I can take out the word “I”. Avoiding the word “I” always wasted more time for me even if it made the essays sound more proper. It is very pleasing to learn that I can use “I”.
  • Writers Work Best at Their Desk

  • I have never been able to sit in front of a desk and then let the paper flow out of my head and onto the paper. I always had to do plan out my papers and took me a few days to think about topics and evidence to backup my topic. I am pleased to learn that other writers are similar in my experience. It is when I am out with friends or family and being active that a random topic will appear for an essays and I can go home later on and write about it.

 

Choosing a Theme- Techonology

During this semester I would like to discuss and write about the importance of technology in my life and in the world today. I have been surrounded with technology ever since I was born such as computers, games and cell phones. Technology has done a lot for the world since its rise and the era of technology will be around for a long time. Technology has been important to me in many ways but none other than in gaming, especially that of the Pokemon franchise. It is almost impossible to go through an entire day without using some source of technology and I believe it is a very important topic.  If i get to write about technology, I can connect a lot with the subject of Pokemon and the importance it has on my life, around the world and the controversy surrounding the franchise. In the memoir I can easily discuss many personal experience in gaming and learning something new with computers. For the observation assignment I would like to study and observe clients of technology stores such as Apple or Best Buy and take notes their. There is a lot of controversy within technology from the effects it has on our health to the corrupt values that games might plant in children’s minds. For example, Pokemon was once believed to urge children to go into satanic cults and denounce christian values. Lastly, for the photo essay I would think of doing a sequence of photos about the development of computers or a gaming system from its begging to present day. Technology is essential for modern day life and it is a topic that has had its impact on everyone in many different ways.

My two backup ideas for a theme would be either food or nature.In the subject of food I can talk about it personally in which how I taught myself how to cook and my inspiration into cooking for my entire family. I am also interested in the controversy of food in health perspectives. I also am fascinated with different cultures having their own essential meals and how they may be similar or different from our own food. In the subject of nature I have always been fascinated with animals and ecosystems. I would like to research the topics of global warming and the importance that it will have  on future generations.