Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Lab #2: Cellphones!

Chelsea's Phone! (my pic wouldn't upload! =[ but here is a link to it...)
(http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2549521&l=5ca6d&id=582540427)
Being without my phone for 31 hours wasn't too bad, but it was definitely a challenge! I felt so disconnected to my friends and family. I had to go looking for people when I needed them, instead of just texting them. I know that I am very dependent on my phone; it is how I feel most connected to everyone. When I have my phone I am usually texting people. So without it, I felt almost lonely. But it definitely showed me how dependent on technology I am to keep in touch with people. I usually talk to my mom everyday, so it was really hard to not talk to her for that period of time!

Michael's Phone! (as above, my pic wouldn't upload either! =[ )
Being without my phone was not quite as bad as I thought it was going to be. I'm quite busy, so there have been many times where I have not been able to talk to my family/friends for 31 hours. The most inconvenient part was being unable to call people to schedule rehearsals, time to work on homework, and get information about classes. It caused me to do alot more running around to look at boards and attempt to find people! However, I feel if this assignment lasted for a week it would have been EXTREMELY difficult because I would not be able to contact my family.

Rebecca's Phone!
Being without my phone for over a day was hardly unmanagable. I barely use my phone as it is and the hardest thing is the fact that I couldn't talk to people back home. I have family and friends that I like to keep in touch with and without my phone it made it difficult to communicate with them. For instance I had to inform my mother before I did this project that I wouldn't be able to call her because she freaks out when I don't talk to her everyday! On campus it was easy to go without my phone because the most I do with my phone on campus is text people to find out were they are. This expirement helped to show me that people are too dependent on there phones because they prefer to text someone or call them rather then walk a few doors down to ask there question or talk to them. It also showed me that people aren't getting as much face to face contact anymore since it is easier for them to sit in there rooms/houses then actually go to see them.

Lab #20: Family Life

For this project we went a little deeper than the assignment called: we interviewed three teens who's parents are divorced in an effort to gain knowledge into the reasons and effects of divorce. We also asked them (and two others) why they believe divorce occured. The video is uncensored and edited only in the form of putting things together. Everything is student opinion.


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Lab #18: Tag!













**above new logo: "out with the new"
**above old logo: "in with the old"


We created this tag outside of the highschool connector. The tag incorporated how we feel about our school politics. We left room for comments at the bottom of the tag, and actually had quite a large response.

(8 Photos would not upload - if email is recieved they are number 31 33 35 36 38 40 69 71)

Lab #11: Chains -vs.- Local!






For this lab we compared the nation wide known chain restaurant "IHOP" to the local (Winston Salem) restaurant "Mary's of Course!" We compared the restaurants on three main points: popularity with customers, overall income, and care for customers (atmosphere, nutritional value, and service).


Popularity With Customers:
  • IHOP - At the one closest to UNCSA, it is very rare to ever find a line to wait to get in. It is also rare that the restaurant is full of customers. It is a relatively untalked about restaurant that is visited mainly for its convince and late night hours. Few people talk about IHOP as a fine or nice restaurant.

  • Mary's of Course! - It is a very busy and popular restaurant. On almost any given Sunday, the wait to get in is at least 45 minutes for a party of 4 or more (unless you are an early bird like us and show up 15 minutes before it opens). Even though IHOP is not far away and has no line, the people at Mary's are willing to wait up to an hour and a half on average to get into the restaurant. Among most Winston Salem going people, it is a well known restaurant and a good place to take a friend on any given morning.

Overall Income:

  • IHOP - IHOP is a chain restaurant therefore its income includes IHOPs from all over the world. Therefore they make a very large sum of money on a daily basis and can easily expand, build new restaurants, and launch advertisements on a global level to promote their business.

  • Mary's of Course! - Mary's makes a good sum of money; however, it is only one restaurant with one income. While Mary's continues to fill her restaurant every Sunday, it is impossible for her to expand and build more restaurants simply because the overall income for the restaurant is not as high.

Care for Customers:

  • IHOP - The inside of IHOP is very basic; it is simply a room with some colorful booths and a few prints of paintings hanging upon the wall. The lowest calorie meal on the menu contains 590 calories and the lowest calorie salad contains 1050 calories. They use processed and frozen foods (obviously not organic). The service is very basic and not personal what-so-ever.

  • Mary's of Course! - Mary's has hundreds of trinkets decorating her walls, different salt and pepper shakers on each table, a variety of coffee mugs each looking completely different, free coffee while standing in line, real paintings done by local artists, old record covers and stickers on the wall, silly art all over the bathroom walls, and advertisements for local events on the windows. Mary's uses nearly all organic and natural ingredients including 100% juices and all food is prepared fresh from scratch daily (NEVER frozen!). The service is outstanding and very personable, in fact the entire staff knows my name (I go there every Sunday) and asks if I want "the usual" (which I always do). The owner (Mary's) seats customers everyday (except for when she is on vacation) and is very caring and takes care of all customer needs.

Overall: Mary's of Course! is much better!

Not only is it better for your body, the atmosphere, staff, and service are incomparable. Mary's is one of our favorite restaurants. It is an example of how real customer care can outweigh any chain any day of the week. If you haven't been to Mary's, you should definitely start now!

Lab #10: Votes!


For this lab, we asked people of all ages, gender, and race how much money they sould sell their permanent right to vote for. The majority of people said that they would not sell their vote or would never give up their right to vote. Many of the responses varied. One person said that they do not believe in voting, thus would definitely sell their vote for as much money as they could get. Others said that they would not give up their vote because they liked to worked and like to have a voice. Some even said that they would sell it for $0. Woah!
We were shocked by the number of people that said they would not sell there vote. Since only half of U.S. Citizens vote we were amazing to find out over half of the people we asked valued there right to vote enough to not sell it. one of the things we noticed in this section of the project was that many people would have sold there right to vote were it not for this past presidential election.

Lab #6: Friends!


For this lab, we asked people of all ages, race, and gender how many best friends they have/how many people they can really depend on. The pie chart above illustrates our findings.
50% of the people polled said that they have 3 or more friends; 1 more than the newest study found. Many of the people who said they have only 1 good friend shared with us that the one person was there spouse.
There are several reasons for the different amounts of friends that people have. These include such things as how social a person is and how easily they relate to people. Some people are social and have many friends but they never form a real bond. A best friend is someone you can rely no matter what and that is why most people only have 1-2. Our statistics show that it is an even split between people with one or two friends and people with three or four. This helps to show that the social capital in Winston Salem is still strong.