Interview with a college student

I interviewed a 22 age male college student who is studying to become an engineer. I asked him questions about technology, gaming and social interactions. 

When did you start playing games?
When I was 4, I learned how to read and play chess.  I have played chess most of my life. I have played Pokemon video games since I was 8. Other games include Neopets, Pokemon and now plays Magic the Gathering, a card game, World of Warcraft, Minecraft, Skyrim and other games. 
Magic the Gathering is a game that I started playing when I was 9. It is a complicated game with many cards which feature fantasy art work. These cards are grouped in different catagories. The company that created the game releases new cards several times a year so the components of the game change constantly.

How many Magic cards do you know? 
5000-8000 

Does that help you with your memory? 
Wizards of the Coast, the company that created the game Magic the Gathering, create a new set of cards every few months. They release the cards and publish images of the new cards on the internet the day before you can buy them. The day that the cards are released there is a huge card playing tournament called a Pre Release Draft. At these drafts, you are able to pick a card from the packs that the other players buy. In order to pick a good card, you have to know what the cards can do. I memorize about 180 cards the day before they come out so that I am able to play. When drafting, you have about 20 seconds to look at the cards from the pack that other players buy. You have to make a decision about which cards will benefit your deck and pick one card out of a 15 card pack.   

When you moved to upstate from New York City, you told me that other kids in your school bullied you and created a hostile environment. You arranged for a speaker to come and talk to the school about this situation. How did you feel about the speaker coming to your school? 
In 6th or 7th grade, about 7 students  were involved with organizing a speaker to come and talk about bullying in school. Paul Fallia is a retired police officer who spoke on character education and human diversity. He addressed bullying, discrimination, intimidation, harassment. He also spoke on ethical awareness. I felt it was uplifting and encouraging.

In school, did you have many group projects? How did you feel about working in a group? 
Depends on the group. When everyone participates, it's a good experience. Usually there is one person who lets everyone else do the work.

In college, you organized study groups and did a lot of research for these groups-do you feel that people are competitive in these groups? 
I would learn the topic by research and then tutor the group. We went to teacher's office hours with different people. Everyone generally enjoys studying together.

How do you use technology?
Technology has been an integral part of my life.  I've had a cell phone for 5 years. I text most of my friends and prefer it to making phone calls. I am the IT person at home and I've built several computers. Recently I built a computer for a friend. I ordered the parts and the case. The computer ended up being worth about 3 times the cost of the parts. Right now, I'm building a computer for my car. This is a very complicated project involving much research. It involves electrical knowledge, wiring knowledge and researching many of the electrical and computer components.
Sometimes people use technology to cheat on tests. People used their cell phones to look stuff up during tests.  You can also photoshop soft drink labels to put test answers on a bottle and take the drink into the test. However I have not done these things. In classes where the instructor grades on a curve, cheaters make the grading situation bad for those who don't cheat and make the instructors think they are doing a better job teaching than they actually are.

You've used lectures from Berkley and the Khan Academy to study from. How do you feel the lectures differ from the classroom lectures? 
Some lectures explain the material better and in other cases, you can replay the lecture.

Right now you are in calculus ll and you have been tutoring your friend in math.  Do you think that tutoring has helped you retain the material from the classes that you have taken? 
Many things help. By resorting the information and retelling it, I am able to find ways to reteach myself the material in the process.

How do you teach yourself about building computers and your car? 
I go online and teach myself, working from my knowledge base. I've read Bosch computer management and a 400 page electronics manual for my BMW. I also go on different car forums which are on-line chat rooms. When I had a Beretta, I went on the Beretta forum. Now that I have a BMW, I communicate to other car owners through the Bimmer forum. Most people on this forum are doctors and people with more money. They have a higher expectations of projects and are more snobbish than on the Beretta Forum. If they don't like a project, I just ignore it. I just think they would not do projects that I do because they have more money and would pay someone if they wanted anything done to their car.
Other areas that I have looked into are ways people have modified their cars which include styles called Tuner, VIP, Bosokou to name a few. Bosoku is a style of car modification in Japan. 
Other forums I have been on include electrical forums, CNC forums. Most of time I look at projects and find out how the people who post did something.

When was the last time you read a book? 
I have been reading textbooks and informational book in college. I am too busy to read for fun in college. The textbooks I read for college classes include reading about things like Vesper Theory in Chemistry. Vesper Theory describes properties of molecules. In high school, I did my senior project on the way carbon fiber is used in the engineering field as a material. This research was done primarily on-line.

Deconstructing an alcohol ad: Svedka Vodka

           

I found this advertisement on the website The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, part of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in their Marketing Gallery. This website posts alcohol advertising to “to stimulate discussion, comment, criticism, and public concern about alcohol marketing and youth”

Aesthetics

The product advertised is vodka, specifically Svedka Vodka. The product is given a human/robot persona because the robot in the ad has the name of the vodka on its leg. The product is placed in the foreground and is very noticeable being a white bottle against a black background.

The name of the product Svedka Vodka is mentioned 4 times. On the bottle, the leg of the robot, at the top of the ad where there is a "Like on Facebook" posting and along the side of the ad in fine print.

It would seem that the slogan is “r.u.bot or not?” and Voted #1 of 2033", each of which are mentioned once. I am not sure that I have heard this before. I seem to recall hearing it but I can’t be sure. I really haven’t seen many alcohol ads lately and the robot on this ad is pretty distinctive so I think I would have remembered it. I don’t remember seeing this robot before.

The robot is female with sexuality portrayed as a young woman. Although a machine, the sexuality of the robot is pronounced by robot’s the large breasts and the stiletto shoes the robot is wearing. The text of the ad reads “The ultimate party machine” the implication being that the robot is the party machine which is sexual in a very offensive way. It suggests that drinking alcohol would lead to sexual behavior.

The tone is sarcastic in a demeaning way towards women.

The ad appears to have been created with a computer graphic program but the point of view is from the floor in front of the robot. The effect is to view the robot so you see the lower half of the body more predominately.

The lighting highlights the foreground where the robot and the vodka bottle are. The background is mostly black which makes the robot and the bottle stand out. The floor and ceiling have enlarged computer numbers on them in neon red, violet and blue violet. This color scheme gives a futuristic science fiction look to the ad.

Target audience

The target audience is the young adult, people who go out to bars, probably male who might get their dates drunk. It is men who are not interested in relationships or emotions. 

This ad assumes that people drink and have sex. It also suggests the idea of people who do not know each other, meeting and having one night stands.

The product is vodka. I do not find the ad appealing because it implies that if a woman gets drunk enough she will be a party machine in a sexual context. Using the robot to portray her implies that this person does not have any emotions and there is also an implication that she would be used as a sexual tool which could imply sexual coercion or rape after being plied with alcohol. There is also an implication of gang rape by using the phrase,”The ultimate party machine.”

Do we really want this?

 I don’t know what males who this ad would appeal to would want. I think this is for the 21-35 population. I know that there are some males who have an attitude about sex and drinking. I don’t know what these people are like. I find this ad really creepy-I think it would appeal to a person or crowd of males who had problems with empathy. It reinforces the lack of empathy in a manipulative way. It implies that plying a woman with alcohol to have sex with her is fine. It also implies that objectifying a woman as a sexual robot is what she wants.  

What did I learn from this process?

Most of the time I ignore ads unless they are eye catching or feature something that I find either very appealing or very unappealing. In the case of this ad I decided to deconstruct it because it had elements that some might find appealing such as the use of the robot and elements that were very unappealing the use of the robot. After I wrote most of this paper, I looked up this ad to find out it was part of a larger advertising campaign. I learned that this robot was the central figure in a marketing campaign run by Svedka Vodka which also used the slogan “Voted #1of 2033”. When I was researching this ad campaign, which was retired in 2013, I read a review of it written by a male. He said that he found the ad campaign creepy because it objectified women as robots which is how I felt. Although I really do not drink very much, after reviewing this ad I really do not want to try Svedka Vodka. 

Weblogs and the Public Sphere

Marjorie Thompson

In "Weblogs and the Public Sphere" by Andrew O'Baoill, blogging is examined in reference to its use and

 influence in the public sphere. In this article, the tools and techniques put into practice are blogging and other

 forms of social media. The key issues outlined in the text are the cultural and operational aspects of blogging.

My opinions about these readings are multifaceted.  I thought it was interesting to read  the essays and

 videos of social media researchers discussing the results of their studies. These presentations gave

 assessments of how the internet is used in real world.  

The public sphere of the internet was seen originally by Futurists and creators of the internet as a cyberspace

 where democratic dialogue could take place and people would be able to increase their voice in the

 democratic process.

In "Weblogs and The Public Sphere", it is pointed out that the people who write blogs are not specifically

 interested in creating a sense of the public sphere from them. Public sphere is defined as "inclusivity of

 access, a disregard for external rank, and the potential for rational debate of any topic until consensus is

 achieved are necessary criterion for meeting Habermas's model of an idealized public sphere. "(O'Baoill,

 2004)

Many people who blog are amatures writing about whatever is on their mind so many times their writings are 

not directed around a specific topic. Most people write whatever they are thinking about without a

 specifically political point of view or intention.  The blogs they write are their random thoughts. People have

 many conflicting opinions and there is no consensus between them with which to create a public sphere.

 Even though anyone can start a blog which would fit into the criterian of universal access and disregard for

 external rank, readership many times is dependent on the people who access the blog so this limits the

 dialogue/debate.

The webinaire about Brazilian youth discusses several aspects of social media in Brazil. At the time of this

 webinaire, Brazil had had social media for less than a year. Raquel Recuero, a social media researcher,

 discusses her research along with several other people. She states that social media has created

 opportunities for greater communication about aspects of culture such as young people learning dance steps

 which are popular but she has also found a dark side to social media. In Brazil she states that she has found

 much violence associated with the use of social media. Many people express violent prejudice towards

 various groups such as women and use social media to harass and cyberbully. Students form groups to 

harass other students and teachers. In addition to this and contrasting to it is the tendency to not comment on

 social media. She states that she has found that people have a tendency to not comment  to avoid conflict.

 This is actually completely the opposite from the democratization theories about the internet.

After reading these essays and viewing the videos, I felt that it is really necessary to consider all aspects of

 social media if one is going to assess its function in society. The internet is a powerful tool but like anything

 else it can be positive as well as negative. One can do constructive things, waste time in a meaningless way

 or be very destructive. Being aware of this potential can help direct intent when creating educational 

programs.

References

"Weblogs and the Public Sphere", Andrew O'Baoill, "Into the Blogosphere", 2004

Raquel Recuero, "How are Brazilian youth becoming digital, and what potential does digital media provide for democracy and social movements?" Connected Learning, webinaire with Jeff Brazil, Adriana Amaral, Greg Tuke, Henrique Antoun, João Miguel Lima, July 25, 2012

Saskia Sassen, "Networks, Power and Democracy" video, Saskia Sassen spoke at the Netpublics research group on Networks, Power & Democracy on March 23, 2006. uploaded to You tube July 26, 2012