"Noah: A Short Film on a Computer Screen"

Technology today is so advanced that you can look up almost anything you want at any given moment, no matter where you are.  You can be connected with someone across the world through social media.  I feel that social media can be good and bad at the same time.  Social media has become such a big part of most people’s lives because it’s always at a person’s fingertips and can be seen in a blink of an eye.

In the video about Noah, a lot of different things go on at one time.  He is looking at many different web pages, talking to many different people, and texting all at one time.  In my opinion internet activity has a negative effect on people’s attention span.  I know personally it’s hard to text and hold a conversation with someone at the same time.  Most people have to stop talking completely to text someone.  It’s hard to think of one thing to search on the internet and then think and talk in a conversation at the same time.  People are so focused on getting caught up on everyone’s lives that they might be ignoring some of their own relationships.

I feel that my personal internet use hasn’t really effected my relationships with people off line.  I try to be respectful when talking to people and not use my phone.  It’s kind of like treat people the way you want to be treated.  Would you want someone to give you half of their attention because the internet is more important than the conversation they are having with you?  Obviously not because you feel what you are saying is important just like another person does.  I do think that some people relationships off line do suffer though.  Some people are so focused on social media and internet because they want to know what is going on with everyone else that they don’t focus on themselves and their relationships.

I think that this short film is a truthful example of how most young people use the internet and social media.  People do so many things on the internet at one time.  It’s also so easy to pretend to be someone you’re not on the internet.  You can also so easily go onto someone else’s account just like Noah did.  I’m sure there are many people that go and ‘creep’ or ‘stalk’ other people’s accounts to figure out if one is talking to someone else behinds one back.  People use social media to hide and get information without actually confronting someone about it.  It’s easier to talk to someone over the internet because you have time to think of a response, but if your in person you can’t necessarily ‘hide’.

The internet and social media can be positive because it keeps people connected.  People can keep in touch with friends and family much easier with social media.  It also helps you get information you need as quick as you need.  But on the other hand, it can hinder relationships.  Some people can’t even get through dinner or a class without looking at their phone.

The Town Where The Mentally Ill Get A Warm Welcome

“The Town Where The Mentally Ill Get A Warm Welcome,” is the title of an article written by, Mike Jay.  It makes me think though.  Shouldn’t every town welcome the mentally ill?  Shouldn’t every person welcome the mentally ill?  To me, there shouldn’t be one town in specific that only welcomes the mentally ill.  These people are just like everyone else and they shouldn’t be treated differently just because they are mentally ill.  They didn’t choose to be how they are, but rather they usually were born like that or went through a traumatic incident.  That could’ve happened to anyone so no one should be discriminated against for it.  People should be helping them through their hard times or disabilities that they have.  This is the case for a town in Belgium called Geel.  Here they help, welcome, and encourage those that are mentally ill to come to the town and get better.  In Geel, the words ‘mentally ill’, ‘psychiatric’, and ‘patient’ are never used.  Rather, the words ‘special’ or possibly ‘different’ are used instead.  These words give a more positive outlook on these people, instead of looking down on them.  Usually just the word ‘boarder’ is used to describe the people that live there.  This characterizes them by their social condition rather than their mental condition.

Geel is a town where it doesn’t matter what a person’s diagnosis is, but they go there because they can’t cope with what is wrong on their own and they also don’t have anyone to look after them.  In this town a boarder is treated just like they are part of the family.  They are “involved in everything, and particularly encouraged to form a strong bond with the children, a relationship that is seen as beneficial to both parties”.  These families provide the boarders with a normal life to help them cope with what is wrong, rather than stuck inside a hospital.  I feel that this is a positive way to help someone because it shows them that they are just like everyone else.  In other places where people are placed in hospitals with white, plain walls dressed in the same clothes, of course they are going to feel different and not be able to get better.  The hospitals in Geel are seen as a punishment.  By being in Geel, they are living normal lives just like everyone else dealing with their own problems.  No one there has to say what is exactly wrong with them so no one is judging them on their exact condition.  They are getting “treatment” by living life like everyone else.

By forming positive relationships, it’s helping both the boarders and the host families.  It’s helping the boarders to help them be okay with themselves and their problems, but it also helps the host families show that it’s okay to be ‘different’.  Different doesn’t always mean bad.  The host families are showing their children never to judge anyone, but rather to help them when they are in need.

Final Paper Topic

            One topic that interests me the most is body image and advertising.  People try to push the “limits” of their body as far as it can go.  The mass media is one way people advertise, usually famous people’s bodies and how “perfect” they are.  To most women and men, models are who the average person aspires to look like.  While everyone wants to look like these models, they don’t realize that some are photo shopped and others risked their lives, health-wise, to look the way they do.  Even social media has shaped the way people look at their own body image.  There are so many ads, or tweets that say “try this new diet” or “shed 30 pounds in a month” to have a transformation like this person.  The media puts models in the special light that glorifies how they look.  So many little kids look up to famous people and are their role models.  They shouldn't be advertising themselves to little kids when they know that maybe that's not the best thing for them.  There is one thing to be thin, fit, and in shape, but theres another thing to be model thin.

            Another direction to go with body image and advertising is through sports.  There are so many athletes that look perfect so people want to be like them but a professional athlete body is so different from a “normal” body.  Even athletes have to deal with body image and advertising, because their own body might be the body in the media.  Also, athletes can have eating disorders too.  They aren't exempt from having problems like other people have.  Two sports that come to my mind is wrestling and gymnastics.  Wrestlers may have to loose a couple pounds in one night to make sure they are on track with their weight for a match.  Also, gymnasts have such little body fat that they have to make sure they stay as lean as possible.  This is not a good way to treat a body and in the end may even hurt the person.

            I think there is a split viewpoint on body image and advertising.  Those people who want to have the perfect body and look like those people that are advertised see it as a positive thing and something to help reach their goal.  On the other hand, the people that know that it is very hard to be model skinny think that this advertising puts a negative affect on people.  I personally think that the media places a negative idea in people’s minds.  They make it seem like it’s a bad thing if you don’t look like a model, or are really thin, or have an athlete’s physique.  Everyone is made differently and it’s okay to look however you were made.

            I think photos could help develop the idea that body image in the media puts a negative idea in people’s minds.  There could be a before and after picture of someone in the process of becoming a model and reaching that size zero or even double zero.  Another photo could be a model next to a “normal” person that still is considered skinny to mostly everyone.  Interviews of models or athletes of how they got to where they are and what they look like could help develop this paper.  One television show that comes to my mind when talking about body image and adverting is One Tree Hill.  In a couple episodes it shows a girl named Millie who was originally an assistant of Brooke Davis who owned a fashion line called "Clothes over Bros".  One night they were short on models and Millie stepped in.  Brooke came up with this new advertising campaign stating "zero is not a size".  Millie looked great in these clothes even though she was a size 2.  Throughout some of the episodes she started hanging out with other models and they got her thinking that zero is a size, and that is what size she should be now that she is a model.  Millie got into drugs and turned for the worst.  I think this is a perfect example showing that models aren't always perfect and to actually look like them you have to hurt your body, which is something that shouldn't be glorified through advertising.

Code Switching

            Some people may not realize that they code switch until it is brought up to them.  Code switching is when you talk in one “voice” to certain people and another to others.  In the article “How Code-Switching Explains The World” by Gene Demby he gives a very common example of code switching.  Demby states, “You drop the g's at the end of your verbs. Your previously undetectable accent — your easy Southern drawl or your sing-songy Caribbean lilt or your Spanish-inflected vowels or your New Yawker — is suddenly turned way, way up. You rush your mom or whomever off the phone in some less formal syntax ("Yo, I'mma holler at you later,"), hang up and get back to work”.  This is very common in many people.  Even though I don’t think I code switch that much I know I do at times.  I know when texting friends I use abbreviations or shorthand, but when I’m texting an adult or say my boss I never use abbreviations.  I agree with the statement “We’re hop-scotching between different cultural and linguistic spaces and different parts of our own identities- sometimes within a single interaction” by Demby.  It states that people code switch when they are put in different situations based on culture, linguistics, race, and ethnicity.  In the video of President Obama in the restaurant it first shows that he can be a regular guy just like everyone else.  It also shows that when he is in a different atmosphere, people of his own race for example in this video, he even code switches.  He knows when it is appropriate to speak in some may call it, slang, and when it’s not. 

            I know of one example in code switching in my life before I knew “code switching” was even a thing.  A friend of mine is from England and moved here when she was little.  She can speak perfect English with no accent because she moved when she was little.  But when she is around her family or calls them on the phone she has a heavy accent.  In her mind she does it without thinking because she is so used to it.  I think it is kind of cool that she can do this because she doesn’t loose her culture from where she was born, but she can also adapt to the people and culture she lives in now.

            Code switching can happen not only when speaking but it can also happen with sign language.  Just like there are different languages in the world and different dialects, there are also different types of sign language.  In the article “Sign language that African Americans use is different from that of whites” by Frances Stead Sellers, she explains that there is a difference between black ASL and “mainstream” ASL.  Carolyn McCaskill is a black deaf woman that realized there is a big difference between the two when going to a deaf white school.  She had to learn a new version of sign language at school, but then know how to code switch when she was back with her family and friends. 

            No one thinks that people who use sign language would have to code switch, but just like English, French, and Spanish, sign language has different dialects that everyone speaks all around the world.

"Choosing Disability"

In Laura Hershey’s piece “Choosing Disability,” she talks about the problems with abortion of “fetal deformity” or a “defective fetus”.  Hershey starts off her piece with a being at an antiabortion protest in honor of Roe v. Wade.  She said, “I was confronted by an angry nun whose “Abortion Is Murder” sign hung tiredly at her side.  She stopped in front of me and aimed a pugnacious finger.  “You see?” she announced.  “God even let you be born!”.  I think this is a great way to sum up this article because I’m sure more than just one person thinks this way.  Some think that if a woman knows that her baby is going to be disabled that she should get an abortion.  “In a 1992 Time/CNN survey, for example, 70 percent of respondents favored abortion if a fetus was likely to be born deformed”.  70 percent is a large amount of people that think it is okay to not have a child if they are going to be deformed.  Deformed or not, a person is still a person and should have the same chance as everyone. 

            Personally, I think that a woman should have their own choice to decide what they want to do with their body.  I agree with Julie Reiskin, a social worker who is active in disability rights and abortion rights, when she states “It should be because women have the right to do what we want with our bodies, period”.  Abortion should not be legal to use because of a fetal disability.  Don’t get me wrong, raising a child with disabilities is a very hard task, but that is the risk women know when getting pregnant, so that should be no reason to get an abortion.  You adapt with these disabilities and make the child stronger from these hardships.  I also agree with Hershey’s statement of “Abortion based on disability results from, and in turn strengthens, certain beliefs: children with disabilities (and by implication adults with disabilities) are a burden to family and society; life with a disability is scarcely worth living; preventing the birth is an act of kindness; women who bear disabled children have failed”.  I feel that by doing this makes people think that it’s okay to not birth a child because a disability is too hard.  I also think that if a disabled person hears this they feel even worse about themselves and think they are worthless.  No person should feel that way about their own self.  If the people that say these things about people with disabilities were ever in their shoes they would realize how hard it is without other people’s negative comments.

            Just like almost everything else we’ve talked about in class has had influence from the media, abortion has the same too.  People make these choices with social values in mind, such as how are people going to look at them or their child, or how their child will move around, or even if they will have the same opportunities as the rest of the world does.