Memo27+--+Describing+Places

Thomas Solley STSH 4980-01 Senior Thesis Costelloe-Kuehn 10/13/2014 10/15/2014

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__ Memo 27 -- Describing Places __ " This memo should include a 200-400-word description of a place that you have or may encounter, during your research, leveraging the description for analytic insight. In other words: make the description speak to a social theoretical question or point. The place you describe should be a real place, but you can flesh out your description imaginatively if you don’t yet have actual data."

Place; DCC Great Hall, mid-day. As with the dining halls, there are many people here using media/electronics of some kind. Those sitting in the Hall can be seen looking at their computers, browsing casually through their phones, or else sleeping on their backpacks. The most computer-users congregate by the cafe, using the tables provided their for individual typing or group-discussions (most of which appear to be between friends rather than homework-related). It would seem that the majority using their computers in the Great Hall are looking at homework or class-related material, and not "social media" -- granted, as a class-environment space, this seems appropriate. Students look up, searching the faces of passersby -- unknown if looking for recognition (seeking a familiar face), or -- as hormonal beings -- seeking attractive features. Once we enter one of those said classrooms -- such as 307, the grand lecture room, for chemistry -- the atmosphere seems to change. Up at the front of the classroom, in the front row, we see students bent attentively over their desks taking notes; as we move our gaze to the back and to the sides from the front-middle, we see students slouching in their chairs, talking with their friends. At the outliers -- the back and extreme outside -- students can be seen asleep on their desks. Scattered within the ranks are students with their computers open in front of them -- those at the front of the class appear to have powerpoint slides, while those at the back may be playing games or checking Facebook or email. As time passes, we see students with their phones -- some of whom seem to be trying to hide them. The professor does not make an attempt to confiscate the phones -- as would have been done at my high school -- rather, continues with the lecture. Some students have their phones in their laps, and are texting/interacting as they pretend to take notes -- others have their phones right on their desks next to their notebooks or computers (farther up the rows to the back), relying possibly on the teacher's field of vision and the angle of the desks to keep their activities hidden. Occasionally a student goes to pull our their phone from their backpack or pocket -- rushing to pull the phone out and place it out of sight, as if minimizing the time the phone spends in "free air." On the one hand, the professor of the course has indicated a dislike of phones being in the classroom -- which may explain the attempted furtiveness of the students in using or withdrawing their phones. Yet despite this, students continue to use their phones -- whether "less" or "more" openly, seems not to matter. Even though the lecture hall restricts cellular communication, this does not seem to stop students from "connecting" to the Internet in some form. --> As below, so above. Uncertain what best "use-case" for this Memo.

--- Edits from in-class today;

__ Notes __

.... Ok... nobody move.... stuff hasn't borked yet... STQ from memo26; " how has networking technology changed social behavior in the past seven years?"

... Not sure exacrtly how i see this one going -- should be easy, in theory. How about describing the dining hall? easy place, made quite a few observations there before regarding how many folks are embedded in their phones...

10/15/2014 This analysis seems to show me that a case-study at RPI may not be the best "intrinsic" case -- there may not be much social-media use within class-times and study-spaces. We don't seem to have a "public area" for activity either -- the VCC seems to be used most-often for work-related materials (as students who use those the public computers do not appear to have a laptop on them).