Observation of Identity Presentation

For this assignment I chose to observe the students who hang out in the 2nd floor cafe/lobby area of  Center for the Arts building here at Towson university. I chose to observe two students who were working on an assignment for a music theory class. One of the students was asking the other one to look at his homework and give him pointers on it. The language they were using was a combination of formal language, music jargon and inside jokes with each other. It was pretty clear that these two individuals were friends as well as professional colleagues. One of the students was wearing standard college student clothing (i.e.sports team T-shirt and shorts) and the other was wearing long pants and a music fraternity shirt. Their attitude was professional yet easy going. They made an effort not to take the assignment too seriously as to ease the stress involved. The two students were looking at the same laptop. On the screen was a music writing application, and one of the two was checking for errors and giving the other advise on how to fix them.  As they were working, various friends would walk by, say hi or even ask to look at the assignment as well.

The student wearing the frat shirt and long pants sent a strong message about his seriousness about his major with just his clothing. The way he used jargon was also a strong indicator of his professionalism. Anyone who walked by could see that his identity, or at least the identity that he wanted to project, was that of a professional musician. His friend was much more laid back in comparison. His clothing projected that he was just a regular student and not yet ready to move on. However, after listening in on the comments, one could tell that he took his work very seriously. After viewing the  two individuals studying in the "CFA" one can see that the average student can very from a newbie to a master of their craft by just observing the differences in appearance, attitude and personality.

Reading Response #2

The theme of these assigned readings was warning the reader about the potential dangers digital information about you on the web. The chapter in the text used an example of a generic child and counted through all the files and copies of files were available about him and  how by the time that he was in college he would have almost no control over is "digital Dossier". The Article talked in great detail about  the dangers and risks social networking sites and how they compared to those of dating sites. The Primary difference being that on social networking sites it is much harder to fool a potential mate because of the links and connections one has to real people who can confirm or deny that anything the person says is true.

When you update your facebook page how do you filter your post so that you only put up data that you feel comfortable sharing with the web? Do you think about people viewing your page other than your accepted facebook "friends"?

I find it surprising that there isn't a bigger emphasis outside of this class on the dangers of posting information online. I never really thought about how my name can come in a Google search if  something in my Facebook profile matches the search entry.

Reading Response #1

The concept that the two assigned reading had for this class is identifying and studying the age group/demographic of "Digital Natives" or "Millennials."  The Chapter in Digital Natives talked about the different ways young peoples' identities are established, and how they change. The book made the point that in today's technological paradigm, one can easily manipulate how he/she is presented to the social world. Positively, one can recreate their image through online avatars and video game characters, often having separate personalities and identities for each. Negatively, when one posts personal information about themselves on their social networking page, they may not be entirely aware of how public or private their page may be.

The research study examined how college age students use technology (specifically personal computers) in a classroom or dorm room setting. The study showed that in a dorm setting students use their laptops for everything from searching the web and listening to music to completing their homework, whereas in a classroom setting most students tended to avoid using technology, especially for multi-tasking.

Discussion Questions: -Why were the people used in the study required to be involved in such an involved application process? Wouldn't this skew the results of the study if the information only reflects the students who had the best applications?

Like the authors of the study, I found it surprising that the majority of the students found it distracting and rude for someone to use technology in an otherwise technology free classroom. To me it seems like many students use their mobile devices during classes because they are less conspicuous than laptops. Since the study was done in 2005 I would think that since moblie devices have become more available and affordable that the students would have slightly different views about use of technology in class.