Lab # 15

Social Capital Within the UNCSA High School Dorms

To get an idea of the social capital within the UNCSA dorms, we asked half of the people on our hall if they could name all twenty-six student residents, including themselves. We also asked our hall counselor of one month, Susan, if she was up to the task. Here are the results of the survey. The last row indicates averages for each column.

So of those asked, residents could not name one-fifth of their hallmates. There is most likely a slight bias in these results, due to some people politely declining our inquiry. These people probably couldn't name a significant percent of the people on our hall, which would bring the statistics down. Knowing someone's name is only the first step in building social capital. Almost no one on our hall could name everyone, so if we can't name who we live with, it makes us wonder how well people know each other on a personal level. We all live within a few feet of one another, so how would our results compare to the rest of America?

Sam's Lab # 20 on Family

Family

Family is definitely the greatest creator of social capital. One of the best examples of the importance of family and its social capital can be found during the Christmas season. Speaking in majorities, Christmas is one of the most popular, if not the most popular, holiday. When you ask someone why he or she loves Christmas, the response usually has something to do with spending quality time with family (while presents, cookies, lavish dinners, and a fat man in a red suit are often mentioned as well). In this fact alone, one can see the human need for familial love. The desperate desire for this love often stems from an extreme lack of such sentiments in many families that can only be increased with an more family time.

In order to demonstrate the importance of family, I used my own experiences and memories from this past Christmas that I spent at home with my family. As with most families, the rapidity of my family's pace of life keeps many dinner tables vacant and makes full family gatherings a rare and highly cherished event (boarding school is definitely not helping the issue). My mother values family time above all else, and the drastic decrease in family time often upsets her. She is an ardent believer that today's society completely undervalues the family, and her way of contributing to a reform of this issue is in providing my family with as much time together as possible.

Christmas day sticks out in my memory as one of the happiest days, not only during break but throughout my life's memories. I am not so superficial that the opening of many, many presents has made this emotional connection. I know it is because, my whole family is together, celebrating, and enjoying themselves with the simple objective of being together. Below are some pictures documenting this happy family time.

So Matthew, my eight year old brother, is probably grinning because of the present, but look at Mom and Alec... they are happy because Matthew is happy.

Jess and my mom just chatting in their pajamas.

The three boys (dad included) all trying to be Santa at once on Christmas morning.

Awww... (he is smiling like that because of the present he is holding in his arms, which I gave him! That sort of response is my one of my favorite parts of Christmas.)

Converse to what these pictures illustrate, Christmas is not only an array of happy memories, for it is also a stress-ridden and fight-provoking time. However, fighting is an inherent aspect of family, something in which all of humanity partakes, and which is crucial to social capital in that it teaches one to listen, compromise, and forgive, which ultimately creates stronger family bonds. Strong families create strong individuals, as a result of having the loving, supportive base that a family provides. I also believe that people who are part of a strong family go on to value community and family more, and are more likely to contribute to an increase in social capital. A great deal of my confidence I attribute to the supportive family I have at home, while my will to achieve is in part due to my sense of responsibility as the oldest of four children. In this way, family contributes not only to the larger community, but also to the individual.

I love my crazy family!

-Sam Miller

Lab 12: Facebook

Facebook and Its Effects on Social Capital

Facebook has definitely come to shape our generation, redefining friendship, communication, and the use of free time. Some studies report that online social networking has increased social capital as it has led people to maintain connections with people that otherwise would have been lost. A study performed at MSU supported this perspective, citing that results from a survey of students at MSU who, when asked about staying in tough with high school friends, said that they have kept in touch with many more friends than they would otherwise have done if it hadn't been for facebook. The author of Does Facebook help enhance your friendships? however was critical of the MSU study, claiming that internet social connections are really just cheapening the term "friends." I believe that the benefits of these cites are for the majority only superficial, and lack any true value or meaning. The cites also illustrate this younger generation's need and desire for social capital "bridges," which I see as hope that this superficial form of communication and cheapened friendship will never fully take the place of personal relationships and in-person communication. Technology has estranged people's face-to-face relationships (note the oxymoron, facebook destroys face-to-face relationships), making people falsely closer via cyberspace. One interesting aspect of the article, however, was to highlight the way facebook communication allows the "poor to get richer" rather than only the "rich to get richer." This is referring to the positive affect online networking has had for more introverted, less self-assured, and shy individuals. They benefit from these less-personal relationship beginnings, which help them to initiate genuine friendships.

In the David Brooks article called Bondage and Bondage Online, a much more foreboding stance is taken against online social networking, and is more specifically in attach of myspace rather than facebook. The article opens with the following quote: "Dude, we totally need to hang out... Erin, you're a [great] waitress and friend. We definitely need to hang out sometime... You rock my world. It was awesome seeing you... Where did you go!!! I haven't seen you in a long time and I NEED to see you!!! Cause I love you!!! ... Happy New Year my sexy friend. I love you sooo much!?" This bluntly makes a point about the degradation of language, friendship, and intellect of this younger generation resulting or demonstrated by myspace. It is an opening that perfectly sets the tone for the rest of this harsh article's assessment of online networking. I like the adjective "smutty" he uses to describe myspace and its users. He describes this world-filled with half naked women and awful communication, which supports and fosters sex, alcoholism, and the continued degradation of our society. In the words of Brooks, it is "a world in which the girls have been schooled in sexual aggressiveness, the boys sit back and let the action come to them." This focus on sex, TV, and rejection of such higher things as books, is simply a manifestation of the way in which media, and in particular reality TV, has ruined meaningful human communication, relationships, and priority.

The demise of our society, intellectualism, and priority is not a result of online communication; it is a destruction of human sentimentality and intellectualism that has long been developing. It is not even an issue inherent to the rise of technology, but it is a reflection of the degradation of the media, which the advent of technology has so widely disseminated. This degrade media is able to have such a great impact on society, because of the lack of American motivation combined with a greatly flawed educational system. Brooks has a similar conclusion, "These prolonged adolescents are filled with ernest desires for meaningful human contact, but they live in a culture that has provided them with no vocabulary to create these sorts of bonds except through cleavage and vodka." In a sense, internet networking is not only contributing to the decline of social capital, but it is a manifestation of society's decreased level of importance placed upon real communication and worthy friendships.

Lab # 21

Lab #4

Trust video

Lab # 8

So on the 1st floor Moore Hall, we planned a Green Tea Social for residents to come and drink tea while discussing future recycling plans for our hall. Only four other people, other than ourselves, showed up, so rather than ask the people to come we went to the people. We surveyed half of the people on our hall, and got fantastic results. Listed below is our data.

Do you currently recycle?
Yes! 12 No... 1
If you don't, would you start if we made recycling available to the entire hall?
Yes! 1 No... 0
Would you be willing to take turns emptying a community recycling bin?
Yes! 13 No... 0

The results of our survey were very exciting, and far beyond our expectations. However, the point of our lab was to have a social to discuss these issues, and for various reasons, twenty people didn't show up. Maybe our planning was flawed, however, we have had plenty of other socials for which over half of the hall showed up. I don't think the amount of people who showed up, though, is because of disinterest, as seen by the positive survey results.

Lila's Lab #2

This is my cell phone, all alone in my closet, in an obviously staged photograph.

I have never trusted technology. I am not technologically inept, I just naturally don't rely upon it or get addicted to it. So, because of this, no one can ever reach me on my cellphone. I've only had one for a year and a half. There is abundant evidence on my phone accounting for my sparse cellular use, however, I have chosen to give you only a few pictures of my recent technological neglects. Living away from home, I do need my cell phone to keep in touch with family and friends, but honestly on an average basis my phone stays in my room, and is used for maybe fifteen minutes everyother day. It isn't hard for me to be without it because I despise it, however, my parents do get upset with me when I don't return their calls for five days. The longest I've not used my cell phone was over this past winter break. I used it three times. My phone records say otherwise, but that's only because my parents stole my phone when theirs went dead. I just don't believe on relying so heavily on technology.

173hours, 51 minutes without using my cell

5+ days without a cell phone

Lila & Morgan are reinventing the weal

Welcome. This is our CommonWeal project for AP Government & Politics, and for our own intellectual expansion.

This picture is an example of what urban sprawl and technology do to innocent amphibians. Not really.