Welcome to Our Blog!

Heyy so this is the blog made by Toma and Jie.

This blog is about social capital and how they can change us and change our lives.

Our life also changed as well, from having a communication with our parents.

Jie's parents wanted him to become a pianist and that is how he started to play piano and be able to come to this school.

Toma's mother is a ballet dancer and encouraged him to become a dancer, which made it possible for him to come to this school as well.

And this is where we met. We would never had met if social capital never existed.

This is Toma's mother.

And we were unable to obtain Jie's parents' photos.

Lab #3

Toma's life without media:

It wasn't impossible, but it was still hard for me to stop myself from touching my laptop. I had the upper hand to not having media since I don't watch TV, but I still read newspaper and play with my laptop a lot. I also became unaware of what has been going on around me, since the media is not there to inform me what is going on around society. Also, I lost a lot of communication from people since I didn't use facebook, which was on my laptop that I couldn't use. My other things that I usually use such as Twitter and Youtube was also inaccessible and made things really hard and complicated.

Jie's life without media:

I didn't suffer as much as Toma, since I don't use a lot of internet and communicate with people online such as Facebook. But I watched news and read newspapers so like Toma, I had no idea what was going on around me. I always want myself updated to things so I think it was really uncomfortable with not having media around.

 

Lab #12

Yes. Facebook.

It is pretty much impossible to find a person that doesn't have one. Why is facebook so popular? Simple reason: it creates social capital like CRAZYYYYY!

Also, this contains other electronic communicators, is that you can say something without showing your face, which can protect you, and sometimes it can put you into an endless pit of hell. Facebook is the main source on the internet that can create a lot of social capital, because you don't have to see that person with your naked eye, and it makes communication possible to people that lives far away, and you can talk to your friends when ever you want to.

However, it can also lead to a serious drawback. While talking to people on Facebook, you will start to lose communication that is outside of internet, such as your neighbors. Facebook makes it possible to maintain communication with people that you know, but it can disable the ability for that person to make new relationship with new people. 

Facebook can be the greatest tool to create social capital, but it can also destroy them too.

Lab #7

We chose that we would rather move to France, and you bet, because they have the longest break. We will need a wonderful break and an awesome vacation to get our brain work more effectively for the work we will get in the future. In addition, we can get more relationship with other people and have the time to hang around with people that you couldn't, such as family members and friends that you usually can meet since your job gets in the way. Taking breaks from jobs can be a really good thing to improve our social capital, and it's better than staring at the computer screen to get your job done. 

      

Lab #2

Me and Jie refrained from using our cell phone for 31 hours. Jie left his at his room and I gave mine to my mom to keep it away from me. Jie and I felt really upset and messed up, since it was really hard to find people that we usually meet in a daily basis. We had to make appointments with people to meet them, since you can't contact them at any moment since we can't use our cell phone. Although both of us doesn't text as much as other people, it was still a pain in the neck to not have communication with other people.
Both of us had a really terrible time, and we are the kinds of people that can't live without technology; cell phone or internet. These great inventions help us and have more convenience. It gives us more freedom and communication for all around the world; and Jie is a great example for this since he is all the way from China.
We both knwo that it is disturbing to rely on technolgy and convenience, and we have to be honest, us humans really need this thing to live.

 This is Jie's phone left on his computer in his dorm.

and this is Toma's mom holding his phone.

Lab #9

To Whom it May Concern,

As you know, most people are refraining from reading newspapers because of enhanced technology and improved connection with other people using gadgets that has been invented over the past centuaries. People has stopped reading because these things are much easier to deal with, you can have connection with a press of a button. However, us Toma and Jie are still reading newspapers, since they help us understand what is going on around us.

Newspapers are very essential for our society, and like we have mentioned, it is a great tool to understand and get informed on recent activities that are going around in our society. Newspaper usually contains informations such as society, crime, political events, business, and art/entertainments. These informations can make a socially inactive person active, since it contains the essential information that you publishers put in. 

Both of us really wants you guys to continue publishing papers, so that we will always be aware of what is going around us. 

Sincerely, Toma and Jie.

Lab #11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvVmy-J_B1Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8bEz0CHzjE
These links leads to a youtube video comparing how much choices of American fast food restaurants can change a person's life. One video is about how much calories can be taken in a meal at McDonalds, and the other is recommending how it is better to eat at Quizznos instead. These videos are posted by the same person (or group).The question is, how can this make a difference in American society? When we investigated, there are more than 31,000 locations that has McDonalds, while Quizznos only has less than 1000 and not much are out worldwide. However as you can see in the video, Quiznos is much more healthier than McDonalds; which has more than 1000 calories per meal. And the difference between the numbers of location reveals to us that McDonalds have much more popularity than Quiznos. Although this may not be related to social capital, the percentage of a person getting fat when his or her friends get fat is 51%. The reason why I am discussing this is because getting fat can cause people's social capital to deform and change somebody's life. For example, if a dancer becomes fat, then that person will be fired and will have to burn the fat off or change the job, which is a total change in his or her life.