Reflective Learning Journal #8

I walked to town this afternoon and was greeted by a ‘random man’ walking in the opposite direction. It made me think about the way society has changed. Technology has advanced so much that people all over the world are connected to each other through trade links, call centres, telephone and social media but, despite this global connection, it seems that we have never be so distant from each other. We walk around talking on our phones, head down, avoiding eye contact with people that walk around us. Today I have seen exactly this and it made me think about me how much society has changed over the years.

When I talk about a connection, I mean a kind of community connection, that tight community bond you’ve heard your parents or grandparents talk about back in ‘the good old days’, where everyone knew each other and everyone acknowledged each other as they walked past. I wonder now where this connection has gone. Why have we lost this sense of community now that the world has developed to a stage where actual human interaction can almost be avoided altogether? Is this really the life we want; one in which we as individuals seem to be emotionally separate from the rest of society? It is unlikely that, across this vast world, no one has a community connection but the majority of us tend to avoid communication with those we don’t know, even if it’s just to say ‘Good morning’ or ‘Good afternoon’. I think this mainly exists in developed countries and western society, where there is an abundant supply of technology available, giving us the opportunity to avoid human contact.

It feels to me that we have distanced ourselves from others so much that we can’t begin to imagine the position, lives, personality and problems of other people. Once, when I was living back home, I went out with my friends and we were waiting outside the cinema when a couple of middle-aged men walked in our direction. They were a bit drunk but one of them said something to us which has stuck in my mind ever since; that we should put our phones away for ten minutes and try not to use it within that time. He said that young people are too dependent on technology these days and that we would experience the world more if our head wasn’t buried in our phones. Within those ten minutes, several of my friends brought out their phones again. It really made me think about how we are so dependent on technology that we can barely live without it for ten minutes. Maybe we all need to put down our phones, even if only for a short while, and allow ourselves to realise just how dependent we are. Maybe then we can begin to connect to society again and form the bond which many of us lack.

I think that one of the reasons for this distancing is because of the introduction of CCTV after 9/11. I think that technology has been used to create fear by media, by amplifying bad news, which seems to be more commercial than good news. Media warnings and rumours of spies, terrorists and nuclear wars has made society fearful, thinking that increased security means there is a threat. This is a topic covered by Didear Bigo, who states that ‘by reinforcing surveillance over a specific group... securisation has created insecurisation, fears and the myth’ that people are always under threat and need constant surveillance (2000: 330).

References

Bigo, D. (2000) When Two Become One: Internal and External Securitisations in Europe, International Relations Theory and The Politics of European Integration. Power, Security and Community, London, Routledge: 171-204.

~ Jones' Journal

Reflective Learning Journal #7

I find it harder to work with a group than on my own. Our writing techniques were so different that when it came to editing, as we had three editors including myself, it was sometimes difficult to make exceptions for personal writing styles. Overall, however, I believe as editors we worked well together and managed to make a good report. Were I to criticise our approach to writing the report there would be several things that I would change for the next group project. I do not think that we allocated roles very well. Since there were eight of us, we split ourselves into four groups of two and I designated a paragraph to each group (one on familiarity, another on idealism, a third on nature and design and the last on management) but we did not think about the other four stages of our report (introduction, literature review, methodology and conclusion). Therefore, in the end, it was myself and the two other editors who ended up writing the other four sections as well as our own and then edit the entire report.

There were a couple of people in the group who myself and others feel did not contribute and most of the time we could not get in contact with them. Even when they said they would do a designate task they never did, meaning that there were less members to help with the group report. I feel annoyed that they will get credit for something they did not contribute to but now that we understand where problems and potential failures lie we can address any issues faced during the making of this report in future projects. It is difficult to get in contact with some people, despite having a group page on Facebook, because people don’t tend to look online to see posts and sometimes just ignore them. As a result, a minority of people did not read the final report, yet again leaving it up to me and three others to make sure it was correct. These failures need to be addressed by doing the following: properly allocating paragraphs to distribute the workload equally among the group, ensuring people also upload their own notes onto our group discussion so that we have more notes to work from, ensuring that everyone contributes (although I do not yet know how we will do this) and making sure everyone reads the finished report and give feedback.

Overall, I am pleased with the finished report but definitely think that, in future, work needs to be equally distributed among the group. The amount of work I have contributed towards finishing the report put me under quite a lot of pressure and I do not think that it was fair or sensible to have worked as a group the way we have done with this report. We achieved 60% for our report and 72% for our minutes which overall was a 2:1 about which I am very pleased. I believe that next time, based on our experience from the first report and the comments given by the assessor we may be able to achieve a higher overall score. We may not be able to reach a first at this stage because, after all, first year is about developing from experience, but I believe that at least a higher 2:1 may be possible.

~ Jones' Journal