iE1

Kyle Gangemi

Dr. Ellis

EN 101

9/25/13

iExamen

            After a day of carefully observing my interactions with others and the way I communicate with others I came away with an entirely new perspective of my day-to-day interactions. Before I went to bed last night and my observations were complete I took some time to reflect, and I realized that my highly structured day has led to a very noticeable pattern in the way I communicate with my friends and peers. During the course of the exercise I realized that while I like the convenience of technology to talk to my friends that do not go to Loyola but I was able to step away from it for an hour with little effort.

            The first thing I noticed when I began my observations was that morning communication is very different than my other interactions throughout the day. It would be a stretch to call my first morning conversation a conversation; it was more like a serious of inaudible mumbling between my roommate and I, with each essentially telling the other to either turn off your alarm or shut up. The next interaction was completely nonverbal- my other roommate came into the room at 9:30 and turned on music and started yelling. All I could do was give him a dirty look. Since it was 9:30 and I had class at 10:50, I decided to step away from technology for an hour. It might seem like a cop out to do it that early in the morning but I wasn’t really sure when I would be able to do it. Usually I would use the morning to go on the Internet and catch up on whatever social media I missed while I was sleeping but yesterday I was actually able to be productive and get a lot of the work for that night done. If I were to do this again, I would step away from technology at a more hectic time of the day for a more full experience, but regardless this was my favorite part of the day.

            After my classes ended I had practice, where communication is completely different from any other type of communication. Everything is at such a high pace so communication is essential to ensure success. In the locker room after practice is when I really noticed body language, the kids who had good practices were in high spirits and had good energy, those who didn’t or were just exhausted hardly got out of their lockers. Either way the first thing everyone did was check their phones. The rest of the day went on without too much interaction with others. Any communication came through either texts or Facebook messages while everyone is trying to get their work done before going to bed.

            I learned a lot about myself and the ways I communicate with people after doing this first iExamen. Throughout the course of the day I realized there are certain points everyday where my communication is exactly the same because of how structured my day is. My favorite part of the exercise was stepping away from technology for an hour because I learned that I can do it and it is relaxing and enjoyable.