Alex Jordan

September 25, 2013

EN 101.16
Professor Juniper Ellis

iExamen 1

            Throughout the day I examined how I communicated with people. I found that I repeated myself a lot. I never spoke in full sentences but rather in short phrases. I also communicated with my body. Such as when I left my apartment, as Chric Brown would say, “But I'm just puttin' two up, chuckin' up the deuce now” I gave the peace sign to my other roommates. Body language and short slang sayings have become the new way to communicate with your friends but when it comes to professors or people of authority I became very proper, never using slang or phrases to respond to them.

            Whenever I saw a male friend I would always say “What’s up boy?” and when it was a female friend I would always smile, wave, and say “hey, how are you?.” I’ve found that I communicate differently between friends of different genders. I also communicate differently between my roommates and other friends. My roommates and I are much closer than some of our other friends and we like to get on each other’s nerves to see how mad we can make each other. It’s all in good fun of course.

            My other main way of communicating is through texting. I can send a short message to someone and it will get to them very fast. Most of my texts are never full sentences and most of the times are very simple such as, “What’s good?” or Whatchu up to?.” I’ve found from just walking on campus that almost every student is walking and texting and if someone you know is walking and texting, they very rarely will say hi unless you say something first. I also spend a lot of time texting my girlfriend. We mainly communicate via text but we also spend a lot of time together and have no problems talking in person. I know some friends who can be very awkward around people because they are used to just texting and have trouble talking in person.

            I think it is interesting that people have trouble expressing themselves in person but through social media they say whatever is on their minds even if it is hurtful. I think social media has allowed a great forum for people to communicate easily but I also think it has allowed people to use it in a negative way that can hurt people.

            On Tuesday I had to walk to the bank, so my girlfriend and I turned our phones off and just walked. We talked about everything. Both my girlfriend and myself can talk for a very long time about absolutely nothing. We looked at all the flowers in the ground, the trees that blew in the wind. We listened to all the dogs barking, the cars honking their horns and even listened to other people’s conversations. We talked about nothing at some points throughout our walk. We watched the squirrels play, little kids swinging, and the cars drive by on Cold Spring Lane. It was nice not having my phone on. It made me pay a lot more attention to the minor details of the day.

            When the hour was up I found myself slipping back into my old ways. I would speak in short phrases. I went back to mostly texting people which removed me from the real world. I think it is important to pay attention to the little details of life and not be so involved with social media.