The iPhone 5 is the newest phone that has yet to be released from Apple at this point in time. It is much thinner and lighter than the previous iPhones allowing it to have a larger display screen. But keeping the same width as the previous iPhones, it creates more room for the users’ enjoyment. It’s light weight it contains makes it easier for the user to hold in their hand and makes for a perfect fit in your pocket. (Apple) The iPhone 5 has a retina display that no other phone has come close to having. All the words and images seen on the screen look real (Apple). My favorite part of the iPhone 5 is surprisingly the front camera. Note that this is not the first iPhone to have this feature but is the feature that I use the most on my phone. Having a touch screen phone can be very difficult when trying to take a picture because you can never find where the shutter button is on the screen. But having the front camera, you are able to see everything you are doing and take the best picture your first try. The only down side to the iPhone 5 is the charger. Because the phone was made so much thinner, it required a new charger to be made for it. The chargers now are no longer universal with any other iPhone, iPad, or iPod and they have been known to break quite easily.

            As long as I can remember, I have always wanted to be a part of the so called, “iPhone family”. There was always a new reason why I was unable to get the phone. First, it was the price of the phone. It was too expensive and my family could not afford to get it for me, which was completely understandable. Then, there was fact that I do not take care of my phones like I should so it would be pointless for me to get this expensive phone because I would just break it. I understand this statement because I was so young when I got my first phone that it just seemed like a luxury to me. I knew that it was not a “nice” phone but nonetheless it was a phone, and I could finally text, as I wanted to for such a long time. As I got older, I began to take much better care for my phones. When I started to understand what phone plans were, and how you were locked into a 2 year contract, I knew that I needed to make that phone last the entire two years or I would have to pay for the new one. The final reason I was always pushed away from getting the iPhone, was because my family had always been a Droid phone family. They were not comfortable with switching to Apple because they had heard so many problems about it. But the day that my father came home with the iPhone was the day that I knew I wanted to get the iPhone as soon as I could.

            I never realized this before, but it was because of my dad that I always wanted the next new product, in this case, the iPhone. He loved to dangle his iPhone in my face because he knew how much I wanted it. He also knew how much better his phone was over mine and would never let me forget it. Seeing that my dad was having such a great time with the phone, aside from teasing me with it, it made me want the phone that much more. The joy and luxury that my dad had while having this phone, made it more of a social influence on me than anything. The simplicity of the phone and all of its features was unreal to me. The social influence my dad had over me persuaded me to finally be able to purchase my own iPhone 5. I now, for the first time in my life, have a nicer phone than my dad and I am able to flip the cards and dangle my phone in his face. He knows that I love teasing him about it because he did it to me for so many years. Now that I have the iPhone 5, I am experiencing everything that my dad was feeling the first time he got his iPhone. Feelings of emotion such as, joy and happiness, feeling the slick, cool surface of the screen and learning how to use the phone in its entirety. Purchasing the iPhone is definitely one of the smartest decisions I have made as a consumer thus far in my life.

            Everyone in the world today is considered a consumer, it is second nature. Google defines a consumer as, “a person who purchases goods and services for personal use” (Google). A simple way to explain what a consumer is, would just be calling them a buyer. Someone who buys products that they might not necessarily need is another way to describe a consumer. Being a consumer could also be a social aspect. Shopping has always been here for the majority of our lives. Because we have been shopping for so long, we are able to point out and recognize the brands that are considered “higher ends”, such as Buckle, Abercrombie and Fitch, Coach, Nordstroms, Miss Me, etc. When I say “higher ends” I mean the more expensive product, that someone is willing to pay extra for just to have the logo on it. These products are always going to be more expensive than the “generic” brands, but that does not always mean they are going to be better quality.

            When it comes to purchasing items, I would consider myself to be a conservative consumer for a number of reasons. First, as explained before, I always want the next new thing, but who doesn’t? Everyone wants all the new features that is offered and wants to be able to say that they own that new product. Again, it is a social aspect. Younger people believe that if they do not have the glorious new product, they are not going to have as many friends or be accepted as easily. Even though I might always want the next new thing, I do not always buy it. Ever since I started paying my own bills, I am very careful about how I spend my money, most of the time. I could have bought the iPhone years ago because I was paying my own bill and nobody could tell me I could not have it. But I still refused because I knew it was not a smart purchase at the time. I was working minimal hours and if I were to have bought the iPhone and something were have gone wrong with my car, I would not be able to fix it. Therefore, I would not be able to get to work, which is where all my money comes from. I am able wait for the product to be out for a few months before I feel the need to buy it. By this time the price will have gone down tremendously and would be a much smarter purchase. 

            A method that certain brands and organizations use to get us to buy or desire their product is their advertisements. The most common way they advertise is through commercials. They will put these advertisements on multiple stations on T.V. so they know they are getting their message out to as many people as they can. The commercials will put in the most effective pieces of information that they can fit in the small amount of time they are allotted. The information they choose to share is going to make the product the most desirable and persuasive as possible. A certain aspect that I have noticed that these commercials fail to mention is the actual price of the product. The price you would actually pay if you were to go into the store right after you saw the ad. They might say the base price of just the phone, or computer, etc, but fail to mention the fees you will have to pay in order to take that product home. Tax fees, service fees, and the phone plan fees are just a few examples of the extra money that you will have to put down in order to get this product. The main reason the advertisements do not mention the fees is because we as the consumers, want to hear the lowest price possibly when it comes to purchasing something. Using this method of advertising, companies are able to get what they are selling out very fast causing the public to learn about their product quickly. Therefore it could result in more sales for that company.

            In conclusion, I have learned that the biggest influence that companies and organizations use to their benefit is the social influence. Using me as an example, I always knew that I wanted the iPhone and seeing my dad with it made me want it that much more. He could do anything with that phone, answer any question I had, play any game I wanted, or let me take crazy pictures on it with a cool camera application. With everyone always needing the new thing, it is possible that people will think that they will not be socially accepted if they do not have this certain product. They might believe it will be harder for them to fit in with people or society, which to an extent could be true. Our technology is improving and advancing every day. Some people could have to purchase a certain product in order to be able to continue working easily in today’s society. As long as you are knowledgeable about the product you are purchasing and believe that it will benefit you in the long run, it is more likely that it is a smart purchase. That is an example of good consumerism.

The iPhone 5 is the newest phone that has yet to be released from Apple at this point in time. It is much thinner and lighter than the previous iPhones allowing it to have a larger display screen. But keeping the same width as the previous iPhones, it creates more room for the users’ enjoyment. It’s light weight it contains makes it easier for the user to hold in their hand and makes for a perfect fit in your pocket. (Apple) The iPhone 5 has a retina display that no other phone has come close to having. All the words and images seen on the screen look real (Apple). My favorite part of the iPhone 5 is surprisingly the front camera. Note that this is not the first iPhone to have this feature but is the feature that I use the most on my phone. Having a touch screen phone can be very difficult when trying to take a picture because you can never find where the shutter button is on the screen. But having the front camera, you are able to see everything you are doing and take the best picture your first try. The only down side to the iPhone 5 is the charger. Because the phone was made so much thinner, it required a new charger to be made for it. The chargers now are no longer universal with any other iPhone, iPad, or iPod and they have been known to break quite easily.

            As long as I can remember, I have always wanted to be a part of the so called, “iPhone family”. There was always a new reason why I was unable to get the phone. First, it was the price of the phone. It was too expensive and my family could not afford to get it for me, which was completely understandable. Then, there was fact that I do not take care of my phones like I should so it would be pointless for me to get this expensive phone because I would just break it. I understand this statement because I was so young when I got my first phone that it just seemed like a luxury to me. I knew that it was not a “nice” phone but nonetheless it was a phone, and I could finally text, as I wanted to for such a long time. As I got older, I began to take much better care for my phones. When I started to understand what phone plans were, and how you were locked into a 2 year contract, I knew that I needed to make that phone last the entire two years or I would have to pay for the new one. The final reason I was always pushed away from getting the iPhone, was because my family had always been a Droid phone family. They were not comfortable with switching to Apple because they had heard so many problems about it. But the day that my father came home with the iPhone was the day that I knew I wanted to get the iPhone as soon as I could.

            I never realized this before, but it was because of my dad that I always wanted the next new product, in this case, the iPhone. He loved to dangle his iPhone in my face because he knew how much I wanted it. He also knew how much better his phone was over mine and would never let me forget it. Seeing that my dad was having such a great time with the phone, aside from teasing me with it, it made me want the phone that much more. The joy and luxury that my dad had while having this phone, made it more of a social influence on me than anything. The simplicity of the phone and all of its features was unreal to me. The social influence my dad had over me persuaded me to finally be able to purchase my own iPhone 5. I now, for the first time in my life, have a nicer phone than my dad and I am able to flip the cards and dangle my phone in his face. He knows that I love teasing him about it because he did it to me for so many years. Now that I have the iPhone 5, I am experiencing everything that my dad was feeling the first time he got his iPhone. Feelings of emotion such as, joy and happiness, feeling the slick, cool surface of the screen and learning how to use the phone in its entirety. Purchasing the iPhone is definitely one of the smartest decisions I have made as a consumer thus far in my life.

            Everyone in the world today is considered a consumer, it is second nature. Google defines a consumer as, “a person who purchases goods and services for personal use” (Google). A simple way to explain what a consumer is, would just be calling them a buyer. Someone who buys products that they might not necessarily need is another way to describe a consumer. Being a consumer could also be a social aspect. Shopping has always been here for the majority of our lives. Because we have been shopping for so long, we are able to point out and recognize the brands that are considered “higher ends”, such as Buckle, Abercrombie and Fitch, Coach, Nordstroms, Miss Me, etc. When I say “higher ends” I mean the more expensive product, that someone is willing to pay extra for just to have the logo on it. These products are always going to be more expensive than the “generic” brands, but that does not always mean they are going to be better quality.

            When it comes to purchasing items, I would consider myself to be a conservative consumer for a number of reasons. First, as explained before, I always want the next new thing, but who doesn’t? Everyone wants all the new features that is offered and wants to be able to say that they own that new product. Again, it is a social aspect. Younger people believe that if they do not have the glorious new product, they are not going to have as many friends or be accepted as easily. Even though I might always want the next new thing, I do not always buy it. Ever since I started paying my own bills, I am very careful about how I spend my money, most of the time. I could have bought the iPhone years ago because I was paying my own bill and nobody could tell me I could not have it. But I still refused because I knew it was not a smart purchase at the time. I was working minimal hours and if I were to have bought the iPhone and something were have gone wrong with my car, I would not be able to fix it. Therefore, I would not be able to get to work, which is where all my money comes from. I am able wait for the product to be out for a few months before I feel the need to buy it. By this time the price will have gone down tremendously and would be a much smarter purchase. 

            A method that certain brands and organizations use to get us to buy or desire their product is their advertisements. The most common way they advertise is through commercials. They will put these advertisements on multiple stations on T.V. so they know they are getting their message out to as many people as they can. The commercials will put in the most effective pieces of information that they can fit in the small amount of time they are allotted. The information they choose to share is going to make the product the most desirable and persuasive as possible. A certain aspect that I have noticed that these commercials fail to mention is the actual price of the product. The price you would actually pay if you were to go into the store right after you saw the ad. They might say the base price of just the phone, or computer, etc, but fail to mention the fees you will have to pay in order to take that product home. Tax fees, service fees, and the phone plan fees are just a few examples of the extra money that you will have to put down in order to get this product. The main reason the advertisements do not mention the fees is because we as the consumers, want to hear the lowest price possibly when it comes to purchasing something. Using this method of advertising, companies are able to get what they are selling out very fast causing the public to learn about their product quickly. Therefore it could result in more sales for that company.

            In conclusion, I have learned that the biggest influence that companies and organizations use to their benefit is the social influence. Using me as an example, I always knew that I wanted the iPhone and seeing my dad with it made me want it that much more. He could do anything with that phone, answer any question I had, play any game I wanted, or let me take crazy pictures on it with a cool camera application. With everyone always needing the new thing, it is possible that people will think that they will not be socially accepted if they do not have this certain product. They might believe it will be harder for them to fit in with people or society, which to an extent could be true. Our technology is improving and advancing every day. Some people could have to purchase a certain product in order to be able to continue working easily in today’s society. As long as you are knowledgeable about the product you are purchasing and believe that it will benefit you in the long run, it is more likely that it is a smart purchase. That is an example of good consumerism.

The transition to college can be a very stressful time for any student. Any student would tell you that high school was way easier than college and was definitely not as stressful. In high school, everything was basically handed to you. You had a certain amount of classes to attend every day, the teacher actually noticed if you missed class and most of the time you were able to make up the assignment. But the biggest part about high school that I took for granted, was how close I was able to become with so many of the teachers I had throughout my years. At one point, I would consider some of the teachers I had in high school some of my best friends. One in particular was Colleen Schoonover. She in fact was the first faculty member I met at my high school because she also was the coach of the newly forming dance team. I became very close to her in the four years I was on the dance team. She also was my freshman English teacher, as well as the teacher for my leadership class that I took all four years in high school. Being able to have these connections in high school definitely could make your stress level in high school much lower than it would be in college.

In college, most professors do not take attendance. They believe that you are old enough to make your own responsible decisions. You are paying to attend college, so if you miss a class, it is up to you to get the notes from that day and find out if you missed any important announcements. This can certainly cause stress on students because they are responsible for themselves now. There is no one to make sure that they go to class. Having more responsibility can cause a fair amount of stress on a student, especially one that is not used to taking care of themselves. Having all of these new responsibilities can cause a negative effect on students which could lead them to making some very poor decisions due to stress.

Our overall goal of this project was to learn how people chose to deal with their stress. What activities, habits or hobbies do they participate in when they have just had a terrible day? Our Invention Mob was titled, “How do you de-stress?” We focused on students of any grade that attend Washington State University.  After we had gathered some of our information, we noticed that some students deal with their stress in both positive and negative ways. We found the positive ways that students chose to de-stress included, taking a nap, listening to music, being around friends and family, or going to the gym. The negative ways that students chose to de-stress included, partying every weekend, drinking, doing illegal drugs and even smoking cigarettes. These negative methods of de-stressing can cause you detrimental damage to your body, leading you to developing health problems very early in life.  Even get addicted to certain habits is a possibility. Our goal of this project was to learn how students chose to deal with their stress. However, we wanted to go that extra mile and provide the students who participated with different methods of de-stressing and mainly focusing on those students who chose to de-stress negatively. Ultimately, giving them more positive and healthy options that they could potentially use.

To gather information for our project we tried many different approaches. Our initial idea was to have students send in pictures of how they de-stress. So with that idea in mind, we started out by going to our friends asking them to participate. Being our friends they are always willing to help us. From there, we asked our friends to ask their other friends to do the same thing. Now that our project was spreading around campus, we started to think of other ways that we could get students to participate. We then decided to make a Facebook page for our project. On this page, we left an email address that students could send their pictures into if they did not want to post it publicly. This method was not as effective as we thought it would be. We believed that more students would be willing to send in pictures because they were able to choose the photo. We were not going to put anyone on the spot and show up randomly and take their picture. To improve gathering information, there are a few changes we could have made. First off, we could have made the Facebook group available sooner, giving students more time to learn about the project, decide on their method of de-stressing, take a picture of it and send it in. Second, we could have had a few example photos in the group prior to adding people into it. A reasons that we believe our group was not very successful was because some students could feel embarrassed about being first to post a picture into the group. They would wait until somebody else posted their picture first, then they would post theirs because they would not have the embarrassment of posting the first picture. If we were to have a few example photos already uploaded in the group, I believe that we would have had more success in our Facebook group and trying to gather more information.

Another approach we used to gather information was simply going to the CUB and starting a conversation with a random student and ask them how they de-stress. This method was not very successful for a number of reasons. For one, it is not normal for a stranger to go up to someone and try to start up a conversation. You are not going to feel comfortable talking to this individual because you do not know who they are. Another reason this method was not successful was because no one in our group felt comfortable being that random stranger. We did not want anyone in our group feeling uncomfortable so we decided to veto that idea. Throughout this process we were always receiving feedback from our classmates every time we presented new information that we collected. During one of these presentations, one of our classmates suggested that we create a survey as a second method of collecting data. This ended up being the most successful approach we used for this project.

The survey simply said, “How do you de-stress?” The answer options that were available were the submissions that we had received on our Facebook page, along with what our friends had sent to us. There was a total of ten different answer options on the survey and one spot for other, just in case our options were not applicable to a student. After creating this survey, and printing out 100 copies, one of our group members, April, was able to take it to her Criminal Justice class to have them participate. We knew that this would be a perfect way to collect our data because there was well over 100 students in attendance. We also were able to get input from both males and females. With the Facebook group and photo submissions, it seemed that girls were the only ones sending in photos. This is because most girls are more comfortable getting their picture taken, and if they get to choose what photo they send in, they will be more than willing to help. We noticed that we did not get many men to submit photos so using the survey we were able to get answers from both genders. With the results we got from the survey, our project was nearly complete.  All that was left was our visual piece of our project. We needed to create a way to present our data that we had collected, along with the photo submissions that we had received.

After we had organized all of the data gathered, we decided that we were going to present our data with the top five most popular answers from the survey. The top five answers were, socializing, working out, listening to music, playing video games and being with animals. We included an “other” section because we did not want to throw that data away and not include it in our study. We decided to create a pie chart because we agreed that being able to see the data in the form of percentages would make it easiest to understand.  On one poster board we had our pie chart, along with our persuasion, process, product, and purpose of our project. On the other we created a collage of all 20 photo submission received throughout our project.

During this project I used a few different writing skills. First, I used my ability to write structured and organized paragraphs when doing the write up for this project. I also used the tips and comments I received from the first peer review session we had with Dr. Hunter. I applied those suggestions in these new paragraphs I was writing and it ended up helping me create much more detailed and precise paragraphs. Another other writing skill I used in this project was revision. I was able to go over the paragraphs a few times in order to make sure they made perfect sense. I fixed some sentence structuring, simple grammatical errors and even deleted some sentences that were irrelevant.

Overall I would conclude that our Invention Mob project was very successful. We definitely had some difficult times, but we can only learn from the mistakes we made and use them to benefit us in the future.  A main reason for our success is due to having 4 members in our group. Not only was the work split up evenly among us, but each member brought something different to the group. In the beginning, we said that the reason we were going to pursue this goal was because we knew that it was achievable with some hard work. Personally, I thought our project was enjoyable because we were able to interact with many different students of all grades. Not only were we able to provide others with positive ways of de-stressing but I learned some new methods that I am going to try the next time I am having a stressful day.

There were several components that helped us accomplish our goal of finding out how students de-stress. We had our English teacher Dr. Hunter, who provided us with constructive feedback that not only helped us move forward but also allowed us to expand ourselves and create our owns ways of completing this assignment. We also had Facebook which helped us expand our project and get the contributions of people that we personally did not know. The fellow peers in our English 101 class also provided us with constructive feedback along with new ideas that ended up benefitting us in the end. We would not have been able to complete our project if it was not for the students that were willing to participate in our survey. Bringing me to my last component that helped us achieve our goal, our survey. The survey provided us with every piece of information that we needed to complete this project.

The transition to college can be a very stressful time for any student. Any student would tell you that high school was way easier than college and was definitely not as stressful. In high school, everything was basically handed to you. You had a certain amount of classes to attend every day, the teacher actually noticed if you missed class and most of the time you were able to make up the assignment. But the biggest part about high school that I took for granted, was how close I was able to become with so many of the teachers I had throughout my years. At one point, I would consider some of the teachers I had in high school some of my best friends. One in particular was Colleen Schoonover. She in fact was the first faculty member I met at my high school because she also was the coach of the newly forming dance team. I became very close to her in the four years I was on the dance team. She also was my freshman English teacher, as well as the teacher for my leadership class that I took all four years in high school. Being able to have these connections in high school definitely could make your stress level in high school much lower than it would be in college.

In college, most professors do not take attendance. They believe that you are old enough to make your own responsible decisions. You are paying to attend college, so if you miss a class, it is up to you to get the notes from that day and find out if you missed any important announcements. This can certainly cause stress on students because they are responsible for themselves now. There is no one to make sure that they go to class. Having more responsibility can cause a fair amount of stress on a student, especially one that is not used to taking care of themselves. Having all of these new responsibilities can cause a negative effect on students which could lead them to making some very poor decisions due to stress.

Our overall goal of this project was to learn how people chose to deal with their stress. What activities, habits or hobbies do they participate in when they have just had a terrible day? Our Invention Mob was titled, “How do you de-stress?” We focused on students of any grade that attend Washington State University.  After we had gathered some of our information, we noticed that some students deal with their stress in both positive and negative ways. We found the positive ways that students chose to de-stress included, taking a nap, listening to music, being around friends and family, or going to the gym. The negative ways that students chose to de-stress included, partying every weekend, drinking, doing illegal drugs and even smoking cigarettes. These negative methods of de-stressing can cause you detrimental damage to your body, leading you to developing health problems very early in life.  Even get addicted to certain habits is a possibility. Our goal of this project was to learn how students chose to deal with their stress. However, we wanted to go that extra mile and provide the students who participated with different methods of de-stressing and mainly focusing on those students who chose to de-stress negatively. Ultimately, giving them more positive and healthy options that they could potentially use.

To gather information for our project we tried many different approaches. Our initial idea was to have students send in pictures of how they de-stress. So with that idea in mind, we started out by going to our friends asking them to participate. Being our friends they are always willing to help us. From there, we asked our friends to ask their other friends to do the same thing. Now that our project was spreading around campus, we started to think of other ways that we could get students to participate. We then decided to make a Facebook page for our project. On this page, we left an email address that students could send their pictures into if they did not want to post it publicly. This method was not as effective as we thought it would be. We believed that more students would be willing to send in pictures because they were able to choose the photo. We were not going to put anyone on the spot and show up randomly and take their picture. To improve gathering information, there are a few changes we could have made. First off, we could have made the Facebook group available sooner, giving students more time to learn about the project, decide on their method of de-stressing, take a picture of it and send it in. Second, we could have had a few example photos in the group prior to adding people into it. A reasons that we believe our group was not very successful was because some students could feel embarrassed about being first to post a picture into the group. They would wait until somebody else posted their picture first, then they would post theirs because they would not have the embarrassment of posting the first picture. If we were to have a few example photos already uploaded in the group, I believe that we would have had more success in our Facebook group and trying to gather more information.

Another approach we used to gather information was simply going to the CUB and starting a conversation with a random student and ask them how they de-stress. This method was not very successful for a number of reasons. For one, it is not normal for a stranger to go up to someone and try to start up a conversation. You are not going to feel comfortable talking to this individual because you do not know who they are. Another reason this method was not successful was because no one in our group felt comfortable being that random stranger. We did not want anyone in our group feeling uncomfortable so we decided to veto that idea. Throughout this process we were always receiving feedback from our classmates every time we presented new information that we collected. During one of these presentations, one of our classmates suggested that we create a survey as a second method of collecting data. This ended up being the most successful approach we used for this project.

The survey simply said, “How do you de-stress?” The answer options that were available were the submissions that we had received on our Facebook page, along with what our friends had sent to us. There was a total of ten different answer options on the survey and one spot for other, just in case our options were not applicable to a student. After creating this survey, and printing out 100 copies, one of our group members, April, was able to take it to her Criminal Justice class to have them participate. We knew that this would be a perfect way to collect our data because there was well over 100 students in attendance. We also were able to get input from both males and females. With the Facebook group and photo submissions, it seemed that girls were the only ones sending in photos. This is because most girls are more comfortable getting their picture taken, and if they get to choose what photo they send in, they will be more than willing to help. We noticed that we did not get many men to submit photos so using the survey we were able to get answers from both genders. With the results we got from the survey, our project was nearly complete.  All that was left was our visual piece of our project. We needed to create a way to present our data that we had collected, along with the photo submissions that we had received.

After we had organized all of the data gathered, we decided that we were going to present our data with the top five most popular answers from the survey. The top five answers were, socializing, working out, listening to music, playing video games and being with animals. We included an “other” section because we did not want to throw that data away and not include it in our study. We decided to create a pie chart because we agreed that being able to see the data in the form of percentages would make it easiest to understand.  On one poster board we had our pie chart, along with our persuasion, process, product, and purpose of our project. On the other we created a collage of all 20 photo submission received throughout our project.

During this project I used a few different writing skills. First, I used my ability to write structured and organized paragraphs when doing the write up for this project. I also used the tips and comments I received from the first peer review session we had with Dr. Hunter. I applied those suggestions in these new paragraphs I was writing and it ended up helping me create much more detailed and precise paragraphs. Another other writing skill I used in this project was revision. I was able to go over the paragraphs a few times in order to make sure they made perfect sense. I fixed some sentence structuring, simple grammatical errors and even deleted some sentences that were irrelevant.

Overall I would conclude that our Invention Mob project was very successful. We definitely had some difficult times, but we can only learn from the mistakes we made and use them to benefit us in the future.  A main reason for our success is due to having 4 members in our group. Not only was the work split up evenly among us, but each member brought something different to the group. In the beginning, we said that the reason we were going to pursue this goal was because we knew that it was achievable with some hard work. Personally, I thought our project was enjoyable because we were able to interact with many different students of all grades. Not only were we able to provide others with positive ways of de-stressing but I learned some new methods that I am going to try the next time I am having a stressful day.

There were several components that helped us accomplish our goal of finding out how students de-stress. We had our English teacher Dr. Hunter, who provided us with constructive feedback that not only helped us move forward but also allowed us to expand ourselves and create our owns ways of completing this assignment. We also had Facebook which helped us expand our project and get the contributions of people that we personally did not know. The fellow peers in our English 101 class also provided us with constructive feedback along with new ideas that ended up benefitting us in the end. We would not have been able to complete our project if it was not for the students that were willing to participate in our survey. Bringing me to my last component that helped us achieve our goal, our survey. The survey provided us with every piece of information that we needed to complete this project.

443,000 people each year are killed by the use of cigarettes or the exposure to secondhand smoke (Los Angeles Times). Smoking is the leading cause of death globally to this day. If we are aware of these facts and numbers, what causes us to continue to light up that cigarette? People today will tell you that a way for them to relieve stress or get the satisfaction of de-stressing would be to smoke a cigarette. Being able to go outside, sit down and smoke could essentially make their day so much better. Some could argue that just the motion of bringing the cigarette up to your lips, inhaling, and then exhaling the smoke gives them the satisfaction they crave. However, you only need to smoke one cigarette to get addicted to them. You realize how the nicotine in the cigarette affects your body and creates a sensation that you want to keep feeling. After you have found this sensation and become accustomed to it, smoking is one of the hardest habits to quit because nicotine is one of the most addictive substances there is. We realize the damage that it is doing to our bodies, but we have become too reliant of the sensation that the cigarette gives us, we would rather keep smoking than to have a healthy body, lungs and suitable area around them.

            I cannot speak from personal experience about how it is to quit smoking, but I can speak from very close friends of mine who have gone through it. When we were assigned this essay, I had two friends of mine who were going to quit smoking within the week. They both had different ways they were going to quit and I was interested to see which method would work better. Carley was going to quit “cold turkey” as some would say, but Shawn was going to ease himself into the process of quitting. They agreed on a day where they were no longer going to smoke anymore cigarettes. If they had any leftover, they needed to get rid of them so they would not have any temptations. A week before they quit, Carley was smoking as much as she possible could, not only because she knew she was going to miss smoking, but she was also very nervous. Smoking is how Carley had dealt with the majority of her problems. When she would get upset, instead of yelling at someone, she would go have a cigarette. She knew that if she were to handle a stressful situation after she had smoked, she was going to handle much better. The method Shawn chose was to slowly cut down the amount of cigarettes he would smoke. Until eventually he was down to one a day. Cutting down for him was not as difficult as it was for Carley because he was not as addicted to the nicotine as she was. When that final day came neither of them had any cigarettes left which was a very good start. As the day went on, Carley was having the urges and temptations to go buy a pack of cigarettes. It was very easy to put Carley in a bad mood for a few days because she had completely cut off the nicotine she was putting into her body and it was going to take some getting used to. Although neither of them has given in to their cravings, they both will tell you that it was the hardest habit they have ever had to quit.

            A few days after they had quit I went to each of them individually and asked them how their experience of quitting has been thus far. Shawn described how the only reason he has wanted to have a cigarette was because he was having a couple of very stressful days at work. This was completely understandable being that this was the only reason Shawn did smoke. Carley was a completely different story. She explained how there was not a single moment throughout the day where she did not want to have a cigarette. Her body had become so used to the nicotine and tobacco that when she bluntly quit, it was not prepared for that level of change. She also explained that she always seemed to be in a bad mood, no matter what was happening. She began to understand what control cigarettes had over her life and she became that much more grateful that she had finally given them up.

            When I was sitting down with each of them, I also asked them how the have been coping without cigarettes. Shawn explained how he has not noticed many changes in himself or his habits. He does not do many things different than he did before when we was smoking. Carley described that she had resorted to smoking hookah as her way of getting the feeling of smoking a cigarette. Hookah is a way to smoke flavored tobacco through a hose that still gives you the sensation of blowing out smoke like a cigarette. People think that smoking hookah is not as bad for you as smoking a cigarette, but they are wrong. Hookah can do just as much damage as a cigarette does to you. “While many hookah smokers may consider this practice less harmful than smoking cigarettes, hookah smoking carries many of the same health risks as cigarettes.” (CDC) hookah may have less toxics and chemicals that cigarettes do, but when you are having a “hookah smoking session”, they could last up to an hour. You pass the hose around person to person and depending on how many people you are with, you could easily get as many as 15 inhales from the one hookah. I personally was unaware that hookah was just as bad for you as cigarettes. The next time I see Carley I am going to explain to her all the facts I have learned and make sure she understands that, “hookah smoking is not a safe alternative to smoking cigarettes.” (CDC)

            I also asked Carley why she began smoking in the first place. She began to explain that it was a lifestyle her parents lived. Ever since she was a little girl, she was always around the cigarette smoke, until it just became a habit for her to be inhaling smoke. When she eventually smoked her first cigarette it almost did not affect her at all. Her body and lungs were already so use to being around the atmosphere and smell of cigarette smoke it is almost as if there was nothing new being put into her body. When I asked Shawn why he began smoking he explained he answer was very similar to Carley’s, only instead of his parents smoking, it was he co-workers. Shawn began working at a very young age and always seemed to be around cigarette smoke. However, unlike Carley, Shawn was able to go home to a clean, smoke free house, so his lungs had a chance to recovery. When Shawn eventually had his first cigarette, he reacted to the nicotine and tobacco was worse than Carley did.

Smoking not only causes damages to the person smoking, but it also causes close to the same amount of damage to the people around it, breathing in the smoke. Second hand smoke it just as harmful as smoking a cigarette. Cigarette smoke is the leading cause of lung cancer, which can end in death. (Lung) The question is if it is the leading cause of death and lung cancer globally, then why do we continue to do it? An estimated 443,000 people die from smoking or inhaling cigarette smoke annually. (CDC)  Not only does it do damage to everyone around you, it is also a terrible smell to be around. Most people do not want to smell like that or be around that smell. In fact, a lot of bars and public places around the country are banning the use of cigarettes from their establishments because they see how much business it causes them to lose.

Smoking can also be used as a form of relaxation. With the way the economy is right now, jobs are getting harder to find, and a college degree is something that you need to have these days in order to get a decent job. With that in mind, going through 4 or more years of college can be very stressful and strenuous on students. A way to relax after a long day, or calming down after that big test you just took some students resort to smoking. We cannot personally change each lifestyle of every person who smokes, but what we can do is introduce them to new ways of de-stressing and relaxation. Show them that they do not need to resort to smoking when they have so many other options that are not damaging your body, such as, being with loved ones, listening to music, taking a nap or even going to work out.

“It will make you cool.” “Everyone is doing it!” “It’s not that big of a deal.” It is phrases like these that cause younger people to start smoking cigarettes in the first place. It can be used as a form of relaxation for some, but for most it is used as a social stigma. Once you start smoking, it is very hard to quit, it only takes one cigarette to get addicted. Nicotine not only tricks your body into wanting more, but hurts you internally. It causes damage not only in your lungs, but in your mouth, your respiratory system, as well as your brain. Over the course of smoking, you will start to notice that your mouth will always be dry, your teeth will start to yellow, and your respiratory system to weaken, making it harder to breathe. Nicotine also affects your brain. It affects your sleep schedule by causing disturbances and abnormal dreams, as well as causing you to have dizziness, lightheadedness and makes you much more irritable. It also does a lot of damage to your heart, by increasing or decreasing your heart rate as well as gives you high blood pressure.

            Personally, I believe smoking is one of the worst habits that you can pick up as an individual. “Nicotine is an addictive drug, which when inhaled in cigarette smoke reaches the brain faster than drugs that enter the body intravenously. Smokers not only become physically addicted to nicotine; they also link smoking with many social activities, making smoking a difficult habit to break” (Lung). I think that it can be used as a relaxer or a stress reducer, but there are many other ways that you can handle those situations without putting your body in a bad place. There are many different way of de-stressing that you can participate in besides smoking.

Cigarette smoking has been identified as the most important source of preventable morbidity and premature mortality worldwide (Lung). Globally, we have done a lot in trying to prevent people from smoking in public or even in the comfort of their own homes. The two biggest attempts have been, making it illegal to smoke in a bar or public places, along with the prices of cigarettes going up tremendously in the past few years. Cigarette prices have increased between 2 percent and 25 percent over the past few years (The AWL). We will never be able to make people stop smoking cigarettes completely, it’s just impossible. Because it is legal people are going to continue to do it, even if they know what it is doing to their bodies. All we can do is educate them on what it is doing to their bodies and present different ideas and methods that they can use to relieve their stress so they might eventually quit smoking all together.

 

443,000 people each year are killed by the use of cigarettes or the exposure to secondhand smoke (Los Angeles Times). Smoking is the leading cause of death globally to this day. If we are aware of these facts and numbers, what causes us to continue to light up that cigarette? People today will tell you that a way for them to relieve stress or get the satisfaction of de-stressing would be to smoke a cigarette. Being able to go outside, sit down and smoke could essentially make their day so much better. Some could argue that just the motion of bringing the cigarette up to your lips, inhaling, and then exhaling the smoke gives them the satisfaction they crave. However, you only need to smoke one cigarette to get addicted to them. You realize how the nicotine in the cigarette affects your body and creates a sensation that you want to keep feeling. After you have found this sensation and become accustomed to it, smoking is one of the hardest habits to quit because nicotine is one of the most addictive substances there is. We realize the damage that it is doing to our bodies, but we have become too reliant of the sensation that the cigarette gives us, we would rather keep smoking than to have a healthy body, lungs and suitable area around them.

            I cannot speak from personal experience about how it is to quit smoking, but I can speak from very close friends of mine who have gone through it. When we were assigned this essay, I had two friends of mine who were going to quit smoking within the week. They both had different ways they were going to quit and I was interested to see which method would work better. Carley was going to quit “cold turkey” as some would say, but Shawn was going to ease himself into the process of quitting. They agreed on a day where they were no longer going to smoke anymore cigarettes. If they had any leftover, they needed to get rid of them so they would not have any temptations. A week before they quit, Carley was smoking as much as she possible could, not only because she knew she was going to miss smoking, but she was also very nervous. Smoking is how Carley had dealt with the majority of her problems. When she would get upset, instead of yelling at someone, she would go have a cigarette. She knew that if she were to handle a stressful situation after she had smoked, she was going to handle much better. The method Shawn chose was to slowly cut down the amount of cigarettes he would smoke. Until eventually he was down to one a day. Cutting down for him was not as difficult as it was for Carley because he was not as addicted to the nicotine as she was. When that final day came neither of them had any cigarettes left which was a very good start. As the day went on, Carley was having the urges and temptations to go buy a pack of cigarettes. It was very easy to put Carley in a bad mood for a few days because she had completely cut off the nicotine she was putting into her body and it was going to take some getting used to. Although neither of them has given in to their cravings, they both will tell you that it was the hardest habit they have ever had to quit.

            A few days after they had quit I went to each of them individually and asked them how their experience of quitting has been thus far. Shawn described how the only reason he has wanted to have a cigarette was because he was having a couple of very stressful days at work. This was completely understandable being that this was the only reason Shawn did smoke. Carley was a completely different story. She explained how there was not a single moment throughout the day where she did not want to have a cigarette. Her body had become so used to the nicotine and tobacco that when she bluntly quit, it was not prepared for that level of change. She also explained that she always seemed to be in a bad mood, no matter what was happening. She began to understand what control cigarettes had over her life and she became that much more grateful that she had finally given them up.

            When I was sitting down with each of them, I also asked them how the have been coping without cigarettes. Shawn explained how he has not noticed many changes in himself or his habits. He does not do many things different than he did before when we was smoking. Carley described that she had resorted to smoking hookah as her way of getting the feeling of smoking a cigarette. Hookah is a way to smoke flavored tobacco through a hose that still gives you the sensation of blowing out smoke like a cigarette. People think that smoking hookah is not as bad for you as smoking a cigarette, but they are wrong. Hookah can do just as much damage as a cigarette does to you. “While many hookah smokers may consider this practice less harmful than smoking cigarettes, hookah smoking carries many of the same health risks as cigarettes.” (CDC) hookah may have less toxics and chemicals that cigarettes do, but when you are having a “hookah smoking session”, they could last up to an hour. You pass the hose around person to person and depending on how many people you are with, you could easily get as many as 15 inhales from the one hookah. I personally was unaware that hookah was just as bad for you as cigarettes. The next time I see Carley I am going to explain to her all the facts I have learned and make sure she understands that, “hookah smoking is not a safe alternative to smoking cigarettes.” (CDC)

            I also asked Carley why she began smoking in the first place. She began to explain that it was a lifestyle her parents lived. Ever since she was a little girl, she was always around the cigarette smoke, until it just became a habit for her to be inhaling smoke. When she eventually smoked her first cigarette it almost did not affect her at all. Her body and lungs were already so use to being around the atmosphere and smell of cigarette smoke it is almost as if there was nothing new being put into her body. When I asked Shawn why he began smoking he explained he answer was very similar to Carley’s, only instead of his parents smoking, it was he co-workers. Shawn began working at a very young age and always seemed to be around cigarette smoke. However, unlike Carley, Shawn was able to go home to a clean, smoke free house, so his lungs had a chance to recovery. When Shawn eventually had his first cigarette, he reacted to the nicotine and tobacco was worse than Carley did.

Smoking not only causes damages to the person smoking, but it also causes close to the same amount of damage to the people around it, breathing in the smoke. Second hand smoke it just as harmful as smoking a cigarette. Cigarette smoke is the leading cause of lung cancer, which can end in death. (Lung) The question is if it is the leading cause of death and lung cancer globally, then why do we continue to do it? An estimated 443,000 people die from smoking or inhaling cigarette smoke annually. (CDC)  Not only does it do damage to everyone around you, it is also a terrible smell to be around. Most people do not want to smell like that or be around that smell. In fact, a lot of bars and public places around the country are banning the use of cigarettes from their establishments because they see how much business it causes them to lose.

Smoking can also be used as a form of relaxation. With the way the economy is right now, jobs are getting harder to find, and a college degree is something that you need to have these days in order to get a decent job. With that in mind, going through 4 or more years of college can be very stressful and strenuous on students. A way to relax after a long day, or calming down after that big test you just took some students resort to smoking. We cannot personally change each lifestyle of every person who smokes, but what we can do is introduce them to new ways of de-stressing and relaxation. Show them that they do not need to resort to smoking when they have so many other options that are not damaging your body, such as, being with loved ones, listening to music, taking a nap or even going to work out.

“It will make you cool.” “Everyone is doing it!” “It’s not that big of a deal.” It is phrases like these that cause younger people to start smoking cigarettes in the first place. It can be used as a form of relaxation for some, but for most it is used as a social stigma. Once you start smoking, it is very hard to quit, it only takes one cigarette to get addicted. Nicotine not only tricks your body into wanting more, but hurts you internally. It causes damage not only in your lungs, but in your mouth, your respiratory system, as well as your brain. Over the course of smoking, you will start to notice that your mouth will always be dry, your teeth will start to yellow, and your respiratory system to weaken, making it harder to breathe. Nicotine also affects your brain. It affects your sleep schedule by causing disturbances and abnormal dreams, as well as causing you to have dizziness, lightheadedness and makes you much more irritable. It also does a lot of damage to your heart, by increasing or decreasing your heart rate as well as gives you high blood pressure.

            Personally, I believe smoking is one of the worst habits that you can pick up as an individual. “Nicotine is an addictive drug, which when inhaled in cigarette smoke reaches the brain faster than drugs that enter the body intravenously. Smokers not only become physically addicted to nicotine; they also link smoking with many social activities, making smoking a difficult habit to break” (Lung). I think that it can be used as a relaxer or a stress reducer, but there are many other ways that you can handle those situations without putting your body in a bad place. There are many different way of de-stressing that you can participate in besides smoking.

Cigarette smoking has been identified as the most important source of preventable morbidity and premature mortality worldwide (Lung). Globally, we have done a lot in trying to prevent people from smoking in public or even in the comfort of their own homes. The two biggest attempts have been, making it illegal to smoke in a bar or public places, along with the prices of cigarettes going up tremendously in the past few years. Cigarette prices have increased between 2 percent and 25 percent over the past few years (The AWL). We will never be able to make people stop smoking cigarettes completely, it’s just impossible. Because it is legal people are going to continue to do it, even if they know what it is doing to their bodies. All we can do is educate them on what it is doing to their bodies and present different ideas and methods that they can use to relieve their stress so they might eventually quit smoking all together.

 

The iPhone 5 is the newest phone that has yet to be released from Apple at this point in time. It is much thinner and lighter than the previous iPhones allowing it to have a larger display screen but keeping the same width as the previous iPhones, creates more room for the users’ enjoyment. The minimal weight it contains makes it easier for the user to hold in their hand and overall fits perfectly in your pocket. (Apple) The iPhone 5 has a retina display that no other phone has come close to having. All the words and images seen on the screen look real. (Apple) My favorite part of the iPhone 5 is surprisingly the front camera. Note that this is not the first iPhone to have this feature but is the feature that I use the most on my phone. Having an only touch screen phone can be very difficult when trying to take a picture because you can never find where the shutter button is on the screen. But having the front camera, you are able to see everything you are doing and taking the best picture your first try. The only down side to the iPhone 5 is the charger. Because the phone was made so much thinner, it required a new charger to be made for it. The chargers now are no longer universal with any other iPhone, iPad, or iPod and they have been known to break quite easily.

            As long as I can remember, I have always wanted to be a part of the so called, “iPhone family”. There always was a new reason on why I was unable to get the phone. First, it was the price of the phone was too high and my family could not afford to get it for me, which was completely understandable. Then, there was fact that I do not take care of my phones like I should so it would be pointless for me to get this expensive phone because I would just break it. There is some truth behind this statement because I was so young when I got my first phone that it just seemed like a luxury to me. I knew that it was not a “nice” phone but nonetheless it was a phone, and I could finally text, as I wanted to for such a long time. As I got older, I began to take much better care for my phones. When I started to understand what phone plans were, and how you were locked into a 2 year contract, I knew that I needed to make that phone last the entire two years or I would have to pay for the new one. The final reason I was always pushed away from getting the iPhone, was because my family had always been a Droid family. They were not comfortable with switching to Apple because they had heard so many problems about it. But the day that my father came home with the iPhone was the day that I knew I wanted to get the iPhone as soon as I could.

            I never realized this before, but it was because of my dad that I always wanted the next new product, in this case, the iPhone. He loved to dangle his iPhone in my face because he knew how much I wanted it. He also knew how much better his phone was over mine and would never let me forget it, seeing that my dad was having such a great time with the phone, aside from teasing me with it, it made me want the phone that much more. The joy and luxury that my dad had while having this phone, made it more of a social influence on me than anything. The simplicity of the phone and all the features it was able to do was unreal to me. The social influence my dad had over me it was persuaded me to finally be able to purchase my own iPhone 5. I now, for the first time in my life, have a nicer phone than my dad and I am able to flip the cards and dangle my phone in his face. He knows that I love teasing him about it because he did it to me for so many years. Now that I have the iPhone 5, I now am experiencing everything that my dad was feeling the first time he got his iPhone. Feeling emotions such as, joy and happiness, feeling the slick, cool surface of the screen and the back, and learning how to use the phone in its entirety. Purchasing the iPhone is definitely one of the smartest decisions I have made as a consumer thus far in my life.

            Everyone in the world today is considered a consumer, it is just second nature. Google defines a consumer as, “a person who purchases goods and services for personal use” (Google). A simple way to explain what a consumer is, would just be calling them a buyer. Someone who buys products that they might necessarily need is another way to describe a consumer. Being a consumer could also be a social aspect. Shopping has always been there for the majority of our lives. Being that we have been shopping for so long, we are able to point out and recognize the brands that are considered “higher ends”, such as Buckle, Abercrombie and Fitch, BKE, Hollister, Miss Me, etc. When I say “higher ends” I mean the more expensive product, that someone is willing to pay extra for just to have the logo on it. These products are always going to be more expensive than the “generic” brands, but that does not always mean they are going to be better quality.

            When it comes to purchasing items, I would consider myself to be a conservative consumer for a number of reasons. First, as explained before, I always want the next new thing, but who doesn’t? Everyone wants all the new features that is offered and wants to be able to say that they own that new product. Again, it is a social aspect. Younger people believe that if they do not have the glorious new product, they are not going to have as many friends or be accepted as easily. Even though I might always want the next new thing, I do not buy it. Ever since I started paying my own bills, I’m very careful about how I spend my money, most of the time. I could have bought the iPhone years ago because I was paying my own bill and nobody could tell me I could not have it. But I still refused because I knew it was not a smart purchase at the time. I was working minimal hours and if I were to have bought the iPhone then, if something were to have gone wrong with my car, I would not be able to fix it. Therefore, I would not be able to get to work, which is where all my money comes from. I can wait for the product to be out for a few months before I feel the need to buy it. By this time the price would gone down tremendously and it would be a much smarter purchase. 

            A method that certain brands and organizations use to get us to buy or desire their product is their advertisements. The most common way they advertise is through commercials. They will put these advertisements on multiple stations on T.V. so they know they are getting their message out to as many people as they can. The commercials will put in the most effective pieces of information that they can fit in the small amount of time they are allotted. They information they choose to share is going to make the product the most desirable and persuasive as they can get. A certain aspect that I have noticed that these commercials fail to mention is the actual price of the product. The price you will pay if you were to go into the store right after you saw the ad. They might say the base price of just the phone, or computer, etc, but fail to mention the fees you will have to pay in order to be able to take that product home. Tax fees, service fees, and the phone plan fees are just a few examples of money that you will have to put down in order to get this product. The main reason the advertisements do not mention the fees is because we as the consumers, want to hear the lowest price possibly when it comes to purchasing something. Using this method of advertising, companies are able to get what they are selling out very fast causing the public to learn about their product quickly and therefore could result in more sales for that company.

            In conclusion, I have learned that the biggest influence that companies and organizations use to their benefit is the social influence. Using me as an example, I always knew that I wanted the iPhone and seeing my dad with it made me want it that much more. He could do anything with that phone, answer any question I had, play any game I wanted, or let me take crazy pictures on it with a cool camera application. With everyone always needing the new thing, it has or could cause people to think that they will not be socially accepted if they do not have this certain product, or it will be harder for them to fit in with people or society, which to an extent could be true. Our technology is improving and advancing every day. Some people may have to purchase a certain product in order to be able to continue to work easily but also having to keep up with our advancements in technology. As long as you are knowledgeable about the product you are purchasing and believe that it will benefit you in the long run, it is more likely that it is a smart purchase and that is an example of good consumerism.

The transition to college can be a very stressful time for any student. Any student would tell you that high school was way easier than college is and definitely was not as stressful. In high school, everything was basically handed to you. You had a certain amount of classes to attend every day, the teacher actually noticed if you missed class and most of the time you were able to make up the assignment. But the biggest piece of high school that I know I took for granted, was how close I was able to become to so many of the teachers I had throughout the years. At one point, I would consider some of the teachers I had in high school some of my best friends. One in particular was Colleen Schoonover. She in fact was the first faculty member I met at my high school because she also was the coach of the newly forming dance team. I became very close to her with the four years I was on the dance team, but she also was my freshman English teacher, as well as the teacher for my leadership class that I took all four years on high school. Being able to have these connections in high school would definitely make your stress level in high school much lower than it is in college.

In college, most professors do not take attendance. They believe that you are old enough and responsible for making your own decisions. You are paying to attend college, so if you miss a class, it is up to you to get the notes from the day and find out if you missed any important announcements. This can certainly cause stress on students because they are responsible for themselves now. There is no one to make sure that they go to class. Having more responsibility can cause a fair amount of stress on a student that in other words is not used to taking care of themselves. Having all of these new responsibilities can cause a negative effect on students which could lead them to making some very poor decisions when it comes to dealing with stress.

Our overall goal of this project was to learn how people chose to deal with their stress. What activities, habits or hobbies do they participate in when they have just had a terrible day? Our Invention Mob was titled, “How do you de-stress?” We only focused on students of any grade, which attend Washington State University.  After we had gathered some of our information, we noticed that some students deal with their stress in both positive and negative ways. We found the positive ways that students chose to de-stress included, taking a nap, listening to music, being around friends and family, or going to the gym. The negative ways that students chose to de-stress included, partying every weekend, drinking whenever they felt as if they were in over their heads, doing illegal drugs and even smoking cigarettes. These negative methods of de-stressing can cause you detrimental damage to your body, leading you to developing health problems very early in life or even get addicted to certain habits. Our goal of this project was to learn how students at Washington State University chose to deal with their stress. However, we wanted to go that extra mile and provide the students who participated with different methods of de-stressing and mainly focusing on those students who chose to de-stress negatively, giving them more positive and healthy options that they could potentially use.

To gather our information for our project we tried many different approaches. Our initial idea was that we wanted students to send in pictures of how they de-stress. So with that idea in mind, we started out by going to our friends asking them to participate. Being our friends they are always going to be willing to help us. From there, we asked our friends to ask their friends to do the same thing. Now that our project was getting out there, we started to think of other ways that we could get students to participate. We then decided to make a Facebook page for our project. On this page, we left an email address that students could send their pictures into if they did not want to post it publicly. This method was not as effective as we thought it would be. We believed that more students would be willing to send in pictures because they were able to choose the photo. We were not going to put anyone on the spot and show up randomly and take their picture. To improve this approach to gathering information, there are a few changes we could have made. First off, we could have made the Facebook group available sooner, giving students more time to learn about the project, decide on their method of de-stressing, take a picture of it and send it in. Second, we could have had a few examples photos in the group prior to adding people into it. A reasons that we believe our group was not very successful was because some students could feel embarrassed about being first to post a picture into the group. They would wait until somebody else posted their picture first, then they would post theirs because the embarrassment of posting the first picture is gone. If we were to have a few example photos already uploaded in the group, I believe that we would have had more success in our Facebook group and trying to gather information online.

Another approach we used to gather information was simply going to the CUB and starting a conversation with a random student and ask them how they de-stress. This method was not very successful for a number of reasons. For one, it is not normal for some random person to go up to someone and just try to start up a conversation when you have no idea who this person is. You are not going to feel comfortable talking to this individual because you do not know who they are. Another reason this method was not successful was because none of our group members felt comfortable being that random person. We did not want anyone in our group feeling uncomfortable so we decided to not pursue that method anymore. Throughout this process we were always receiving feedback from our classmates every time we presented new information that we have collected. During one of these presentations, one of our classmates suggested that we create a survey as a second method of collecting data, which ended up being the most successful approach we used for this project.

The survey simple said, “How do you de-stress?” The answer options that were available were the submissions that we had received on our Facebook page, along with what our friends had sent to us. There was a total of 10 different answer options on the survey and one spot for other, just in case not of the options were a fit to that particular student. After creating this survey, and printed out 100 copies, one of our group members, April, was able to take it to her Criminal Justice class to have them participate. We knew that this would be a perfect way to collect our data because there was well over 100 students in attendance, and we also were able to get input from both males and females. With the Facebook group and photo submissions, it seemed that girls were the only ones sending in photos. This is because most girls are more comfortable getting their picture taken, and if they get to choose what photo they send in, they will be more than willing to help. We noticed that we did not get many men to submit photos so using the survey we were able to get answers from both males and females. With the results we got from the survey, our project was nearly complete.  All that was left was our visual piece of our project. We needed to create a way to present our data that we had collected, along with the photo submissions that we had received.

After we had organized all of our data that we had gathered, we decided that we were going to present our data with the top five most popular answers from the survey. The top five answers were, socializing, working out, listening to music, playing video games and being with animals. We included an “other” section because we did not want to throw away that data and not include it in our study. We decided to create a pie chart because we decided that being able to see the data in the form of percentages would make it the easiest to understand.  On one poster board we had our pie chart, along with our persuasion, process, product, and purpose of our project. On the other we had all created a collage of all 20 photo submission we had received throughout our project.

During this project I used a few different writing skills. First, I used my ability to write structured and organized paragraphs when doing the write up for this project. I also used the tips and comments I received from the first peer review session we had with Dr. Hunter. I applied those suggestions in these new paragraphs I was writing and it ended up helping me create much more detailed and precise paragraphs. The other writing skill I used in this project was revision. I was able to go over the paragraphs a few times in order to make sure they made perfect sense. I fixed some sentence structuring, simple grammatical errors and even deleted some sentences that were not needed.

Overall I would conclude that our Invention Mob project was very successful. We definitely had some difficult times, but we can only learn from the mistakes we made and use them to benefit us in the future.  A main reason for our success I believe was because we had 4 members in our group. Not only was the work split up evenly among us members, but each member brought something different to the group. In the beginning, we said that the reason we were going to pursue this goal was because we knew that it was achievable with some hard work. Personally, I thought our project was very enjoyable because we were able to interact with many different students of all grades. Not only were we able to provide others with positive ways of de-stressing, I learned some new methods that I am going to try the next time I am having a bad day.

There were several components that helped us accomplish our goal of finding out how students de-stress. We had our English teacher Dr. Hunter, who provided us with constructive feedback that not only helped us move forward but also allowed us to expand ourselves and create our owns ways of completing this assignment. We also had Facebook which helped us expand our project and get the contributions of people that we did not personally know. Our classmates in our English 101 class also provided us with constructive feedback along with new ideas that they suggest we try which ended up benefitting us in the end. We would not have been able to complete our project if it was not for the students that were willing to participate in our survey, bringing me to my last component that helped us achieve our goal, our survey. The survey provided us with every piece of information that we needed to complete this project.

Research Essay Draft 3

About 30 billion packs of cigarettes are sold annually. Today, people today will tell you that a way that they relieve stress or a way to cool down from a long day is to smoke a cigarette. Smoking a cigarette gives people the satisfaction of de-stressing after a long day. Being able to go outside, sit down and have a cigarette makes them feel better. Some could even say just the motion of bringing the cigarette up to your mouth, inhaling, and then exhaling the smoke gives them the satisfaction they crave. But you only need to smoke one cigarette to get addicted to them. You could realize how much you enjoy the sensation and keep going back and smoking until it is too late. Quitting smoking is one of the hardest things to do because Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances there is. People do not realize how terrible smoking can be for their bodies. They would rather have the sensation of Nicotine than a healthy body, lungs and suitable area around them.

            Smoking is not only harmful to the smoker but it is harmful to the people around who are breathing the smoke in. Second hand smoke it just as harmful as smoking a cigarette. Cigarette smoke is the leading cause of lung cancer, which can end in death. The question is if it is the leading cause of death and lung cancer globally, then why do we continue to do it? An estimated 443,000 people die from smoking or inhaling cigarette smoke.  Not only does it do damage to everyone around you, it is a terrible smell to be around. Most people do not want to smell like that or be around that smell. In fact, a lot of bars and public places around the country are banning the use of cigarettes from their establishments because they see how much business it causes them to lose.

            I cannot speak from personal experience about how it is to quit smoking, but I can speak from very personal friends of mine who have gone through it. It all happened perfectly actually. When we were assigned this essay I had two friends of mine who were going to quit smoking within the week. Carley was going to just quit “cold turkey” as some would say, but Shawn eased himself into it. Both of them will tell you that it was the hardest habit to quit. They agreed on a day where they were no longer going to smoke anymore cigarettes. If they had any leftover, they needed to get rid of them rest of them so they would have no temptations whatsoever. A week before they quit, Carley was smoking as much as she possibly could because she knew she was not going to be able to smoke in just a few days. She knew she was going to miss the sensation of smoking, so she continued to smoke as much as she could before she had to stop. But Shawn only smoked about one or two a day up until the last and final day they were allowed to smoke. So cutting down for him was a lot easier because he wasn’t as addicted to the Nicotine. When the day came for the two of them to quit, Carley was having a much more difficult time with quitting than Shawn was. Although neither of them have given in to their cravings at all, if you were to ask them about it, they will tell you that it may be one of the hardest things that they have ever done. 

            When I asked Carley why she began smoking in the first place, she said it was because her parents did. So since she was always around it, it just became a habit for her to be inhaling the smoke. So when she finally took her first “drag” of a cigarette it almost did not affect her at all, because she was so used to being around the atmosphere of a smoker. When I asked Shawn why he first began smoking he said it was because he started working at such a young and he was around it often. He also used it as a way to de-stress because of his busy work environment. Since he was not as used to it, his first “drag” was harsher than Carley’s.

As I said before, smoking is used as a form of relaxation. With the way the economy is right now, jobs are getting harder to find, so a college degree is something that you need to have these days to be able to get a decent job. With that in mind, going through about 4 years of college can be very stressful for some students. As a form of relaxation after a long day some students resort to smoking. What they should do instead is a find another way of calming down and relaxing. Some examples are, taking a nap, going to work out, listening to music, anything that is not doing harm to their body.

“It’ll make you cool.” “Everyone is doing it!” “It’s not that big of a deal.” Its phrases like these that cause younger people to start smoking cigarettes in the first place. It can be used as a form of relaxation for some, but for most it is used as a social stigma. Once you start smoking, it is hard to quit. It only takes one cigarette to get addicted.

            Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances there is. It causes more damage to your body than just in your lungs, although the lungs are where the most damage is done. It also does damage to your mouth, causing you to have a dry mouth, teeth yellowing and your respiratory system to break down. Nicotine also affects your brain. It affects your sleep schedule by causing disturbances and abnormal dreams. It also causes you to have dizziness, lightheadedness and makes you much more irritable. It also does a lot of damage to your heart. It can increase or decrease heart rate as well as give you high blood pressure. It also can cause you to have joint problems very early in life.

            Smoking is one of the worst habits that you can pick up as an individual. It is also the hardest habit to quit. I do personally believe that it can be used as a relaxer or a stress reducer, but there are so many other ways that you can handle those situations without putting your body in a bad place. Some examples could napping, listen to music, be with friends, be with pets, get pampered, or maybe play video games, do some crafts, etc. There are so many different way of de-stressing do besides smoking. Once you start, it will be very difficult to quit. It also creates second hand smoke which is just as harmful to others. No one wants to smell the cigarette smoke as they are walking around. In Fact, all many and most bars and other public places have made smoking inside their establishment against their rules because of how much business they lose because of it. It not only ruins furniture but leaves behind a smell that is very difficult to get rid of.

Smoking is the leading cause of death globally to this day. We as a nation have done a lot in trying to prevent people from smoking in public or even in the comfort of their homes. The two biggest attempts have been, making it illegal in a bar or public places, along with the prices of cigarettes going up tremendously in the past few years. We will never be able to make people stop smoking cigarettes completely, it’s just impossible. Being that is it legal, people are going to continue to do it, even if they know what it is doing to their bodies. All we can do is educate them on what it is doing to their bodies and present different ideas and methods that they can use to relieve their stress so they might quit smoking all together.

The transition from high school to college can be a very stressful time for any college student. Being stressed often causes us to make decisions that we would not normally make. Sometimes we act on impulse and don’t realize the decision we have made until after it’s too late. Dealing with stress or trying to find a way to handle the stress, could add even more stress that that poor student so they could resort to making some very poor decisions. They are going to go for what they believe will calm the down the most and have the biggest effect on them. Many students would resort to smoking as a stress reducer in hard times. Nicotine is one of the worst substances you can put in your body because it is one of the most addictive substances there is. Students need to realize that there are plenty of other methods that can be done that are more responsible choice for dealing with stress.

Our overall goal for this assignment was to inform students the different ways that you can de-stress. We also were wanted to find out how our fellow peers and some random students de-stressed. Using these results, we were able to come to a conclusion that not as many students resorted to smoking as we initially thought.

Since it is very likely that the majority of the WSU campus has a Facebook that is where we started when we were trying to get random submissions from students. We created a Facebook group about our project and we all added as many people as we could. We put up an explanation on why we had created the page and gave them an email address they could send the picture of them doing their method of de-stressing if they did not want to post the picture publicly. Our method of trying to collect information was not as effective as we thought it would be. We thought that more people would be willing to send in a picture because they were able to choose it we were not going to put them on the spot and take a photo of them.

Surprisingly that technological choice was not in our best interest. To make it more effective, we could have made the group sooner and posted some existing pictures in the group so people did not feel as though they were going to be the only one submitting a photo. Instead of having our Facebook page for gathering information we decided that we were going to create a survey asking, how do you de-stress? The answer options were going to be the submissions that we had already received earlier. We created a small survey and one of our group members took it to her criminal justice class that had well over 100 students in attendance. With all the results we gathered with just that little survey, our project was nearly complete. We just needed to write up and create the visual describing all the information and conclusions that we had come to.

The reason we chose this goal and project to pursue was mainly because it was the one project we all agreed on and or had some piece of our original ideas that we wanted to be a part of in it. We took all three of our ideas and found a way to merge them into one big idea that ended up being very successful. We chose a goal that we knew we would be able to achieve with some hard work but we also knew that it was not impossible. After we started discussing our initial idea more and more we began to create a vision in our heads of what we wanted our final project to look like. We first wanted to create a video power point and have the top 5 ways to de-stress be the only pictures in it, but we decided that we wanted to include more of the picture submissions that we received because we got about 20 submissions all together. We ended up creating two different poster boards. One had our data and pie chart that showed the biggest results that we received through the survey and on the other we made a collage of all the photo submissions that we had received.

As described earlier, our project included many random students that helped us reach our overall goal of getting as many random submissions as possible. This was all thanks to our idea of creating a survey. Our project also required friends of ours, and friends of our friends to send in photos as their submissions of them performing their method of de-stressing. This was not as successful as we thought it would be. We believe it was because people were not comfortable posting their picture of a Facebook page where a bunch of people they did not know where a part of, which is why we added an email to the page that you could send your photos in anonymously. This ended up somewhat working, we got only about 5 submissions this way so we mainly had to depend on our friends who would let us take pictures of them or send pictures of them doing their de-stressor action.

My thinking about writing has not really changed over the process of this assignment. We did not do a whole lot of writing when it came to the type of project we were pursuing.  I know this project will benefit me in the future because it taught me that creating an action plan would have made this project so much easier. It would make everything so much easier if I was able to physically see and plan out each and every step and task that needed to be done and when they needed to be done by. But an action plan does not account for the big changes we were forced to make. No plan in our entire project was set in stone. We made changes and modifications every day and everything turned out to work out perfectly.