Adaptation is how we subsist...

             Since the beginning of life, human beings have always been able to adapt. It is a kind of natural behavior in order to survive. Now days, it is easier for young adults to adapt to different environments than adults, because the world that we live in today demands it. Every time we have to change jobs or schools we are required to adapt in order to succeed in the new environment. Throughout history humans adapted to new kinds of food and weather, but now it is much more complicated than that. Besides adapting to food and weather, you also have to adapt to the people and culture that live in the environment, so that you can be able to survive in all aspects of human needs.

            At the micro-level view, there is a model that explains how humans adapt to new environments. This model is called the U-curve model. This model describes that there are three steps that humans do in order to adapt to new environments. First, we tend to go through the stage of anticipation, which is when we start to discover exciting things about the host’s culture. Personally, I think that everyone that has had the experience to move from one country to another has been excited when you first encounter the new culture. The second step would be culture shock. After experiencing all the excitement of the new things that you are learning, then you start to realize that you are totally unfamiliar with the environment and that is when you have a culture shock. For some people it is really hard to overcome the fact that they feel uncomfortable in the new environment and they tend to give up by frustrating and blocking any kind of help. For others, it is hard at first until they realize that they have to adjust to the new culture in order to survive or feel good about where they live. This final step is called adjustment; it is when we negotiate the vernal and nonverbal codes, values and norms of the new culture.

            As I mentioned before, young adults tend to adapt faster than adults. I believe that this happens because we were born into a world where adaptation it’s an important factor of subsistence. You can see the differences between kids and adults, on how much faster kids tend to adapt. I think this happens just because adults have lived with their culture for a long time and it is hard for them to let go or to feel that the new culture that they are experiencing is ok. As humans, I think that we all go through the same steps in order to adapt to new environments, it could be new countries, jobs or schools. As we may know, it is important to be able to adapt to new surroundings, because if we don’t we are not going to be able to be reach that happiness that we need in order to survive in any given situation.

What is Cultural Space?

         Every society has cultural spaces. Today, during class we discussed how cultural space influences on our verbal and nonverbal communication practices. In order to understand cultural space, we have to examine everything that surround us; from the architecture of buildings to the language used in a specific environment. Aspects such as, languages, accents, slang, dresses, artifacts, and architectural designs are factors that create cultural space. Collective and individual identities can also be influenced by cultural spaces. Bearing this point, living in a specific area may influence how other people perceive you as an individual or as a group.

            As we were discussing in class, the cultural space might change from culture to culture. For example, in Panama we tend to stereotype people just because of where they live. I can say that maybe happens because it also establishes what is your socioeconomic status in the society. Some of the students from Louisville were saying that in the US is kind of different. They said that they actually had places were the cultural space would be identify people from one culture. For example, if you live in the Vietnamese neighborhood, it is most likely you are Vietnamese.

Another interesting point that caught my attention was when we talked about how we communicate in different cultural spaces. Like the professor pointed out, if you are in the library you would not behave in the same way as you were in a club. There are different types of behaviors, such as whispering and yelling that will influence your cultural space.

As we may know, there are cultural space differences between the US and Panama. One of the most outstanding differences is how we differentiate on greeting people. Panamanians tend to give kissed and hugs when greeting somebody, even if you don’t know the person; that it’s just part of our culture. On the other hand, Americans prefer to only shake hands or wave from a distance, in other words they like their personal space to be respected. The behaviors and patterns of interaction are an important role in cultural space, because without them then it would be hard to perceive how people are.

When talking about displaced cultures, it was interesting to hear how the American students related with this word right away. They told us that even though they are aware that we have a different culture, like any other foreigner they brought their culture with them. Everything they do, they do it like back at home. The same thing happened to me when I went last semester to Louisville, so I totally understand them.

To be honest, before this class I’ve never think about cultural space. Having the opportunity to discuss this topic with people from different backgrounds was very interesting, because we learned how cultural spaces could differ from culture to culture. If you were in the same position as I was, I would really encourage you to reflect more on your surroundings, and understand the different cultural spaces you face daily. 

Gender Differentiation in Society...

            Historically, men have always been the breadwinners and the head in society, and women would usually depend on men. Now days, women are starting to take a more active role in their careers and are trying to gain the same amount of power as men have in society.  In recent years, this idea that men have more power in society than women has started to change due to all the new achievements that women have accomplished.  In today’s world, women are head of corporations, own their own businesses, and tend to be very active in their communities. Bearing that point, years back it was easy to say that men had the power in our society, but now that idea has started to shift in many cultures and women have started to gain more respect and recognition in today’s society.

            In my discussion with the North American students, it was clear that women in the U.S. are starting to gain the same amount of power like men in society. Now days, women do not rely on men, in order to maintain a family. Also, in our discussion it was interesting to hear that women not only the U.S., but also in other cultures are going in the same direction. I learned that besides the power differentiation between genders, there are other factors that also impact society. Gender differentiation appears early in life. An easy example would be dressing girls in pink and boys in blue. Usually, women are taught to be nice and gentle, while men are taught to be tough and strong. As we grow up, these differences get deeper and deeper; girls tend to gain popular attention by their attractiveness and boys gain popular attention by showing leadership and endurance. One of the main differences between men and women is how they interact with each other. Women, because of their nurturing skills tend to be gentler, caring and like proximity when talking to others. Because of that, women are not seen as strong as men. Men, on the other hand, like to have their personal space when talking to others and tend to speak firmly giving us that feeling of confidence. Factors such as physical space, eye patterns, gestures, clothing style and hairstyles are all the aspects that differentiate women from men in various cultures.

Men and women behave differently, because society demands it. As we discussed in class, a culture is composed of many sub-cultures and I think that gender is one of them. As the book points out, gender differentiation is a vital part of any social group’s structure of domination and subordination and division of labor in the family. That is one of the main reasons why I want to encourage everybody to try to understand the role of gender differentiation in a society, because if we are able to understand that it would be easier for us to understand the culture itself. 

Interactions between different cultures...

            People interact with each other on a daily basis. To interact with people you should have reciprocal actions with each other, which will also make an influence on yourself.  Before people became dependent on technology as a communication source, proximity was an important factor in order to interact. Now days, due to globalization people can interact with others who are overseas without having to meet face to face. Advances in communication have made interaction and interrelationships among people around the world more important. Sometimes people don’t realize how important interaction could be when it comes to intercultural communication. The world, in which we live today, wouldn’t be the same if people didn’t interact with each other. It is important that people experience intercultural interactions, because due to globalization people from different cultures have to share physical space everyday and we have to learn how to understand each other by finding common factors in order not to have a cultural-clash.

            Today, we had the opportunity to interact with students from North America. At first, it was kind of difficult because of our cultural differences, especially when they entered and heard us speaking Spanish. I could see that language was a barrier for them in order to interact with us, but when the professor asked us to pair up with them they noticed that it wasn’t that hard at all because we knew English as well. It was kind of interesting, because it started with a lot of questions that had to do with entertainment, college, and life in general. We got to discuss what do we like and don’t like about both countries.  We also exchanged information about our experiences when treating people from other cultures. I think that we had a lot of fun while we got to know each other better, because we got to hear great stories about themselves and more importantly we got to hear everyone’s standpoint about interesting topics.

            I believe that this was a perfect and fun way to think about how people of different cultures get to interact with each other. It was very interesting how by just asking and answering questions we got to learn so much from one another. Even though, we have different backgrounds we got to learn that we still have some things in common in order to not have a cultural-clash.  Overall, I think that it was easy for us to talk about general things; maybe in deeper conversations it wouldn’t be as easy because everyone has their personal standpoint, but overall it was really pleasant.

Communications and Technology Class... I Loved it!

            Now days, young people spend more time on their laptops, iPods or smartphones more than they spend time talking to people. This reminds me of the displacement theory, which explains that people are more into their devices than into spending time with people. The displacement theory is more prominent on young adults than elderly people. For young adults, it would be much harder to unplug from all those devices because it has been part of our daily lives. We usually need those to communicate to people or to do most of the tasks that we do in a day. Talking on my behalf, I can say that I wouldn’t be able to unplug from the communications technology world, just because I’ve been growing up with it all my life and I think that it would be hard for me to not have it around me anymore.

            During this semester I got to learn a lot of things related to communications and technologies. It was interesting to learn how technology is so important to the communications world. How throughout the years communications has embraced technology and how now days it would be a disaster if we didn’t have them or it would be pretty hard not to have it. I think that today, people are to attached to their devices. Now, we use them to do almost everything and it will be hard to unplug from something that you use all day long either to communicate or do tasks such as: editing pictures, make PowerPoint presentations, and so on. When we discussing the displacement theory in class, it was interesting to hear that most of us tend to spend more time on our devices than actually talking to people face to face.

            An issue that I found pretty interesting was the privacy issue when we use the Internet. I didn’t know that there was a company that stored all of our personal information and sells it to different institutions. Most of us didn’t even know that they were able to sell your personal information from if you are single to how much you earn in a year. When we discussed this in class I got really scared, because I usually buy my stuff in the Internet and now I am concerned that people will have access to my personal information when I don’t want them to. The worst thing is that I cannot even say anything; they just take my information and sell it. Also, we got to discuss about cyber-attacks, people who tend to do this are people involved in espionage. We need to be very careful about cyber-attacks because just recently there was a cyber attack in Iran’s nuclear system and if they had been successful a lot of people would have died.

            To finalize, I think that it would be impossible for me to unplug from my technological devices, because I use them daily and without them I would go crazy. Now days, almost everything is done by electronic devices and to not have that then we wouldn’t be able to do tasks faster or with a better resolution. Also, people use these devices to entertain themselves, so we also use it to escape from all the stress that we have sometimes. Also, I talked about some things that we discussed in class that I didn’t know before like privacy issues when it comes to the Internet. We need to be more aware of what is happening when you click agree to those terms and conditions, because that is when you are giving up your information without noticing. Overall, I really liked this class because it taught a lot of things that I didn’t know before and since I am a technology freak I always wanted to know how communications and technology worked together. 

The art of blogging...

            Blogging is a way to express yourself in your own unique way. To be honest, I wasn’t a fan of blogs before because they seem kind of boring to me. After having the opportunity to write what I thought about specific topics and how I felt about them, I understood how good it feels to be heard by other people and to actually feel that your opinion matters to them. Now, blogging to me is like a way to tell the world how you feel without having to worry to face other people. I also think that blogging has to be supervised in order for people to be respectful with each other because if not then people would start to be afraid to post any of their thoughts or feelings.

            Blogging has a big impact in our society, because people now are able to express themselves through this blogs and give their opinion about different social issues. In this way, everyone could understand and see other’s opinions and have a different perspective about things. I believe that blogging should be incorporated in different classes, because everyone has a different perspective about a topic and it would be interesting to learn from other people.

            I believe that having the power to publish is more good than bad. Sometimes people don’t realize how having the power to publish is a privilege. Having this kind of power is something amazing, because people from all around the world are able to read what you think about something and either agree or disagree with you. At the same time they can give you feedback and you get to learn what other people think about the same subject. I don’t think that blogging could cause that much trouble, only that people start being mean to each other leading to a fight of bad words and ending in a bad situation with each other.

            To finalize, I believe that blogging is a huge help when it comes to people that are shy and don’t like to speak up their ideas or thoughts. Also, it becomes really handy for people like me that like to write a lot. Blogging gives you the opportunity to express your ideas, thoughts or even lets you say how you feel about something, and that’s an opportunity that everybody should have. Before I joined this class, I didn’t appreciate the art of blogging but know that I’ve had the opportunity to do it I think it is amazing and that everyone should try it.

            

Privacy Issues..

            Privacy issues have become a hot topic of conversation these past years. Since companies started to track people’s web browsers in order to deliver specific ads to people’s computers, our daily moves and even personal information is no longer private.  We don’t realize that our privacy is not that private anymore, and that some of our personal information is being released to companies and other institutions without our consent. We need to start to worry about how our information is given away to everyone, because if we don’t then issues like identity theft, financial theft, and so much other things that we don’t realize might affect our lives.

            To be honest I was pretty naïve about my privacy settings on Facebook, or even in my smartphone. When we started to discuss in class how our private information is given away to companies or to other institutions and that they could do whatever they wanted with that information, I got really worried. Recently, I changed all of my privacy settings on every social media page where I have an account, because I didn’t know how bad the situation was. Like a week after I did all the changes, my mom called me to tell me about a boy who was living in the US and has a trip planned to go visit his cousin in Colombia. Since he could reach his cousin, he decided to post his flight schedule on Facebook so his cousin could know when he arrived. What he didn’t know was that a gang in Colombia was already tracking his cousin in Colombia, so when he arrived to Bogota the gang managed to kidnap him. This happened last week, and this boy is still missing. This is why I got so paranoid, and I changed all of my privacy settings to maximum security they could offer.

            Another thing that we need to think about is how our bank accounts, credit cards accounts are being stored every time we make a purchase on the Internet. This kind of information could get in the wrong hands and someone can actually steal all of your money.

            To finalize, we really need to be concerned about all of these privacy issues, because if we keep letting them use our personal information in whatever way they want to use it. I recommend everyone to be more aware of your social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. we all have to work together in order to stop this, so if we all make an effort on being aware what is really happening, then they will notice and they will stop doing it.