Connections with Advertisement

This generation has always been the society of the future.  That is why we live in a society that is fully based off of technology.  Advertising companies opportunities to get us hooked onto their product from the second we wake up and check our cell phones, to the television, to the radio in our car, etc. They use emotions to help captivate our attention and getting a sense of who we are and what interests us.  In Making Connections, Anthony J. Green introduces, "The ability to form and retain connections gives us not just a record of events but also the foundations of comprehension." (26)  This means that the memories we have previously helps effect the memories we will have in the future.  Advertising companies will use knowledge of bad memories such as an attractive male turning down a girl with acne into a ProActive commercial to make men/women across the world "beautiful."  I was taught that beauty is in the eye of the beholder so I am fortunate enough to no buy products that are expensive and only have a small chance of working.  If a product is as great as the company is making it seem, they shouldn't have to connect so much emotion to the product and they should plainly state what the product is and what it does.  We consume advertisements everyday whether we want to or not.  It's the willpower that we as a society need to not give into advertisement companies.

Mindfulness

I believe that everyone, big or small, is mindful of their surroundings.  We practice being mindful by treating others with respect because we want to be treated the same way.  "Me, Myself and I," opens our eyes to help us understand that our culture discourages mindfulness.  We become engaged in thinking that if people don't like us then we will not be satisfied with ourselves.  This is only true if you are not happy with yourself.  I believe that we should view others with an open mind and not be judgmental.  If we view everyone with an open mind and an equal opportunity we will achieve the goal of truly finding ourselves.

Blog #1

The postmodern world, according to Anderson, is a socially constructed world in which we can still have our own belief systems.  "In premodern societies, social constructions of reality took form slowly and invisibly, and the symbolic universes that people wove about themselves seemed to be permanent fixtures of life.  The duty of persons in authority was to maintain the official worldview; that of everybody else, to conform to it." (page 7, FORCED TO BE FREE)  Anderson explains that in premodern societies, beliefs were very strict.  It almost seemed that the concept of premodern society was that not everyone can have the "right" answer.  People's ideas were slowly becoming invisible due to the fact that they were set to follow someone else's beliefs.  Now a day we have technology such as facebook, twitter, tumblr, and other blogging sites that allow you to share your own ideas or "beliefs" without anyone telling you that you can't believe in a certain thing.  Having the technology to share our freedom of speech helps you expand and grow in life.  Back in the old days not being able to rant about important things really blocked the world from opening up and accepting change.