Category Archives: ENG 1101

The app experience

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve never tried to track my happiness until this assignment and its been rather strange. its way of actually training your mind to “happy”. They help you to realize your emotion in hopes to make a shift in things.. All of the technology can be helpful in noticing the emotion, but there isn’t any help in changing the situation. so that emotion would only be temporary. while being connected to the digital universe, we disconnect from the world around us. it is important how our emotion line up with our energy. I don’t think that these apps are for me at all. when I’m mad; I’m not going to go to the app and put in that I’m mad; I’ll be too mad to report it. In fact the apps might make me depressed, because it’ll actually be counting my happiness or reading me my reality.

All of this just shows the effect that technology has on us today. We go on social networks to track others activities. People we don’t even know. We find satisfaction in others depressing status on Facebook. and find envy in the person who just bought the new fab car or house or Instagram. These apps and social media networking just proves that others happiness have an effect on our own. and no, it cant be measured but it can be altered!

Happiness Apps

Posted on by
Reply

The happiness apps were quite interesting. I downloaded a few of them into my iPhone 4S. Some of the apps were hard to download but they all served the same purpose. They all tracked happiness and asked questions pertaining to well being. It also consisted of some personal questions about my life. The apps asked about anger, anxiety, depression, mood, sadness, happiness, irritation, confused, focused, dizzy, headaches, disorganized, impulsive and much much more.

The fact that they asked about all of those things means that those are key things important to happiness. The app T2 mood tracker in particular was very focused on the answers I gave them. It did not try to direct me to anything else besides myself. It was not like it had steps and procedures to follow to get to happiness. It was basically showing how self happiness is acquired through fulfilling ones needs.

Mappiness was an app I was very interested in, for a variety of reasons. It asked a lot of questions. It was a cool process because every question had a different direction to go into. For example, if yes or no was an answer, each answer would lead you to a different question. It is like choosing which path to take and the process it takes to get there.

However, I was unable to sign up for the app mappiness because when I got to the end it said there was an error with the system and I was unable to sign up for it at this time. I tried many times after to sign up and complete the process but it still hasn’t worked. I enjoyed the process but I believe the only part I am missing is my results.

The apps showed me of how much of a somewhat unhappy person I am. All of those apps just show how technology is getting advanced. Technology connects to everyday life and self happiness.

Social media and social networking has really increased drastically over the last few years. Happiness has been a main focus of the technological era. These apps that has been created shows great purpose and how important self happiness is to an individuals well being. Technological devices and tools have been used in various ways with different techniques.

The apps has shown me how to be happy for myself. It updates you every hour of every day. Literally. You can adjust these things in setting though. That is no problem but if you want it to work to its best, it is highly likely that you should leave all of the settings on because the more active you are with the app, the better the results.

In conclusion, all of the apps are beneficial to self happiness to each and every individual. To be happy, you must have a process and procedure to follow. Without those set of instructions, you will not be completely happy in life. All of the apps we learned about are key items in self happiness that can and will help if they are followed properly.

My Happy Place

Posted on by
Reply

Although it may sound boring my happy place is definitely my room. I tried to think of different places I have visited recently and in my past and although I have been to some interesting places in New York City, my room is my happiest. It’s the only place I have my own space and I can do whatever I want. I like having my own space and a place to think or just relax and my room is the perfect place for me to do that. Of course sometimes I want to get out and do things but I never get tired of coming home to my room! I have everything I could ever need to survive in there! I can watch movies, blast my music, read, eat etc.

When I was younger I always had to share rooms with my sister. We had bunk beds then we both had our individual beds but we were still in the same room. We don’t have a big age difference but we still both needed our space. Especially since at the time we were sharing we were at that stage where we hated each other. We spent so much time together it was unbearable! (only kidding) But now that we each have our own space to do what we want and breathe, we are really close. How ironic. I think this is another thing that contributes to me loving my room so much.

What makes being in my room enjoyable besides what I already stated is when my friends or cousins come over. Although they touch all my stuff, we always have fun whether it’s watching movies or just talking about stuff that’s bothering us or currently going on with us. We always find something to do when they come over.

I get tired of things easily so I change my room around a lot. My dad has painted my room at least 3 times in the past like 2 years. I always move my bed and dressers around simply because since I spend so much of my time in here whether it’s doing work or hanging out, i’m gonna get tired of seeing it the same exact way. I actually enjoy changing my room around because I change everything from sheets to the stuff I have on my walls or around my room. Everything is up to me and how I decide I want it to look which is cool. The only thing I don’t change in my room is it’s scent. Whether it’s fall or not my favorite scent is apply cinnamon. Although it’s usually thought of as a fall aroma, I have it in my room year around whether it’s spray or candles.

My room is just me. Everything about it is me as a person and who I am. I think it describes me well. It may sound weird or dramatic but it is. As much time as I spend in here I would only imagine it should. Although there are some beautiful historical places in NYC, this is why my room is my favorite.

The Boardwalk of Coney Island

Posted on by
Reply

9454349946_38e3929dbd_z

 

It’s so difficult as a New Yorker to pick a favorite place in New York City. It is much easier for a tourist to pick one. Places in New York seems really normal to me now since I have been here since the day I was born. If I was a tourist I could just name Time Square or any other tourist hotspots. However, I am not a tourist and I don’t want to write about a place everyone knows. I finally come across my childhood life while picking a place as my favorite. The Coney Island Boardwalk is my favorite place to be when I was a child and even now.

The local food is over price, but I still enjoy it. The boardwalk is filled with different small restaurant with old wooden tables for us to sit and eat. I especially enjoy the clam bar where I can see them actually open the shell. I enjoy eating calms while watching the scene of the beach. My favorite place for clams when I’m at the boardwalk is Paul’s Daughter. I love it cause that place have been around since I was a kid and the boss is still the same. He still sit behind the stand and greet the customers every time I go there. They also have a lot more food than just the great raw calms. They got this amazing funnel cake and other coney island signatures like hot dogs I remember a time when I was hanging out with my friends at the Coney Island broad walk, we went to this ice cream shop and we all got different types of ice cream. I then went to another shop and got cheese fries. I love the food.

The boardwalk of Coney Island had been around for many years and even before I was born. I enjoy the old look. It feels like there is history and not just something that is made two years ago. sometimes I wonder how is it like if it is the 1900 broadway looks like compare to the 2014 one. I hope to see the same and also expect the differences.

The summer is filled with fireworks. During the summer. Every Friday, there is fireworks for like 15 minutes. I can just stand on the Coney Island boardwalk and expect a wonderful visual display of colors shooting up the sky.

Walking on the boardwalk, you can also spot a lot of entertainment. People sing and people dancing. It is really festival everyday at the broad walk.

During the winter time, it might not be the best time to be, but I went and I found how delighted it can be when it just a few people. It cold but yet really calming listening to the ocean waves.

In conclusion, the boardwalk of Coney Island has history, food, festivals and much more. It’s a place to be when it hot, it’s a place to be when you want to eat, and a place to hang out with friends and family.

My Favorite Place in NYC

Posted on by
Reply

MY FAVORITE PLACE IN NEW YORK CITY

 

It is very difficult to pick simply one place to be called my “favorite” place in New York City. Many people may pick a fancy place, an exotic place, park, busy areas but I would not say that any of those places are my favorite place. To say that something is my favorite place is very significant. It is a very important title to give to one specific thing. Anyhow, my favorite place is my friends house.

I chose my friends house as my favorite place for a variety of reasons. I mainly enjoy being there because it is always a full house. There is no boredom over there.

I am an only child living with just my mother. We do not live with any family members or even have any pets living with us. To get out and go to a full house with a pet it a complete 180 degree turn from my original lifestyle. It is a great escape from a tedious household. However, it is a huge benefit because when I get tired of the full house concept, I can always go home.

My friends house is a great place to be. If I want to be social or try to work on anything, someone is always there to help or advise me. There is a variety of things everyone can put in. It is a wide range of opinions which can be very helpful. It has a little of everything simple yet enjoyable. The little things in life makes me happy.

There are so many things to do over there at my friends house. Even though simply hanging out with one friend in the house all day may sound boring or to “be bored together” to me, it is not. It is all of the little moments that takes place.

The little moments and memories shared are the most amazing happiest feelings in the world. To know that you can escape and get away to a completely different environment and always go back to your original environment is to me, the happiest place in the world.

It is somewhat difficult to constantly adapt to that kind of environment when compared to the type of environment I was brought up in. To constantly shift is not difficult after a period of time after getting used to it.

Even though I ultimately prefer my peace and quiet environment. I do enjoy all of the moments shared. I enjoy all of the memories created that will last forever. All of those moments created over a long period of time at my friends house will always make me happy when I look back at it. It is truly my favorite place away from home in New York City.

Favorite Place in NYC

Class note: Tuesday October 30th 2014

Posted on by
2

On Tuesday October 30th, 2014, our English class had been quite a rapid session due to hectic timing issues and a massive load of information needed to be giving out from our professor. After a quick attendance, we determined who would be do class notes for the future class meets. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Tuesday Nov. 4th: DulceThursday Nov 6th: Library session (Meet in the front of the library) : Carina

Tuesday Nov 11th: Peer review for essay two

Thursday Nov. 13th: Tinika

Tuesday Nov 18th: Indira

Thursday Nov 20th: Natasha

Tuesday Nov. 25th: Jacob

Thursday 27th: Thanksgiving (No class meet: YESSSS)

Tuesday Dec 2nd (Research paper daft one is due) : Arlene

Thursday Dec 4th: Mirna

Tuesday Dec. 9th: (Revision for Research paper) (Sorry I don’t remember who will be taking class note for this date)

Thursday: Dec. 11th: Dominique

 

 

To make class more productive and less chaotic, professor mention some simple rules to follow.

1) Raise you hands before we ask a question

2) Maintain respect for both the professor and your peers when having an open discussion.

The focus of today class: 

⇒ The Problem with Positive Thinking 

⇒Continuing the decision on “The Secret”the-happiness-project

⇒ Digital happiness and related topics 

Professor Beli shared a book to look into:

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

Problem with Positive Thinking Open Discussion:

The class mention many ideas involving the article.

“Problems can come out of positive thinking.” (referring to Pg 2 Ph 3)

“You are not as productive as you should be.” (referring to Pg 2 Ph3)

“Positive thinking is pleasurable but doesn’t mean it’s good for us.” (Pg 3 Ph 2)

“Need realism” (Pg 2 Ph 3 to Pg 3 Ph 6)

This article is like “Why Conservatives Are happier Than Liberals“by Arthur C.Brooks because it both gives a shocking conclusion to what we thought was truth but it really isn’t.

Reasonable wish vs. Fantasies

Passing a class (R)

Getting a job (R)

losing a few pounds (R)

Obtaining a degree without going to college (F)

World domination (F)

Open decision on “The Secret” (Pt: 2): 

Biography: Story of someone’s life

Root word: Aphy : write  Bio: life

The back of the book “The Secret” also contain short biography of the people in the book not just the author.

Digital Happiness Discussion 

In a view of the homework due today, we were supposed to browse though the websites and the apps and blog about them.

Happier: Tracks one happiness and provide courses to boost one’s area in needed; including sleep, self confidences, etc.

We talked a little about how positive psychology from the 1999 by Martin Seligman have impacted today’s world in many different environment.

Hedonmeter: Provide us with a graph of when do tweeters are usually are happy and it has been found that during holidays, there are usually more happy tweets.

Other importants discussions: 

Sentiment analysais: Opinion mining

example: product of Amazon,

Companies looking for overall reviews

Homework: 

Please check Schedule for more detailed information

Tuesday: Two different blogs are due: Favorite place in NYC and Response to apps

Thursday: Essay two draft is due.

(Please look in schedule for a better understanding.)

Things to think about: 

What interest you for research paper?

Does ‘science-based” works?

Think about questions related to measurement of happiness, values, how is happiness defined?

Tips before class meet on Tuesday: 

We must be well-inform and well-prepare for this class meet. (We should be prepare every class meet)

Play around with the website for more understanding or even download the app if you could to have a fuller understanding what it is.

Print out anything that is needed to be printed out.

There will or will not be a quiz. When Professor Beli said this, she actually means there will be one.

 

Have a Happy Halloween. Ok let me get started with my blog!

120411_Thats_All_Folks_t618-2

Screens between emotions.

Posted on by
Reply

In modern days technology is being used for everything, even to promote happiness. Two of the websites explain that we explored were “happier” and “happify”. These websites explain ways to be happy and they give activities online that will supposedly boost your level of positivity. They make you think about the good things in your life and be grateful for them. Also, “hedonometer” is another website where a timeline of twitter shows what trends have been the happiest for people over the past years. Moreover, another website that we looked into was “ the world-well being project” which is about trying to look for ways of measuring psychological and health well-being through the usage of language in social media.

It is very creative and advanced what these types of websites are being used for. Which is providing proper with different types of websites are being used for. Which is providing people with different types of activities that may or may not improve their emotional well-being. However, I personally believe that technology is not enough for a person to express their feelings. A person needs to talk out their emotions with someone else. Or do something that involves physical and mental effort. These positive efforts will eventually provide the individuals with sufficient skills to deal with their negative emotions.

People are social animals. They need to interact with each other in order to survive in this life. Technology provides them with convenient communication, sure. Although, it does not provide individuals with effective communication. It is very different to have a conversation face to face, compared to having a conversation through a screen. A person can miss on interpreting in a right way the language of another individual. For example, having some eye contact would be more meaningful or just a small pat on the shoulder and so on. Also, I think some of these websites might be too positive up to the point where it seems a little unrealistic to be so positive when many factors in life are making people depressed. The only way that technology might be beneficial in my opinion is by convenience of finding data correlating to improvement of the wellbeing. It is much faster and more accessible for researchers of topics.

Tracking Happiness

Posted on by
Reply

The majority of people use technology at least once a day, making it easy to try to track happiness using technology. At first I didn’t think that happiness would be something that could be measured. How can it be measured if it’s a personal emotion it depends on how the person is feeling which is usually not the same all the time. All these websites talk about how they want to measure happiness by tracking what they do in their daily life. Different people have different ideas and approaches in how to measure a person’s well-being which will eventually lead to happiness.

In the first two websites they used an app named The H(app)athon App which is used to track a person’s values. They believe that the actions that are taken affect an individual’s happiness. When the app is downloaded they ask you to take a survey. The survey that is taken matches the individual with actives that they could do that will help boost up their happiness. The app also helps to see where an individual’s life is out of balance and then try to balance it out for it could benefit the well-being. In my opinion I think that that this app will help a couple of people but not everyone. It will help some people because some people may actually take it serious and follow what the app says to do which will make them feel like they are improving their well-being. It may not help others because not everyone will be consistent or truthful with the app. Also, not everyone is the same, what makes one person happy may not me the same for the other, it is not one size fits all.

The next two websites mention on how Santa Monica is trying to measure well-being and making it a city that is truly connected to its people. They believe that by reflecting how the community is back to the community, the community will realize and make it easier to improve its well-being. The Wellbeing project is researching all around the world to understand the strengths and challenges people face in their lives. Although, Santa Monica is beautiful, has nice weather, and feels like paradise, it is number two of the top ten most stressed out cities in America. It is in the top two because there is a lot of traffic and living there is too expensive. I think that by people taking action and by trying to improve wellbeing there is going to be a positive change. The more people work together on this project the more of an outcome there will be because that will mean that a lot of people are willing to work to improve their happiness. If everyone works together in Santa Monica and achieves their project on well-being it will have a great outcome in the whole world.

The last website talks about how happiness is influenced depending the geographical location that the person is currently in. For instance, the saddest part in New York City is Maspeth Park, Brooklyn because of its pollution and lack on sanitation. The happiest place in New York City is Times Square because it is a place where tourist go filled with excitement and joy feeling they have arrived to New York. This was all measured by looking at the tweets people have posted and analyzing their location at the moment. In my opinion that was a very smart way to track happiness. People usually tweet what they feel with no pressure or thought that they are being evaluated on how happy they are. Therefore, I feel like they will be much more truthful with their emotions. It is also a very smart way to track happiness because now people tweet more than ever. Technology has become a daily routine to mostly everyone. As technology continues to improve and advance there will be more accurate measurement on individual’s happiness and on what makes an individual truly happy.

In the app store: Happiness

Posted on by
Reply

In the tech world today, we can basically do anything. We have social networks. Just to name two we have Facebook and Twitter. We have apps on our phone. In fact more than one million of apps are being develop a day. This is why there isn’t no surprise, when happiness is also a purpose for an app. We have apps for everything now, for shopping, games, workouts, etc. So happiness got to be part of such a huge library of apps. However, are people just making money of it or just want society to be happy(?)

The app “Happier” is what the developers called a “course”. To me it’s a marketing skill. Since I happen to read how the course works, it’s seem kind of like youtube. It is just basically watching videos each day. The video often contains a lesson. However, to actually be in the “Course, one’s must pay $4.99. It’s a costly app, with such normal content to me. The app giving a free trail is just to lure us into to paying for it.

To actually gain more information, I downloaded the app to see what the fuss is all about. I just don’t see, but want to see how it actually works or how they claimed it works. After signing up, it tells me to pick an area of focus. I can see how people could actually like that because they want to focus on their own problems rather then focusing on a broader subject. I picked “mind” as my focus to see what happens.  The it gave me a list of courses. There are courses for meditation, stress, sleep, yoga, etc. It actually provides free courses. I picked the sleep Deep & Dream sweet course. It provides a seven day relaxing bedtime mediation to help my sleep. Each course has a host, and my course host gave me my intro lesson. After a few glimpse I went to my first lesson. i was led to watching my first video What a waste of my three minutes. It was boring to me making kind of unhappy. How ironic that I feel this way.  However the video did taught me something. If I want a great sleep, everyday before I sleep I should have a ritual. It could be anything. It could be drinking a cup of milk or water or turn off all electronics, etc. In another app called “Happify” it’s basically the same concept of “Happier”, but it does includes actitives and games that are “science-based happiness”. See what they did(?) To me it’s another marketing technique.

In the Hedonometer, it shows a graph of twitter in it’s happiness times. It has concluded the many tweeted happily during the holidays while the someone death decreased the happier tweets. Social network is like a primarily source track happiness even daily.

In conclusion, when it comes to tech, many people use the word happiness lure people into taking some cash out of their pockets. It’s just many want to be happy, stress-free, etc. People will actually willing to pay for this emotion. It also be tracked from social networks from all parts of the world. Happiness in some ways became the purpose of everything today.

Happiness and Technology

Posted on by
Reply

Before looking at these three websites based on happiness I’ve never realized before the role that technology plays in ones happiness. I do believe technology brings happiness to people, depending on how your using it. If your texting a friend, going on social media, taking pictures, using an app or playing a game, that can definitely increase ones happiness. After looking at these sites I honestly thinks it’s a good idea to relate happiness to technology. People are very busy and to be able to go on their phone, which are permanently attached to peoples hand anyway, and bring some happiness their way.

The first link was to a website called Happier. This website offers courses that offer daily lessons that help one learn tips and tricks that are scientifically proven to help focus on what makes someone happier. It offers many things such as ridiculously affordable the courses are, and even some are free. Theres even a on-the-go option where each episode can be completed in under 15 minutes on the web or on a phone. This website basically gives the steps on how to become a better you and courses or episodes can be taken to get you there.

The next link was to a website called Happify. This website is different in the way that everything is based on science. They offer activities and games that help you to train the brain and build skills for lasting happiness. This website helps one reach their goals by recommending daily activities so we can be more excited about our future. Just like the previous website it allows to be used on the phone or a computer. There’s even evidence of how happiness is increased after joining happify.

Finally the last link showed the average happiness for twitter. It shows when happiness was at it’s highest on holidays. This was very interesting to look at, Christmas Day is the highest in happiness, not surprising but interesting to know. All these websites of course have in common, HAPPINESS. I had no idea there were these websites to help people increase their happiness. If it works for someone and has a positive impact then great, go for it. I definitely do think it’s interesting and should be tried. The websites draws me in, it made me want to join, all the pictures and personal stories was one of the main reasons of wanting to join. If it can work for someone else, it can work for me too was a thought as going through the website. Everyone wants happiness so I’m sure others are willing to try.