Gladwell ch. 2

      Gladwell is a very interesting writer and in his book what I found most interesting was that the fate of our country could have been so different. If the people had not listened to Paul Revere we would not have a country. Freedom of free speech, freedom of religion and others freedoms would be just a myth. Men, women and children would dream of a different world, one not ruled by Britain and their monarchy. Revere was a salesman in the fact that he convinced the people that it was time to fight and not a false alarm. Many people even today have become numb to alarms. For example when a store alarm goes off as you walk out the door many people don’t even check to see if you have stolen anything because so many false alarms go off every day. He had to be very careful on his choice of words not to seem like a false alarm, and have no one respond.

Types of Reading

Some types of reading that I come across everyday are casual and formal writing. I consider casual to be facebook and texts for example. I view formal writing as emailing a professor or reading a text book. I use this type of reading every moment I am awake until I go to sleep at night and do it all over again the next day. Gladwell has a very specific type of writing style that I do not come across often. He combines casual language with formal language. One moment he can be talking about a memory he has and another moment a statistic on a major world topic. I do not read this kind of writing often, as I do not have as much time with school work and my other obligations, to do pleasure reading. Reading this book is less of a requirement and more of a delight.

Epidemics When I was Growing up.

         When I think of my childhood and major event that happened, the first thing that comes to mind is Y2K. My father is a computer consultant and he had to come up with many plans that he may need to use if computers were to crash. People fed into the hype of the end of the world mindset. They were willing to buy any new product and software that they thought could save their cyber world. Businesses profited from this immensely, mark ups were at an all time high, taking advantage of consumer’s fears. As a ten year old child I didn’t understand the whole thing, so to me it was just another new years eve. Y2K came and passed and computers were unchanged, but this epidemic will always be remembered.

Ch. 1 Tipping Point

            Chapter one was a very interesting, and the content is quite surprising. Gladwell introduces us to the notion of the “Tipping Point”. On page 12 he describes this as “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point.” In chapter one, The Rules of Epidemics he talks about how sexually transmitted diseases are spread, and how 20 percent of people do 80 percent of the work on spreading a disease. Another factor that may influence of any kind of epidemic rather it be a disease or a new fashion trend, moving the infected people will help to spread the item.

Activity Four

   Today in America there are many types of families. Families who adopt, families who have children families who are one single parent. Families try and find time to be together because  each member is so busy with sports, school and having a job. There can be a major age difference in siblings such as my family my sister and i are three years apart but my younger brother and i are ten years apart. Each family offers something different because of their backround and where they come from.

Definition of Social Diversity and Change.

When I think of social diversity and change I think of people from all over the world coming to one place and working together. Accepting each others differences and for what the offer as people. Each culture is differnt and makes different things more important than others. For example, The United States stresses that a college education is very important but in some cultures this is not as imporant as starting a family at a young age.

Project Ideas

I am still unsure about what I would like to do for my final project, but these are a few ideas I came up with. None of them are life changing and I am unsure about what they have to do with social issues. I am thinking I could use what magazines portray and what we collect from that image or article.

1. How what you wear in the workplace affects your success


2. How girls try and imitate the women in magazines

3. Where girls made the turn from being a size 7 and being okay with it, to now we have an obsession with being thin

4. Is there a difference in where you buy an item and who makes it? Ex tjmax

5. What kinds of articles do girls respond to in a positive way? Ex bad experiences of other girls or what to do.