In my previous post I talked about the history of wax cylinder records and why their historical value is worth preserving and I discussed the people who are interested in preserving them and why. In my Agent of Change I am aiming to continue to spread awareness of cylinder records and promote the preservation of them by continuing campaigning and promoting archives and agencies who preserve records, like the UCSB Cylinder Archive. I have also created an Instagram account that is going to post daily to raise further awareness for cylinders. The account will post daily and share a fun fact about cylinder records and share a daily cylinder recording from the UCSB archives, which will both promote awareness and bring even more attention to the efforts being made at UCSB. My further research and starting the cylinder account has shown me that people are interested in cylinders quite a bit, seeing as the account so far has 19 followers and the 2 posts I have done so far are getting likes and engagement. I am hopeful that people will continue to follow the account and some more efforts can be made in the future to continue spreading awareness. I also hope that I can make an effort to reach out to UCSB eventually and help to organize some sort of campaign to get museums to start preserving cylinders as they do other forms of art. My goal beyond just raising awareness is mainly to get people/organizations who have the funds and resources to preserve and digitize cylinders to consider starting collections similar to the UCSB archives. UCSB is the only archive for cylinders of it’s kind, so I hope museums in the future consider starting collections of cylinders. I have also found out that the Library of Congress has also made efforts to preserve cylinders, but I am unsure if these kinds of efforts are still being made today. The Federal Cylinder Project also has worked to preserve Native American cylinder projects as well, which is a great effort to preserve a culture that not many people have considered. I feel that so far my Agent of Change has gone well, but I think that I should’ve reached out to UCSB sooner than I planned to, because I didn’t expect the Instagram account to gain immediate attention, although I am glad that it has actually started to make progress so early on. I am happy overall with this project as a whole, since I have made a lot of progress with gaining followers for the account. I also feel happy that I’ve found a way to use one of my personal interests with music to create something to inspire change and help preserve an important part of history that many don’t care about. I also feel like with this project I am going to start my own personal efforts to preserve cylinders and start a collection. I hope that one day I can start an archive to store and transcribe home recordings of wax cylinders. I just need to continue to run the account and hopefully save my money to purchase more cylinders and technology to play them and preserve the audio.

In my previous post I talked about why I switched my topic from elephant poaching to teenage sleep. In short I switched because the problem of teenagers not getting enough sleep is something that I myself struggle with and people I know struggle with it. When researching sleep deprivation i found that around 87% of teenagers struggle with it so chances are you or someone you know is affected by it Right now I am telling alot of my friends and family about the topic and informing them of all the signs that can show they are experiencing sleep deprevention. I’m also talking to people about what the effects of sleep deprivation are so they know to get enough sleep and to share the same information with others. Stanford medicine has an article about teen sleep. It talks about one solution to sleep prevention, moving back school start times. This is only a partial solution though because more people need to know that it is a big problem and that they should be getting more sleep.For my agent of change I wanted to make a presentation and share it with my advisory. I decided to do this because it is an easy way to get the word out to a bunch of teenagers that most likely struggle with the issue at hand. Unfortunately due to reasons on my end, I was unable to present my presentation to my advisory. I was able to share my presentation to my class though. I think that overall I was effective at making change. My classmates all know about the issue so they can take action if they so please. I know that I have made change in myself as well. I have started to get more and more sleep so if i didn’t make a change for everyone else, i at least did for myself.Overall this project was extremely fun. This is probably the case because of how it is all about something that I am passionate about. With my first topic, animal poaching I really wasnt super passionate about and it didn’t feel quite right doing it for my project. I think one of the things I could have done better would have been actually presenting my presentation to my advisory. I don’t think that there is much left for me to do to make change besides telling more people. Others including you who are reading this can tell others about the problem and you yourself can make change.

In my last slate post I wrote a piece called “Born Different” in which I talked about me being different from everyone else in my family and what that felt like for me. I also talked about my brother and how he helped me understand that I belonged even though I was different from everyone else in my family. He helped me see that being different wasn’t so bad and that being brown in a white family wasn’t bad either. In my ongoing research something that I have done was make a blog post. In the beginning I was going to do an instagram but then I decided to do a blog post. I did this because I didn’t have too much time but If I can I would do an instagram post to have my research be more out there in the world. It would also show people what the police force has become well before even now but even more so now that they have become a militarized type of police force. For this to change I believe that either defunding or just not putting as much money into the police force would help them not be so militarized. Yes I get that they have to protect people but they shouldn’t be so over militarized to the point where they have pretty much huge armored vehicles, grenade launcher type things like the thing they shoot tear gas out of. Overall I just think they need to not get as much funding so they don’t become over militarized. I also think that the police put people of color in prison even when they do nothing wrong so that’s why I think that the justice system also needs to be fixed. Lastly I think that the amount of time for police that are trained should be increased and police should be monitored by a single overlooking type of government. Especially now with everything that’s been going on and that’s getting released right now out in the world.

When pursuing my agent of change I was thinking about what I could really reflect on and the most recent thing at the time was my brother’s arrest and what he had noticed with the police. In the end I decided to choose the topic of militarized police and well police in general. I did this because when my brother was arrested the police didn’t let him get a phone call. They took him to a prison facility where he was later integrated by the FBI and asked certain questions all because he was trying to help people who were being tear gassed at a protest. He was trying to help people by providing water with certain stuff inside to help with the eyes but when he was arrested he was accused of mixing chemicals to create something worse. When he was taken they also took his friend and put zip ties on their wrists but to the point where my brother’s friends hands turned purple. They asked to loosen them but they didn’t know how to. Later they were put into the system and transferred to several different prisons for hours until he and my brother were split up and put into different jail cells. My brother was telling me how he got put into a cell with a black man who had his back broken and how the police didn’t even bother helping him so the man was cold throughout the night since it was cold that night. In the end I was reflecting on everything me and my brother talked about. I decided to do the topic of militarized police which also went deeper into the funding of police. Funding into prison training and the actual police force. I was effective at making a change by telling my brother’s story to my friends helping them see how the police treat prisoners. Citizens. Black people.

Doing this project I felt pretty good about what I decided to do for my Y&TW project. I also felt pretty strongly for what I was looking for when I was researching. But overall I felt pretty good about my project and felt like I did a lot. Something that I learned about myself is that after doing this project I see more now that the police in the US are pretty much a second type of military. In a way, the way it’s going or was going showed that the police was becoming more of a military type of force than a police force. Something I learned from my brother was that after he was arrested he learned something from the guy in his cell who told him “don’t worry you’ll be okay youll have have a lot better chance getting out of here than I will”. After that he was starting to calm down and got out the next day but he reflected on that moment because he was white and the guy in the cell was black with a broken back and my brother wasn’t in any pain but was just afraid because of his interrogation with the FBI. Something that I feel like I could have done better with is going into more detail about my Y & TW project or maybe by doing an instagram post instead of a Blog Post would have been better. I think something that people need to do is know more about the police being militarized and spreading it but a lot of people don’t think of that when they hear about police when really the police are militarized in the US. So I think writing more or spreading more about the police being militarized could help people understand more about it.

My issue is Privacy Violations, by social media sites. In my recent slate post. I wrote about how much information Google and Facebook collect on their users and what they do with it. After some research, Some things that have been done to fix the issue I chose is congress passing an Internet privacy bill in 2019. In my opinion, this is a great way to make change. The only way these technology companies will change their ways is if we go the legal route. However, the bill hasn’t been enforced much, which is a huge problem. There is no point in passing a bill if it does nothing. India on the other hand, passed an internet privacy order this year, and they are really enforcing it. The Indian government is currently investigating WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, for breaching Indian anti-trust laws.

My goal was to inform people on what happens with their information when they use Social Media sites. I researched what type of data social medias collect, and how to protect your privacy from them. Then I wrote my own article detailing my research. I decided to write an article to inform people because I had no idea how much Social Media companies knew about me until I watched a documentary on it. After that, I still had to do research of my own. So I wanted to make it easier for people to learn about this topic. My article isn’t too long, it’s a short read that will make sure you get the gist of the problem and how to protect your privacy. After writing the article I contacted Mr.Jeremy Spry and explained my topic to him and the article I wrote. He was able to publish my article in the most recent advisory memo. If you haven’t seen me I’m right under book club.

In my experience doing this project, it was pretty eye opening how much data Technology Companiescollect. Something I think I could’ve done better is to have covered more social media in my article because I wrote about Facebook, Snapchat, and Google. I think including Twitter and Reddit could’ve made my project better. Link to annotated bibliography

My project is about how technology can violate your privacy. I was inspired to do this project by a documentary called “The Social Dilemma” it informed me on how much personal information websites and social media like Google, Facebook, and Instagram really collect. This inspired me to do my own research and now I want to share it with the rest of my class because I think it is important for people to know what they sign up for when they accept the terms of service.

This issue personally affects me and anyone else that uses social media. I as well as most people value privacy and don’t want a huge tech company to know absolutely everything about us. But don’t take just my word for it. I have multiple credible sources that also say social media invades your privacy and you don’t even know it. My first source is an article written by Aliza Vigderman from security.org website made by people with law enforcement and security backgrounds. In this article Aliza grades popular websites and social media on how well your privacy is protected using it. Google receives an F, they store your address, cell phone contacts, and use algorithms to determine which ads would be most likely to make you buy something.

After reading this I wanted to know what other companies kept a lot of data on us. It turns out all social media do. Especially Facebook, they record every post you like, page you visit, and every comment you write. Facebook then uses an algorithm to build an image of you. They want to know all of these things about you to target ads to you. Which might not be so bad if Facebook wasn’t so irresponsible with all of their data. Facebook has been constantly accused of selling your data to third parties. In fact, Reporter Aleksandr Kogan from Cambridge university was able to easily obtain the information of 270,000 Facebook users. Facebook even uses its users’ data as a bargaining chip. Companies favored by Facebook were given access to user data to better target ads and make more money. Companies Facebook does not like on the other hand we denied user data.

In my opinion, neither should be able to just look at our information especially since People have consented to give Facebook information not a bunch of other companies that make Facebook money. Facebook gets away with this because most people don’t actually read their terms in service. During my research, I took the time to read what’s in it, and you would be surprised what you consent to when you use Facebook, It is a lot of information. They do give you the option to limit the type of data they collect, but it’s buried in the setting. So you won’t be able to find it unless you know what you’re looking for.

In 2019 congress passed about a bill that would establish privacy requirements for social media sites Called the online privacy act. Though it was passed I don’t see any difference that has been made by the bill. I think if this bill is enforced better. This problem could become smaller.

Link to annotated bibliography and Sources: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yUTY_RQk9wWFZdp49LA-jQ88-rL2msiC/view?usp=sharing

In my recent Slate Post I talked about Smartphone Addiction in simple words is the overuse of smartphones. This can also include social media. Overuse of these things can have a negative effect. Some effects are depression, suicide, interference with how productive you are, and interference with your sleep schedule. You can even have a “tech” neck. Over time, the position of leaning over your phone can cause your neck to be stiff and stay slanted.

An organization called the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction. Dr. Greenfield, who founded the organization, treats people with internet and technology addiction. He is also known internationally. The organization has therapy and workshops to help the addiction. At Camp Poconos Trail they have a tech overuse program. In this video, they explain how this program works, and the effects it has. They show kids what activities they can do that don’t involve going on their phones. I think camp is a great way to learn how to be off your phone, learn what to do in the meantime, and meet new people.

For my Agent of Change I decided to create a phone use challenge. Basically you would try to spend less hours on your phone for a whole week. You would set a goal based on the average amount of hours you spent the week before. You would do the things that you probably have been procrastinating to do. I chose to do a challenge because I was not exactly sure how I would make a change. I knew that I wanted people to at least try spending less hours on their phone, get them to realize the negative effects and that is how I came up with the idea of a challenge. A challenge is something people can decide to try and is not exactly forced and the challenge itself is adaptable to their average hours goal. I created a google form as feedback to see if this challenge was helpful or not but unfortunately I did not get any responses. My effectiveness is unsure due to the fact that I don’t know if people actually tried the challenge.

I enjoyed doing this project because it is an eye opening experience. I feel like this project sounds a bit scary because you are going to have to put yourself out there and it is not something that just you and your teacher will see but people out in the world will also see. Something I could have done better was organizing, preparing, and presenting my Agent of Change earlier. I think if I had not presented two weeks before grades are put in, I guess people would have tried the challenge and filled out the google form. I think what is left for me to do is also try the Phone Use Challenge and see for myself if it helps, see what changes I should make the challenge.

In my last slate post I discussed what makes a game good. I went into great detail with my annotated bibliography and I was really proud of my research, but there was so much about video games that I wanted to talk about so it was a no brainer to make a video series with another topic added. The new topic I added was the history of video game. It was really fun to research, here is on of the resources I used most. The videos them selves were super fun to make especially the second part, which I am far more proud of. Though my original ideas were far more ambitious, I even planned for a third part. I do think I could have made the far better its just videos like these take longer than I expected. I am still proud of the end result. I really hope you enjoy the videos cause I worked really hard on them, and I know my topic isn’t as pressing as everyone else but I still think it is worth talking about. There is still so much I would love to talk about and still so many things you can do to help with this topic, such as just not buying bad video games, that’s really the best anyone could do. As I said before I hope you enjoy the videos and goodbye for now!

Previously, I researched and went in depth on why my topic of body positivity was important. I cited multiple sources and found how misunderstood the body positivity movement is. I said I hoped to clear misconceptions and impact the body positivity community positively.

Since that post, I’ve dug deeper into how I can impact the community with my knowledge. My English teacher sparked an idea to my twin sister, Gina, saying creating a club can be helpful to the school community. She brought up the idea to me and we decided to collaborate on the club idea. Her topic was suicide and mine is body positivity so we decided to make our club focus on self care. Our club is called You & Me Club. First, I decided to do some research on support groups and how being in a support group can be beneficial. In the article, ‘How to Choose the Right Support Group’ by Mayo Clinic, it gives both perspectives on why support groups are good and bad. It allows people to be able to lean on people who experience similar problems. Support groups can also be used as a sense of motivation to go through a journey with others; it makes people feel less alone.“A support group among people with shared experiences may function as a bridge between medical and emotional needs.” It can be hard to trust a doctor so finding people in the patient’s age range going through similar problems can help the patient open up more. There are also cons to every pro. It may be possible that people may compare themselves to each other. For example, degrade their problems and tell themselves that others have it worse. I believe the pros outweigh the cons. Being with a group of people who already have something in common with you can be a good ice breaker. I believe support groups build a family and the bond is strong. Even though there are cons, it can always be fixed. To my example, people in the support group can make it known that it’s not a competition if we are all on the same team.

Group of people counseling together

Based on the information I gathered from my research, I think creating a club in the SLA community can be beneficial to students - and teachers if they like to attend. In order to start a club in SLA, I have to make a proposal to the principal, Mr.Lehmann and the program manager, Mr.Spry. Me and Gina spent a few days working on a google slide as our proposal. After completing the proposal slides, we started drafting the email. Here is the email:

“Good Morning Mr. Lehmann and Mr. Spry,

We are Gina and Tina Zou, freshmen here at SLA. Recently we have been working hard with Ms. Giknis and our advisors to plan a self care club! As new additions to the SLA community, we hope to make a positive influence in our time here by starting a club that allows students to learn more about themselves and their mental health. We would like to propose this club idea to you, so please click on this link to view our proposal.

We hope to receive approval to launch this club next year (2021-2022). If there are any questions, feel free to ask! We will try to answer them as detailed as possible.

Thank you for your time and consideration, Gina Zou & Tina Zou”

In addition, we decided to create an interest form to put in the advisory memo to help give a sense on what best fits for the community. After two minutes of just sending the proposal email, we got a reply! Our club accepted to open next year. It may be a slow process but I believe it will pay off in the long run. Creating a self care club for the community can boost people’s awareness on mental and emotional health. Our objective for our club is “You & Me Club seeks to create a safe environment to talk about emotions and mental hardships. It is important to care for mental health. So You & Me Club hopes to increase awareness of mental and emotional exhaustion and prevent people from blocking out their feelings any longer. This club will hopefully positively affect the SLA community and bring us closer together.” Even though this change will be slow but steady, hopefully it helps people.

I really enjoyed doing this project. Even though the club is starting in the school year of 2021-2022, I already know it’s going to make me step out of my comfort zone. I technically already did since I committed to this club. I hope the club succeeds. I didn’t realize how toxic people can be when they are uneducated or misinterpret something. Looking into plus-size activists really made me frustrated when people are so fast to judge. I felt as though I could’ve spent more time researching for the Agent of Change part. I think my research was enough to pass but I knew I could’ve done more. I do know I will continue to learn how to conduct a club to its fullest potential. I still need to wait for the club to launch next year. I hope people will join to help themselves and others. If you are interested, please do fill out this form so we can include what you like in the club. We hope to see you next year in our meetings:)

Annotated Bibliography

In my last SLATE post, I’ve introduced the topic of the 737 MAX and it’s groundings worldwide (Below is a brief summary for those who haven’t seen the last post). Since then, there are actually quite a few things that have changed since then, especially with the news of possible reintroduction of a new type of plane, which I will also discuss below. This new type of plane can really help Boeing bounce back into the aviation market as a leader, and I chose to explore a bit on that for this SLATE post. This resulted in a full essay that I plan to send to multiple experts along with a few aviation enthusiast/large-scale aviation discord server, and hopefully it may spread. I’ve gotten a few responses from quite a few people, including experts and travelers. Below is an example of a response from one of the engineers currently at Boeing.

I also had a conversation with an engineer at Boeing itself, and we had a discussion around the topic. He was actually quite interested and offered me to take the information up to the managers at Boeing, and so I am currently waiting for their response (which takes around 2-3 weeks).

I recently switched my topic from elephant poaching to teenage sleep. There were a couple things that motivated me to make the change. First off, I wasn’t very inspired to work and complete the elephant poaching project. This is due to how exotic the topic is. Yes it’s a big problem but it’s out of my range to actually make a change in. When choosing a new topic I wanted to pick something that was impacting my everyday life and was within reach to change. That’s when I had noticed how my sleep schedule had affected my attention and learning throughout my classes and day to day activities. This is when the topic of sleep came to mind. It would be very easy to make a change due to the fact that I am always surrounded by teenagers with sleep problems and it’s something that I struggle with. So even if i couldn’t make a change with other people i could with myself. During my research for this project I came across many interesting things. For example seventy percent of teenagers are getting too little sleep. So chances are you are affected by it or someone you know is. Although the numbers vary between people most doctors recommend getting eight to ten hours of sleep a night as a teenager is critical for “physical, intellectual and emotional growth.” Although sleep can seem like such a small thing, it contributes a major role in your mood and much more the next day. Sleep deprivation has many effects on teenagers’ day to day life. For example, sleep deprivation can in some cases lead to struggle with memory. Getting to little sleep also affects your motivation and productivity inside and outside of school. It can also increase the risk of depression, which is a serious medical condition. So how do you know you need more sleep? In my research I’ve found that there are multiple signs you need more sleep. If you notice that you have to regularly take naps in the middle of the day that are over thirty minutes in length then you probably need more sleep. Other signs of sleep deprivation include not being able to think straight, struggling getting out of bed in the morning, and getting worked up over little tasks. There are other more common side signs like the well known general sleepiness. How do you maintain a healthy sleep schedule? There are many things you can do once you have a healthy sleep pattern to maintain that pattern. One of the main things is to avoid looking at screens before you go to bed. Other things you can do to get better sleep are things like exercising daily, avoiding long naps, and going to sleep around the same time every day.