Intro:

Good Morning everyone! How many people here would say they feel stressed on a normal basis?…. That seems about right. According to a study done by Carnegie Mellon University, the stress in women has increased by 18% and the stress in men has increased by 24% from 1983-2009. That’s an incredible increase!

Causes:

Many people feel the reason for this stress is the raised competitiveness in the academic and work field. It is increasingly getting harder to get into college and as many of you know the acceptance rates are becoming lower and lower. This raises the bar for students when it comes to applying. Students are balancing school work, activities, sports, and family. Fifteen to twenty years ago, students didn’t have the huge checklist that exists today for getting into college. I know when I was in high school, I was very concerned about having leadership positions, being part of the right clubs, and showcasing myself as a well rounded student. I didn’t always have time to do things I really loved. In fact, most students our age rate their personal stress level at 5.4 out of 10 according to the american psychological association. That is 1.4 points higher than the healthy amount of stress for 18-33 year olds or Millennials. When interviewing my uncle, he said when he was young they weren’t surrounded by technology like we are. This meant their wasn’t much to do besides study, hang out with friends, or play outside. They used to go to the movies on special occasion and splurge their pocket money. Don’t you wish we had it simple! Overall, their were less stressors years ago. That explains why 52% of surveyed Millennials said their stress levels increased in the last 5 years.

Enough about school, what about work? Life is supposed to get easier once you get your college degree right? Huffington Post has reported that the Work Stress Survey found 83 percent of Americans were stressed at work in 2013. That number was 10% lower in 2012. To put that in perspective every 8 out of 10 Americans is stressed out from their job. Why are we so stressed? For starters, most people are working longer hours for lower pay. 14% of employees say that low pay and heavy workload are their number one stressors, and both low pay and heavy workload were provided as the number one stressors in any given workplace. I have seen this in my own family. When my father comes home on Friday, his work day is not finished. He still has hours of emails and phone calls. It doesn’t end there, he usually has at least 2-3 hours of work on Saturday, and sometimes more. Sunday is his only real day off. In a society where work comes home, it’s not surprising that stress levels have increased so drastically.

Conclusion:

I want all of you to close your eyes, imagine yourself as one of your grandparents or an elderly person you know. Now go back fifty years. You’re a senior in high school, what is the next step for the majority of you sitting in this room? You may not believe it, but 50 years ago most people were perfectly content with a high school degree. They would go out and find a job and work their way up through the ranks. Now, every student is expected to go to college, or have a set vocational path. Many people argue it is just our perception of stress that is the cause for these higher levels of stress, but most of the factors are related to the expectation of society. As a society, we expect so much more from our children academically and professionally. That is the true cause for this increase in stress. Thank You!

Adiche’s TED talk on single stories is a comprehensive observation of the images we create in our minds about other people, culture, and places. Africa is seen as the third world continent with no hope for itself. There must always be a “foreigner” as she says, to come rescue the day. However, we don’t know any different, because we have no personal experiences and we haven’t ever been shown anything else. In a world that is supposedly so interconnected, we seem like a very ignorant society. We are quick to create single stories about a subject and then not look any further for more stories. I think we should be forced to gather multiple stories about something we are truly unfamiliar with.

I understand what Adiche is talking about because I can relate to her experiences. I am indian, and most of my family lives in India. We try to go back once a year to see everyone. I have gathered many experiences in my several trips, but I forget that my friends do not have those same experiences. They have only seen the poor children on the commercials on television or watched Slumdog Millionaire. On the other hand, they have heard of the doctor/engineer/strict parents stereotype from every type of media possible. These are all single stories, and they are true, but like Adiche said they are not the complete truth. There are very wealthy people in India, in fact the CEO of Pepsi is an Indian Woman, and some of the wealthiest corporate giants in the world are Indians. There are also indian writers, illustrators, lawyers, tv people, and movie celebrities. If India were a country only comprised of doctors and engineers it probably wouldn’t be functioning today.

Single stories are an acceptable place to start your knowledge of a topic, but it is by no means the end of your knowledge on that topic. If we are to truly understand one another, and to become a “global” world, it is essential we dig deeper. It’s when we dig deeper, we find there is more in common than there is different, and the best place to start a relationship is in the similarities not the differences. Adiche is making a point much bigger than just thoughts created by literature. Times are changing, but are views are remaining the same. This can’t continue, because our views must stay in parallel to the changing world around us. That is the only we can go from a society of single stories to a society of multiple stories.

How Googly Are You?

Google has managed to become more than just a company. Google has become a lifestyle. The general population may argue, Google is just a search engine, or an email provider, but dig deeper and you will find Google is embedded all around us. Their product range varies from personal calendars to self driving cars. Google’s new ad campaign focuses on how much we rely on Google for everyday questions and answers. They call it the Google Search campaign. Each ad in the campaign explores different aspects of people’s lives and how google has been a part of those experiences. One of their most watched commercials is their Google “Grads” ad. This ad focuses primarily on the high school career of students, from both the academic and social perspective. Google progresses from the first day of freshman year to graduation day. This commercial related to thousands of students across the country, and Google was able to achieve this through various forms of rhetorical persuasion.

Google’s best move was the time of their release or their kairos. Google released their video on May 20, 2014. This was about a month before most high school seniors were graduating. Google could not have picked a more opportune time to release this video. Most seniors are becoming nostalgic about their past four years in high school at the time around graduation. Google picked up on this and published a commercial that would not only pull at the heart strings of students, but also teachers and parents. The kairos brought about the discussion of graduation and high school accomplishments. Students became emotionally invested in the conversations surrounding their future, and Google was now a part of that conversation. Google found a way to become more personal and they did at the exact right time. Therefore, their commercial was watched by over 4 million people on YouTube, not to mention the countless times it played on every television station until the end of July when the nostalgia of high school finally started wearing off.

The time of release of this commercial was superb, however if it were not for the actual content, the commercial would not have the impact it had. Google greatly used pathos to grab the attention of their audience. The video starts off with the nervousness of a freshman about to start school. Any student can relate to that first day of starting at a new school. Google encompasses that feeling through the compilation of students picking out outfits, working at their locker combination, and meeting their new teachers. Every girl has spent countless hours putting together the perfect first day outfit, it’s a memory that invokes years of anxiety, thrill, and joy of being back with friends. As the video progresses, viewers see students participating in different activities such as band, robotics club, and the junior military academy. Google knows students will think of all the sleepless nights and early morning band practices they muddled through, when they watch a clip of a girl complaining about her workload or a band practicing on the football field.  Google has produced a reflection of their consumers to make the consumers feel more at ease with their label.  In using this strategy, they have their consumers emotionally attached to the video, which makes the commercial a personal token instead of just another plea for attention.

The use of commonplaces in the video further the consumer’s interest in Google. The company uses the significance of life events to connect with the consumer. The most important being receiving a license to drive. Teenagers mark that event as the first milestone of independence. It is a universal idea that someone who knows how to drive, has reached a mature point in their life. Google highlights the excitement and pride teens show after receiving their license, yet again igniting the excitement of all the viewers sitting at home watching. Braces have become the signal of perfect teeth. Almost every child who could afford even the thought of getting braces, had them. The more significant part was the great reveal, when the teeth were all finally perfectly lined up. Google takes advantage of that feeling of relief and reminds students of the time they went to get their braces removed. They are calling out to the community of young adults to reach back and remember their past, because Google had to be involved at some point during that process.

Google has folded in ideologies of the American mind in their ad to further support their product. The two main ones identified are the idea of the perfect prom and the impressive graduation. Here in the United States, prom is not just another dance. Prom is the last hurrah, the last chance to prove yourself to your peers. Prom has become the dance where each person is allowed to be special and pretty. Google wants to make you feel pretty and special, so they can’t leave out the one day that reflects those exact qualities. The other significant ideology is the picture of a student receiving their diploma in their cap and gown. The image that follows that is the image of a college acceptance letter and plenty of loud screams for accompaniment. Google checks all those points with the last part of their video. They play out several students exclaiming their overwhelming joy of being accepted into college. Some of the students are surrounded by their families, other students are filmed by their parents, while other look up how far their new home is located. This is all followed by several graduation caps being thrown in the air, marking the end of one chapter and the search of another. Google cleverly ends the video with the phrase Search On. They have taken the American ideologies and created a commercial that fits into the boundaries of those ideologies.

Google has produced a very successful commercial with their emotional play on consumers’ hearts. In fact, it is very noticeable at how little Google actually shows its products,they want to show you more of the clippings from everyday life, so you feel emotionally connected to the video. This works, because as a graduating senior students are thinking about the journey they have taken for the last four years, which encompasses so much of what google shows. If one was to watch this at the end of their senior year, which is when google released the ad, you take a personal interest in the ad and are more likely to incorporate more google into your life. This was a very smart marketing strategy. They also keep it short and simple in the design as to not overwhelm the viewers but enough to still hold a space in our memories. Google has showed the world its great capability to take on almost any project and make it Googly, and in this ad they are forcing us to demonstrate our googliness.

Google has become a part of our everyday lives. We check our email through gmail, we ask any and every question through the search engine,  we coordinate on projects over google drive, google has worked its way into our every aspect of life. The ad I would like to analyze is the google search ads. In particular the ad that documents the life of high school freshman going through different stages of their life until they graduate. It shows how google has helped these students with things from social situations to academic life. The video is called “Grads”. One of my friends actually showed it to me at the end of senior year, and I realized then how successful google had become into squeezing into every aspect of my life. In the ad, Google shows you their different applications but not in the typical advertising way. They demonstrate how people are using them, and you feel like you could be that person looking up the directions to that university you just got accepted to (Penn State!). It is very noticeable at how little google actually shows its products ,they want to show you more of the clippings from everyday life, so you feel emotionally connected to the video. This works, because as a graduating senior you’re thinking about the journey you’ve taken for the last four years, which encompasses so much of what google shows. If you watch this at the end of your senior year, which is when google released the ad, you take a personal interest in the ad and are more likely to incorporate more google into your life. This was a very smart marketing strategy. They also keep it short and simple in the design as to not overwhelm the viewers but enough to still hold a space in our memories. Google has showed the world its great capability to take on almost any project and make it googly and I want to analyze how they do that.