Reflection 1

           The start to my second semester of sophomore year has been very interesting. In this Lit and Civ course, I have been impacted and become to look deeper into the humor and how it affects the connectedness of our global society. This idea of the bonding of humanity has also been prevalent in my business classes. With these select few classes, it has greatly opened my eyes to how humanity is connected on a global scale.

            During the past couple of weeks we have been talking about humor and how it is viewed among different people around the world. But yesterday during class, the question was asked “is laughing unsocial?” I thought this was a very interesting question, as I have never thought laughing held so much weight in society. My first instinct is yes it does if you are the one being singled out and laughed at. Then I started to think about laughter and what it means to everyone; and even when you may be at the heart of the joke, it can still be funny. This made me disagree with the question altogether as I began to believe that laughing and smiling is one of the only things that we as humans can all do. This brought me to the conclusion that laughing and humor are the exact opposite of “unsocial,” but they are unifying. Victor Borge, a past Danish comedian, states it the best, “Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.” This shows that though distance may separate us, laughter can still bring us right back together with each other.  The unifying force of humor is one that cannot be stopped or resisted, and can greatly help us bond with different people from all over the world.

            This idea of connectedness is also very important and consistent in the business world. During the first couple of weeks in my Business Information Systems class, we have talked heavily about how necessary collaboration is when you’re in a group setting. Earlier this week, in BIS, we had the chance to hear a “distinguished engineer” from IBM. His job is mainly to see trends among people on social media and how they react to certain events or fashions, for example the commercials for the Super Bowl. With his job, he also has the software to look at who calls whom and who responds to certain tweets, and from where they are in the world. With this, he was able to show us a chart with lines connecting people all over the world just based on who they were interacting with via twitter or telephone. The power of this software can be seen through a story he used as an example during class; he shared that during the last month there was a food born sickness starting to spread over a region in New York. With access to everyone’s social media updates, they were able to track who brought the contaminated food product and where they ended up having the picnic where the initial contamination took place, all within 12 hours. This statistic alone shows how connected we are on a global scale and the potential upsides that this software may have as it could give us crucial information to keep the United States and the world safe.

            Overall, the world is connected in many ways. Yet we are not bonded only by technology and laughter but in so many other ways. The fact of the matter is, is that everyone in this world can relate to one another but we just have to keep our eyes open for those opportunities.