Author Archives: legallysociable

Reflections on reasons some people hold out against smartphones

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I found this overview of reasons why some people haven’t yet adopted smartphones to be quite interesting having been one of “those people” up until a few months ago. Here are the five reasons given for why some people haven’t made the switch:

  • Fear of addiction. “I don’t want to end up falling victim to the smartphone, where I dive in and get lost for hours at a time,” dumbphone owner 24-year-old Jim Harig, 24 told The Times‘ Teddy Wayne.
  • The benefits of disconnectivity. “I also fear my own susceptibility to an e-mail-checking addiction,” writes Wayne. “The pressure to always be in communication with people is overwhelming,”  Erica Koltenuk tells the Journal‘s Sue Shellenbarger.
  • Cost. “These die-hards say they are reducing waste and like sidestepping costly service contracts,” writes Shellenbarger.
  • Durability. “I want a phone that you could drop-kick into a lake and go get it and still be able to make a call,” says Patrick Crowley, who bought a new phone 5 years ago.
  • Anti-consumerism. “[David] Blumenthal sees no need to ‘keep running out and buying new things if you can patch them and they hold together,'” explains the Journal.

Until this past December, I would have argued for the first three reasons. Here are my experiences of these three reasons in the four months I have had a smartphone:

1. Fear of addiction. I didn’t want to be a person who pulls out their phone at every dull moment. I don’t think I do this today but the phone is undeniably handy in several situations. Since I love learning and information, it is invaluable to be able to look things up. Also, in moments that where I would have been waiting already, say the barber shop or in line, I can quickly look things up and use my time well (what a rationalization…). Third, a smartphone is indispensable while traveling whether one needs a map, restaurant reviews, airline info, and more. I would say that addiction is hard to combat though.

2. Disconnectivity. I like the occasional experience of being disconnected. In fact, I think it is necessary to disconnect occasionally from all electronic/digital media. Here is my personal measure of addiction: if I can still enjoy a longer period of time (a few hours to a few days) without feeling a consistent need to check my phone, I’m in good shape. The smartphone should be a tool, not my life. The phone can enhance my interaction with others but it can also be a hindrance and I want to be mindful of this. Additionally, I have refused to connect my phone to my work email and I don’t want any apps that would allow me to do work through my phone.

3. Cost. I’m still irritated about this issue but there are cheaper options than the contract carriers. My wife and I got phones from Virgin Mobile and while it is not perfect, it is cheaper than any of the contract options. Perhaps this is simply the price of living in the modern world and considering that these phones are like little computers, it is a worthwhile investment.

All in all, the smartphone world is a nice one even if I have lost the “pride” mentioned in this article of being someone who can still hold out against the powerful forces of technology and consumerism. But I can still be part of the camp that relishes not having an iPhone…

In response to criticism, sociologist argues academics need to explain better what they do

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A recent Washington Post op-ed suggested college faculty do not work hard enough:

An executive who works a 40-hour week for 50 weeks puts in a minimum of 2,000 hours yearly. But faculty members teaching 12 to 15 hours per week for 30 weeks spend only 360 to 450 hours per year in the classroom. Even in the unlikely event that they devote an equal amount of time to grading and class preparation, their workload is still only 36 to 45 percent of that of non-academic professionals. Yet they receive the same compensation.

If the higher education community were to adjust its schedules and semester structure so that teaching faculty clocked a 40-hour week (roughly 20 hours of class time and equal time spent on grading, preparation and related duties) for 11 months, the enhanced efficiency could be the equivalent of a dramatic budget increase. Many colleges would not need tuition raises or adjustments to public budget priorities in the near future. The vacancies created by attrition would be filled by the existing faculty’s expanded teaching loads — from 12 to 15 hours a week to 20, and from 30 weeks to 48; increasing teachers’ overall classroom impact by 113 percent to 167 percent.

Critics may argue that teaching faculty members require long hours for preparation, grading and advising. Therefore they would have us believe that despite teaching only 12 to 15 hours a week, their workloads do approximate those of other upper-middle-class professionals. While time outside of class can vary substantially by discipline and by the academic cycle (for instance, more papers and tests to grade at the end of a semester), the notion that faculty in teaching institutions work a 40-hour week is a myth. And whatever the weekly hours may be, there is still the 30-week academic year, which leaves almost 22 weeks for vacation or additional employment.

One article about the subsequent conversation regarding the op-ed quotes sociologist Jerry Jacobs talking about how academics do not explain their jobs to the public well:

Faculty-baiting might exist because people have certain perceptions of how college professors operate, some experts said. “I do not think we do a good job of explaining what we do,” said Jerry Jacobs, a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Jacobs, who has researched faculty life, said that students often graduate from research universities without a clear understanding of what a professor’s job entails. “Meanwhile people see that the costs of college are going up and to them, faculty at colleges don’t seem to work 40 hours a week like high school teachers do,” he said.

In a 2004 article in the Sociological Forum, Jacobs found that full-time faculty members spend an average of just above 50 hours a week working. The data for his analysis came from the 1998 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty by the U.S. Department of Education and the faculty sample included 819 colleges and universities. “As a point of comparison, the average work week for men in the U. S. labor force is 43 hours per week and 37 for women. About one-quarter of men work in the labor force work over 50 hours per week (26.5 percent), along with one in ten women (11.3 percent),” Jacobs said. Many academics, of course, report working far more than 50 hours a week — and for adjuncts, the pay is a fraction of the figures cited by Levy, and many work without health or retirement benefits, or any job security.

It may be a job with some more flexibility than other jobs but there is certainly plenty of work for academics invested in their classrooms, research, and schools.

So what would Jacobs say academics should do? How can we explain to the public what academic life is like?

One option is to tie our roles to helping prepare students for jobs. However, this downplays aspects that aren’t as clearly vocational.

Another option: be more clear with students about what we do and how we do it. Instead of making our jobs like “black boxes” that are mysterious and capricious, explain what we are doing as we go along. Why should our students learn about a particular topic? Why do we grade the way we do? What do we do when we put together a research paper? I’ve tried some of these strategies and while students don’t seem overjoyed, some do appear to appreciate hearing the process behind it.

A third option would be to more clearly relate our teaching and research to everyday life, whether this is in the classroom or the community. While public sociology might be a sort of trendy term, it could help show people why what we do matters. We don’t just sit around and write for ten other academics; in our research we are hoping to draw attention to particular issues, influence public policy, help people who care about the topics, and interact with others who are also interested.

Fourth, we could defend the classroom experience. It is not easy to effectively impart knowledge and wisdom to other and to lead discussions. These days, it might be cheaper to do more online learning but something is missing, the community and atmosphere that can come from being in a classroom where both the instructor and students are engaged. This sort of criticism also is often leveled at teachers: “anyone could teach these lessons.” I don’t think everyone could.

Unemployment rate by college major

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A January 2012 report titled “Hard Times” from the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce looked at earnings by college major. Here are the four main findings of the study:

1. Choice of major substantially affects employment prospects and earnings.

2. People who make technology are better off than people who use technology.

3. In general, majors that are linked to occupations have better employment prospects than majors focused on general skills. But, some occupation specific majors, such as Architecture, were hurt by the recession and fared worse than general skills majors.

4. For many, pursuing a graduate degree may be the best option until the economy recovers. But, not all graduate degrees outperform all BA’s on employment.

This seems to reinforce the recent push for STEM disciplines as well as more vocational-type programs. Here are the unemployment rates by educational degree and for a few college disciplines:

A study published in January from the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce finds unemployment among job seekers with no better than a high school diploma at 22.9 percent.

And it doesn’t get any better for high school dropouts, whose unemployment rate sits at 31.5 percent among high school dropouts.

While a college degree gives job seekers a formidable advantage over those without, the study finds not all degrees are created equal and there are a number of factors that prospective students should consider before signing their major. The study cited unemployment rates for recent college graduates with a bachelor’s degree at 8.9 percent.

According to the report, fields in anthropology and archeology  have an unemployment rate of 10.5 percent, philosophy and religious studies are at 10.8 percent, sociology 8.6 percent and journalism is at 7.7 percent.

Given the common discourse you will hear about sociology majors (particularly those that rack up lots of college debt!), I’m happy to see that sociology is slightly above average. The sociology unemployment rate is 8.6% for recent college graduates, 5.4% for experienced college graduates, better than the percentages for political science, economics, English, and philosophy and religious studies.

Sociologist: lower rates of poverty the result of “robust social policy”

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A profile of sociologist David Brady summarizes his arguments about how a larger welfare state limits poverty:

Brady’s 2009 book Rich Democracies, Poor People: How Politics Explain Poverty, offers an analysis of social inequality that is counter to the prevailing notion that it is an inescapable outcome of individual failings – known as the “culture of poverty” – or the result of rising unemployment. It shows that among affluent western societies there are immense variations in poverty: from almost 20% of the population in the US at one end of a scale, followed by Canada, Australia, Spain and Italy, to less than 10% at the other end – where the Scandinavian countries sit – with the UK and Germany somewhere in between.

The reason for such stark differences lies not with the numbers of single mums or jobless people but with whether a country has made larger investments in the welfare state, argues Brady. For those countries that have spent proportionately more on pensions, healthcare, family assistance and unemployment compensation – what we in Britain call the welfare state and Brady refers to as “social policy” – poverty levels will be lower…

British attitude surveys have shown a marked decline in support for redistribution since the mid-1980s, and opinion polls suggest a majority of the British public believes that the government pays out too much in benefits and that welfare levels overall should be reduced…

He challenges poverty campaigns in the UK to address head-on politicians’ concerns around benefit dependency and the so-called something for nothing culture. “Spending on social policy is something for something,” he asserts. “[It is] a social investment in the next generation – on good schools and childcare – that manages against risk by preventing people from falling into poverty. And, above all, it is a citizen’s right.”

While this profile talks about how Brady’s work fits with current British politics and government cost-cutting, I imagine he would have some commentary about the current situation in the United States.

I would be interested to hear Brady discuss whether there are trade-offs for this kind of welfare state spending or whether it really is more good than not. For example, if you spend all of that money fighting poverty, does it limit a country’s abilities to spend in other important areas?

This gets more complicated when Brady introduces the ideas of rights. In America, we often have costs-benefits arguments about government spending – can we afford it or is it worth the money spent? If we spend money in one direction, say, promoting job creation, will we get money on the other end, say less paid out in unemployment? The idea of rights shifts the discussion away from just the finances and suggests it is more about values than money.

Maybe I should just track down the book…

New Census figures: population 80.7% urban, most dense cities in the West

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The US Census Bureau released Monday some figures about cities in America. Here are the updated 2010 statistics about urbanization:

 The nation’s urban population increased by 12.1 percent from 2000 to 2010, outpacing the nation’s overall growth rate of 9.7 percent for the same period, according to the U.S. Census Bureau…
Urban areas — defined as densely developed residential, commercial and other nonresidential areas — now account for 80.7 percent of the U.S. population, up from 79.0 percent in 2000. Although the rural population — the population in any areas outside of those classified as “urban” — grew by a modest amount from 2000 to 2010, it continued to decline as a percentage of the national population.

Translation: the proportion of Americans living in urban areas didn’t change very much over the last 10 years. In comparison, the urban population jumped 6% from 1970 to 1980, 3% from 1980 to 1990, and 3% from 1990 to 2000 (see figures on pg. 33 of this Census document). Does this mean we are nearing a plateau in terms of the proportion of Americans living in urban areas?

And here are the new figures for the densest metropolitan areas:

The nation’s most densely populated urbanized area is Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, Calif., with nearly 7,000 people per square mile. The San Francisco-Oakland, Calif., area is the second most densely populated at 6,266 people per square mile, followed by San Jose, Calif. (5,820 people per square mile) and Delano, Calif. (5,483 people per square mile). The New York-Newark, N.J., area is fifth, with an overall density of 5,319 people per square mile…
Of the 10 most densely populated urbanized areas, nine are in the West, with seven of those in California. Urbanized areas in the U.S., taken together, had an overall population density of 2,534 people per square mile.

These new figures continue to support one of the trick questions about cities: which city is the most dense? A common answer is New York City because of Manhattan but the densest is actually Los Angeles. Of course, some of this has to do with Southern and Western cities having more space because of the drying up of annexation opportunities in Midwestern and Northeastern cities in the early 1900s.

While these are very interesting figures, where is the percentage of Americans who live in suburbs?

Have enough money, pay others to wait in line for you

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The Jakarta Post reports on a phenomenon found in a number of places: people being paid an hourly wage to wait in line.

Student Ansari Haja has endured bad weather, hunger and the call of nature to stand in line for hours and secure an apartment at Bedok Residences.

The catch – the apartment was not for himself. The 19-year-old was paid $300 last November by a real-estate agent to spend 28 hours in a queue. He did it again a month later, for another showflat launch in Serangoon North – this time queuing for 14 hours…

It appears that apartments, clothing and gadgets top the list of things people will pay others to queue for.

Associate Professor Xiao Hong, from the Nanyang Technological University’s Division of Sociology, said that this practice reflects the affluence of a society that allows one person to buy another’s time.

‘Everyone’s time has a value on it. But because of social-economic factors, others have more value placed on their time. To compensate for a lack of it, they use economic resources to ‘extend’ the hours that they currently have in a day,’ she added.

And Singapore is not alone when it comes to the phenomenon of ‘queue-sitting’.

In Japan, businessmen have paid people to stand in line for the launch of the PlayStation 3, while in Britain, students at Edinburgh University were paid to help secure the best flats on the market.

I’m surprised I haven’t heard of this in the United States. This past Thanksgiving, I stood in line for 45 minutes before midnight at Best Buy and you could see that people were jumpy about things like people joining their friends in line right before the doors opened or not getting in the store even a few minutes after midnight. Would Americans accept the idea of someone in front of them being paid to wait in line and then changing places with the payee at the end?

The concept of paying for extra time is interesting. How is this any different than paying a personal assistant or a personal shopper to take care of certain tasks during the day? If you have the money, you can afford this. Does this suggest that inequalities of wealth can be translated into inequalities of time? People with more money or resources can literally do more each day.

The “code of the street” on the real streets

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The Boston Globe explores how Elijah Anderson’s concept of the “code of the street” plays out on the streets today:

Both men spoke of the street code as though they thought it would be obvious to everyone in the courtroom what it meant. And to a certain extent, they were right to: Even people with no direct experience with street life?—?whose exposure to the criminal underworld comes mainly from gangster rap and television shows like “The Wire”?—?have a sense that it is governed by its own set of rules and ethics. For law-abiding citizens dazzled by Hollywood stories of loyalty or by tough lyrics about street justice, these rule seem to be part of a parallel moral universe built around its own set of coherent beliefs regarding honor, fairness, and integrity. And in neighborhoods where crime is rampant and gang activity widespread, belief in such rules can be a hugely powerful force in people’s lives.

But behind the seductively monolithic notion of a “code of the streets,” say people who have looked at street justice from up close, lies far less certain terrain. According to former gang members, social workers in frequent contact with inner-city youths, and criminologists, it is all but impossible to pin down a single “code,” or one vision of right and wrong, that everyone on the streets respects and adheres to. And insofar as there ever was such a code, they say, it has largely crumpled since the late 1980s, as gangs have grown smaller, younger, and more poorly organized, and increasingly harsh sentencing laws have made it more difficult for people to withstand the pressure to snitch on their associates to avoid prison time. The street rules that exist, experts say, vary from gang to gang and city to city, and most importantly, they are often ignored.

What remains is less a code of ethics than a set of procedures that dictate how to protect oneself from threats and maintain a reputation in hostile territory. Far from being the proud moral system that some of us imagine it to be, the code today seems to exist as a sort of hollowed-out ideal whose role in the street is not to govern behavior, but?—?as we saw in the Mattapan trial?—?to explain it away.

An interesting read. I am intrigued by the concept that there might have once a “golden age” for the code. Is this just another case of generational differences?

But if you are going to write an article like this, why not interview Elijah Anderson? Indeed, it would be interesting to hear what Anderson thinks or knows about the code since he has wrote an urban ethnography that has become a classic work.

Evangelicals and Catholics first joined forces in the suburbs

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In the middle of an article about how Rick Santorum has appealed to evangelicals, one of the factors mentioned is geographic: evangelicals and Catholics both moved to the suburbs after World War Two.

The plate tectonics of social mobility also figure into the Santorum surprise, note scholars like the political scientist John C. Green of the University of Akron. In the post-World War II years, many Catholics moved out of insular urban neighborhoods while many evangelicals left their rural and small-town homes for the suburbs and exurbs. In subdivisions, in office parks, in colleges, the young people of the two religions began to encounter one another as benign acquaintances rather than alien enemies.

It is no coincidence, then, that a Santorum voter like Carissa Wilson has grown up in the suburban sprawl between two cities with strong Catholic heritages, Dayton and Cincinnati. Like the Michigan autoworkers in 1980 who made a break with Democratic tradition to vote for Ronald Reagan, Miss Wilson just may be the embodiment of a new wave.

In other words, evangelicals and Catholics met and learned to like each other in the suburbs. United by suburban values and perhaps a dislike for both cities and rural areas, these two groups settled into the land of single-family homes and found that they could find common ground on some social and theological issues.

This brings several questions to mind:

1. Are Catholics and evangelicals more interested in preserving suburban values than finding common theological ground? Perhaps this is crassly put but the way the argument is written in the article, it suggests that the suburbs came first before the social and theological common ground.

2. How do race and class play into the process? In other words, while both groups came from different places to the suburbs, they were probably mostly white and the educational status of both groups was rising. Does this mean that the older city/rural divide was transcended by common status interests based on race and class?

My, your lawn is lush and green…especially where the dogs were!

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Record temperatures in Chicago have meant green lawns ahead of schedule. This is not usually considered a bad thing: the brown or dormant grass of winter has given way to verdant lawns that wouldn’t look out of place in the many lawn commercials one can see at this time of year. However, in walking around, I noticed that these lawns are often punctuated by more lush spots, presumably from the work of dogs. Here is one picture from an adjacent neighborhood:

Some thoughts about this:

1. The typical “perfect lawn” doesn’t include such spots. So if someone has pets and wants a great-looking lawn, how do you balance these two interests? Cut the lawn a lot? I haven’t noticed any products talking about this kind of fertilization.

2. Perhaps this is a bigger problem in townhome/condo/apartment neighborhoods where there are common lawns. To curb their dog, people walk about the neighborhood and use the common areas. Why use spaces close to your home when you can take advantage of other areas? (Additionally: you are paying for those other areas so why not?)

3. Some patterns emerge: I would estimate at least 80% of the spots were within four feet of the sidewalk. This likely says more about the dog owners than the dogs: the owners want to stay on the sidewalk so the dogs have to stay close by. Also, taller objects, signs, mailboxes, trees, etc. tended to have lusher grass around them. Here is another shot that also shows the first pattern:

Does anyone get upset about this desecration of the lawns? If the battle is between dogs and a perfect lawn, it looks like the dogs win at this time of year.