Picking My Research Topic

When I was thinking about the topic for my research paper, there was one thing that kept on really getting to me, and that was the idea of being “plugged-in.” Of course, not in a literal sense, but the mere fact that in someway, shape, or form, all of us have an addiction to something, whether technological or not. It is when we are in that mode that we cannot seem to be broken from concentration unless we are surprised or caught off guard by something; we are then broken from the ‘spell’ or the trance state, which were just in.

I find this to be very interesting, because I can apply it to others that are around me, and myself as well. I see the things that I get ‘caught’ up in and therefore ‘plug’ myself into. I myself am a stakeholder in this issue, because I know of several things that I really get into, such as Facebook. When I open up my internet the page it opens up to right away is Facebook. I am already signed in. However, this doesn’t mean that I am always on the site, sometimes I just have my page open but I am not on it. But I would say that a good majority of the time I am on it. So there in just one thing I am plugged in. I am not ‘addicted’ to my computer, I can manage without it, but if I do not have something to do, I am generally on it, sometimes with a purpose and other times without a purpose, just for messing around.

Moving outside of myself though, there is so many other things that people are addicted/plugged into. Such things as cell phones, computers, TV, online gaming, messaging, and even such simple things, as texting on a phone are things people get plugged into. I know a large amount of people who have cell phones, but they are spending more time texting than they are actually on a phone. It’s like why don’t you get unlimited texting, with maybe a couple hundred minutes of talking. But then again, that all depends on the person, such as a college student, compared to a businessman or salesman who is always on the road for their job.

In general what I want to find out is how plugged people are into objects that are stationary, such as television versus the portable, such as PSPs, cell phones, and IPods. What makes each different and compatible at the same time? Why is it that one might have more influence over people than another? The two objects that I want to compare are two basic but heavily used in today’s society, and that is TV and cell phones. Now I could do it on a large scale, but not all countries are the same, such as 1st world nations to 3rd world nations. So to narrow it down, I am going to do it on society in modern day United States. That will hopefully give me a good glimpse of how society is functioning with technology and if we are truly ‘plugged’ in as I and maybe others might think.