Push the University Essay

             The food is the first and the most important needs in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Specially, when it comes to the young people and colleges students. Texas Tech University is characterized by different aspects. For example, the  diversities in different aspects, local and international students, different students services, very attracted landscape, and very high organization of the distribution of the faculties. Moreover, having the diversity and good quality of the food service in the university  is a good evidence that the management of the university is caring much about the students and delivering a good service that helps them in their learning process.  However, the high prices of the food services is very challenging to the students. most of the restaurants in the university have unreasonable prices for the food or the drinks as well. Because the as we know the students have a tight budget, and they have another high expenses. Moreover,  the food is basic requirement for all people in general and the students specifically. students spend most of their time in the university either for taking classes or studying with their friends. Therefore, the food services should be reasonable and accessible for the most of the students. stressing on logical solution, we can propose two solutions. The first is open the space for new restaurants.

              The second is open the space for new restaurants and have new regulations for the new restaurants to have a good prices which is make the other restaurants decrease their prices because it will be  a chance for competition among the new restaurant and the old one. Unfortunately, this solution is needs a more spaces for these restaurants , having a food trucks in the university.

             Give the food trucks owners to get inside the university which cheapest option in Lubbock and organize this chance  within a regulations and certain time .for example 3 days per week . this solution is very practical and useful for students. Moreover it is cool idea that students can know more about food truck culturally, because the food truck has a culture dimension here in Lubbock. Which means in this solution you stress on two dimensions, the first one is the food pricing. The second is culturally dimension, which is you can identify some culture aspect indirect way.

          To conclude, as a students or organizations in the university, and students unions should  stress on these issues that affect students’ lives in the university. Having  new restaurants  make a positive competition that affect positively student interest.  Food trucks one of the best solution that helps students to decrease their daily expenses like food and drinks. I believe that the students organizations build a communication channels for sharing the students challenges with their university life. (Yousef)

Yousef Bani Melhem

Social Media and our life

12-06-2016 

Academic Writing Class

Abstract :

This paper discusses  using social media tools in TTU students lives. The paper is talking about different aspects of using social media  tools by TTU male and female students, stressing on general observations  about using social media tools, and specific hypotheses. Moreover, this paper is talking about the most frequent social media tools that have been used by TTU students, whether or not the TTU students using social media tools for social changes to stress some social problems, using social media in the class room or for doing the homework, and what the TTU male and female students do think about the social media tools have negative or positive effect on their life.

Social media and our life 

       Social media is very wide concept. According to an article in the Economic Times (2009), Shiva's book defined social media as communication on the internet that is "voluntary communication with people, community and society that matters to you” (para. 2), and the prevalence of the internet has provided greater opportunities for people to connect and even increased the desire to do so (The Economic Times, 2009). Moreover, according to Karadkar’s (2015) article, as said by Marshall McLuhan, a philosopher of communication theory, “The new electronic independence re-creates the world in the image of a global village" (para. 1).

      Social media has become a very crucial part in our life, even in students' lives, and in business companies, and it takes a very huge part of our social life. This paper aims to identify several aspects of using the social media. First is what male and female TTU student do think about  the negative effects perspective about social media. Second, this paper identifies the positive perspective of using the social media in our life and what male and female TTU student do think regarding of this aspect. Third, this paper explores the benefits of using social media for business purposes. Fourth, this paper highlights the health aspects of using social media. Finally, this paper discusses how society and the community are affected by social media, culturally, economically, and politically. We will try through these aspects to cover the most important issues of using social media and who is the most affected by them but mainly focusing on what male and female TTU student think nowadays.

            (Karadkar 2015) clarified the importance of using social media by quoting the American psychologist, Abraham Maslow, who stated in his “Theory of Motivation” that the social need of beings is the third most important requirement after our physical needs - the third tier in his hierarchy of needs. Moreover, he said, our self-esteem comes after this social dependence. This is the main reason billions of people use social networking to stay connected, make friends and satisfy their social needs.

         A. Karadkar (2015) highlighted an example of using social media; as of 2015 the world’s largest social networking company, Facebook, had 1.49 billion active users, and the number of users is increasing every year. He mentioned results of a survey conducted by Pew Research Center, that 72 percent of high school and 78 percent of college students spend time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. We can see through these users the numbers of students who are part of the social media tools and networks.

       Actually, all of us agree on the benefits of using social media in most of our life aspects, but as anything has a positive and negative side, social media does as well. It depends on the aspect that we are using social media, the purpose of using social media, and what the age of users is as well.

Literature Review:

            The social media concept touches us every day with different aspects. As anything in our life has a negative side and positive side, social media does as well. The negative side of using social media has several points. The first one, in terms of the relationship, is, as Shiva (2009) said in his article, that social media starts its effect on the relationships in the family first, and he gave some numbers of average consumers; for example, consumers have 250 to 300 friends on different social media. Second, Shiva (2009) said the social media has an effect on the rest in general by comparing with the past. For example, the trust relates to whether or not the government is updating the people every day about important issues through social media. If so,  people will realize the lack of efficiency of the government, which means the trust relationship between the government and the people will be negatively affected. Third, in terms of using Facebook, which is one of the largest social media tools, Shlokinani (2012) stated in his article that people tend to feel jealous if they do not participate in the activity that their friends post. They would wonder why they were not invited and feel depressed about this event. Finally, as Shlokinani said, Facebook is too convenient for people. They interact with people through Facebook rather than face to face. In this situation, people would decrease their social abilities especially for young men who need to develop this skill.

            The positive side of using social media has several aspects as well. First, in terms of student life, Karadkar (2015) said in his article, the appearance of social media promotes the flow of information, and knowledge into different countries and then a so-called global village comes into the shape. Second, to be more specific of the impact of the student life and class room, J. Tomasjewski  (2012), in his article, “Study suggests of social media in the class room,” based on Dr. Richard’s (Harvard School of Education) and other researchers’ study, suggested that group study is more beneficial than the stereotyped teaching system. He said the social media can be an excellent resource for students to educate themselves by using various types of group messaging and sharing any topic with the world.

            In terms of using the social media for business, R. Holmes (2015), in his article, “Why businesses can’t survive without social media,” explained how shopping has become digital nowadays and consumers find it easier to go online. We have a lot of social networks that are involved in the worlds of business. 

            After all of that we need to highlight the health aspect of using social media as well. C. Gregoire (2015), in his article, probed the correlation between the deterioration of mental health among new generation people and the high usage of social media sites based on a comparative study conducted by Ottawa Public Health. In the current decade, the triumph of technology in communication increased the dependence on social sites among this new generation in such a way that it became part and parcel of their lives.

            Finally, of the social aspect of using social media, Morgan (2016), in her article, discussed the idea that social media is a forum which helps us connect to old friends and distant relatives we have lost touch with. Morgan (2016) asked the readers to do a self-introspection on how social media has impacted their lives. 

            To sum it up, I moved between those aspects to show you the several negative and positive  perspectives of using social media, and to show that the social media has become one of the basic life tools that we are using often.

Hypothesis:

1.      Through the survey, we will identify what social media tools TTU male and female students use most frequently, that helps to have a clear image about the purposes of using social media.

2.      Through this survey we will figure out how TTU female and male students see using social for making social changes and the difference between males and females for that issue.  

3.      We want to clarify that TTU female and male students think that social media helps them in their classes and classrooms and if it helps them with their homework.

4.      Through this survey we will figure out who is using social media frequently between male and female TTU students to help them to remember some issues in regards to their daily life activities.

5.      Through this survey will know that  TTU female and males students believe there are more positive effects than the negative effects.

Method:

We are an academic writing class assigned to make a research study about three subjects, social media, parental leave, and Black Lives Matter. We were divided into three groups for doing the research. We had to write an introduction about the subject, literature review, hypothesis, questions, method, results, discussion, and conclusion. Moreover, the whole class should write the survey that help us with our findings among of TTU male and female students. In terms of the paper design, each student had 5 hypotheses; we should find what TTU students think about those hypotheses, and participate with 5 questions for the survey, with the purpose of figuring out what TTU students think about these subjects. We agreed to go to the different places in TTU, like the library, student union, or our faculties’ buildings to have different opinions and perspectives regarding those subjects. Therefore, each student should get 13 surveys filled out, to have 300 hundred, to have enough data to conclude the findings which are depends on the hypotheses that we wrote before and  what the TTU students think about those subjects in general and specifically with certain questions that have been written by the academic writing students. We took into consideration that the gender balance is very important, so we had 150 surveys from males and 150 surveys from females from TTU male and female students. Therefore, in my part, social media, the main findings that I was looking for were which are the most frequently used social media tools that TTU males and females student were using by asking a question what is the frequent social media tool that used , and whether they were using social media for social change in their communities. Moreover, I wanted to know about what do the TTU male and female student do think about whether the social media was used by them in their classes and their classrooms, helping them with their homework and giving them positive progress in their educational process. I wanted to see the difference between the male and female students in using social media in terms of remembering their daily life activities and old memories. Finally, I wanted to see their opinions in terms of believing that social media has more positive effects than negative effects in their life in general.    

Those were the main findings in my part that I was looking for among the female and male TTU students. My questions were focused on what the most frequently used social media tools were, whether they were using social media for social changes, using social media for learning purposes in their classrooms or in their educational process, and whether they felt the social media had more a positive change than negative effects on their life in general.

In terms of these aspects, I wanted to figure out how the female and male TTU students thought about social media, and what the difference between males’ and females’ opinions regarding these aspects.

Results

This section in our survey had two parts. The first part was general results or observations; the second was specific results depending on the hypothesis. The general results or observations are summarized with different aspects. The first general result or observation is that TTU males and females students are using the social media networks daily on their academic or personal levels. The second result or observation is the TTU students are checking the new feeds on their accounts on social media networks. The third result or observation is that the TTU students are using different tools with different purposes; for example, using Snapchat for updating their friends with live events or their daily experience. The fourth result or observation is that not having accounts on different social media is socially unexpected, and viewed as not being connected with the world. Finally, free calls through voice or video are very popular for using the social media networks among TTU students, either males or females. 

The second part is that specific results depend on the hypotheses and the 295 surveys; half were males and half were females. Among TTU students, we found the following results. The first result depends on the first hypothesis. What is the most frequent social media tool which is used by TTU students? This question can lead us more to the purposes of using social media networks. Moreover, we found 39.66%  of the students were using Facebook from the sample that we take. We found 24.3% of the students were using Instagram, 17.3% of the students were using Twitter, 16.3% of the students were using other social media networks. Therefore, the most frequent social media network used is Facebook; we can see that the purpose of using it is for keeping updated on what people are doing and thinking, and their life status.

The second result, regarding the TTU students who believe that they are using social media for social change, 38% of the students report that sometimes they could use social media networks for social change; 23.3% of the students reported that using social for social change is always. 22.33% of the students think it is rarely, and 13.6% of the students never use social media for social change; the numbers showed us that TTU students are not using social media for social change or expressing their opinions through social media networks. Moreover, we noticed that most of the opinions about social problems that are shared through social media networks could not referred to  what people or students feel about the real feelings of students and people.  

The third result reports whether TTU students are using social media tools in the classroom or for their homework in their academic life. Once again, reporting attitudes of TTU students toward using social media in their life, at personal or academic level, we found that 53.3% of the TTU students are trying to avoid using social media in the classroom or for their homework. 21.3% of the students are using the social media during the class or for their homework but they think it is bad; 16.6% of the students do it and they think it is okay. 6% of the students are using social media during the class and their homework, and they always do that. Moreover, 53.3% of TTU students avoid using social media tools in their academic life; it means the main purpose of using social media is social networking more than other purposes. 

The fourth result, reporting TTU students’ feelings for regarding the effect, either negative or positive, of social media on their life, we found that 47.6% of the students think that the social media networks have a positive effect on their life, 35% of the students are not sure, and 15% of the students think that the social media networks have a negative impact on their life. Therefore, most TTU students think and believe that social media has a positive impact on their life.

In conclusion, we found that the most frequent social media tool used is Facebook amongst the students, 38% of the students could use the social media for social change, and 53.3% of the students are trying to avoid using the social media tools in classroom or for their homework. 47.6% of the students think that the social media networks have a positive impact on their life.   Those are main results of using social media by TTU females and males students that we found through the survey regarding social media in our life and students’ life as well. Moving from different aspects and testing what TTU females and males student do think about those aspects.

Discussion:

            Starting from the general results found regarding using social media in our life in general and students life in specific, social media tools or networks have become a very essential need, especially for the students; TTU males and females students are using social media networks as other students within different levels of schools. The purposes of using social media networks are different from level to level of schools and different from males and females. TTU male and female students are using different social media networks; it is very often observed during the class day of school the different purposes of using social media networks by TTU male and female students. We observed how common it is to have many accounts on the social media networks by TTU male and female students; but it is uncommon if you are not involved in this virtual world or keep yourself posted with your friends, news, shopping opportunities, and other information.

            Regarding our survey results depending on the hypothesis, the first hypothesis, we asked a question, is what is the most frequent social media tool which is used by TTU male and female students? We found that the most frequent social media tool that has been used is Facebook. Therefore, it may be Facebook is a very popular social media tool. Moreover, it may be Facebook is very easy to use for different purposes, keep in touch with friends, expressing about what do we have in our minds during the day, and for shopping or checking news as well.

            Regarding the TTU students who believe in using the social media tools for social change, the results showed us that TTU students, either male or female, sometimes could use social media tools for social change, but it is not a big percentage of TTU male and female student who are using social media tools for that purpose, but sometimes they may use it. It may be because social media tools are virtual world and social media tools have no effect on the social problems or challenges, even though TTU students could share their opinions about some social problems through social media tools, but in terms of social change this might be hard somehow.

Regarding using social media tools in the classroom or for their homework in their academic life. the results showed us that most TTU students are trying to avoid using social media tools for those purposes. It may be because they don’t trust social media resources for those purposes. Moreover, it may be using social media for academic purposes is not efficient enough, either for homework or in the classroom. Using social media tools for homework or in the classroom might be distracting resources for TTU male and female students, and not trusted resources either.

Regarding of the negative or positive  effect of social media tools, the results showed us that most TTU male and female students think that social media tools have a positive effect on their life. It may be social media tools keep TTU male and female students in touch with their friends news and their activities, easy shopping with good prices by saving time, effort, and money, and checking news every day from different resources and perspectives that might let TTU student explore different resources which helps them to be very close to the real situations regards of different issues whether socially, academically, and politically as well. 

To sum it up, we found those results regarding of different uses of social media tools by TTU male and female student through a survey by reaching out 295 students, half of them males and the other half  females. Moving from the most frequent tool that has been used by TTU students among social media tools, using social media tools for social change purpose by TTU male and female student and what they think about the efficiency of using social media tools for that purpose, using social media tools in the classroom  or for helping TTU male and female students by helping them do their homework, to if the social media tools have either negative or positive effect on their life at the two levels, academic and personal level. The results showed us different perspectives and outcomes of those areas regarding using the social media tools. We think social media tools nowadays play a crucial role in our lives, especially for TTU male and female students depending on the results that we found.

Conclusion:

            Social media has become one of the basic elements in students’ life.  Through a survey that answered by TTU male and female students regarding of using social media tools for different purposes and if the social media tools have an effect on their life, either positive or negative, TTU male and female students considered our paper by answering the survey and they were very cooperative by being objective and close to the reality. We found different results regarding what is the most frequent social media tool that has been used by TTU male and female students. We found that TTU students are using Facebook frequently more than other social media tools, and it can show us that they are using this social media tool for different purposes, keeping in touch with their friends and families, checking news, and shopping through Facebook. Regarding using social media tools for social change purposes, we found that most of TTU male and female students could be using social media tools for social change sometimes, not always depending on the results. Moreover, using social media in the classroom or for homework purpose, we found that TTU male and female students are trying to avoid that. Regarding the effect of using social media tools have either negative or positive effect, we found that most of TTU male and female student believe that social media tools have a positive effect on their life in general. Finally, we are thankful for all people’s opinions that helped us to present this survey and for sharing their beliefs regarding using social media tools with us in our  paper.   

Survey:

Demographic Questions:

1.      ___ Undergraduate   ____Graduate    ____ Faculty/Staff/Other

2.      ___ Male      ____Female

3.      Age ____ 18-22      ____ 23-28     ____ 29 or more

4.      Where are you from, originally?   ___ Texas    ___ USA, not TX      ___international

Survey Questions on Social Media

1- Do you use social media as a tool for social change? For example, sharing news, film, or an article that you think is important for promoting social awareness regarding an issue? 

___ Often        ___ Sometimes                        ___ Rarely       ____ Never     ___ N/A don’t know

2- How much do you think social media helps you to have a dialogue with the people you don't know?    `  ___ meet a lot of people I didn’t know      ___ sometimes    ___ doesn’t help/rarely   ___ N/A

3- Do you think social media has a positive impact on your social life or a negative impact?

___ positive                 ____ negative     ____ N/A, not sure, no impact       Why? 

4. How long do you use social media each day?

____ > 4 hrs/day         ___ >2 hrs/day            ____>1 hr/day ____ >1/2 hr/day     ____ <1/2 hr/day

5. Do you agree social media makes you happy?                                                                                                             ___ Yes a lot   ____ sometimes  ____ usually not     ____ N/A/don’t know

6. If you were allowed to use only one social media application what would it be?                                  ___ Facebook    ___ Snapchat     ___ LinkedIn    ___ Instagram      ___Twitter                                                 

___ Any other      ____________

7. Social media sites are nowadays extensively used for networking. Are you in favor of it?               ___ Yes        ___ No        ___ Maybe        ___  I don’t care

8. What is the social media tool you most frequently use every day?                                                              ___ Facebook        ___ Instagram   ___ Twitter     ___ other: __________________________________

9.  What is your passion for using social media applications?                                                                          ___ Checking news      ___ Making new friends      ___ Shopping    ___ Other: _______________________

10. Have you ever been worried about personal privacy being compromised in social media?      

 ___ Yes   ___ No      ___ A little

11. Do you think the government needs to protect the personal privacy in social media?              

___ Yes   ___ No       ___ It depends

12. Do you think social media is useful for expressing your opinion?  ___ Yes   ___ No      ___ It depends

13. Do you feel satisfied when you get “like” from your friends for what you post online?

___ Yes    ___ No     ___ Not sure   ___ N/A, Never use social media

14. When reading posts on social media, I would rather use simple “likes” and facial expressions to give posters feedback instead of detailed feelings and comments.

___ Yes    ___ No   ___ It depends    N/A, Never use social media

15. When socializing online, I find memories are easier to recall when social media posts previous photos and events to me.        ___ Agree    ___ Neutral    ___ Disagree    N/A, Never use social media

16. Do you think posting violent scenarios in social media sites should be allowed?

___ Yes     ____ No      _____ Not sure/N/A

17. What is your opinion about using social media during the class? (choose the best)

___ always do ___ do & think it’s ok ___ do but it’s bad      ___ try to avoid it

18. Do you think social media can be helpful for better studies?    ___ Yes     ____ No

If yes, how does it help?

References:

Abhishek K. (2015, September 13). The impact of social media on student life. Technician  Online.

             http://www.technicianonline.com/opinion/article_d1142b70-5a92-11e5-86b4-cb7c98a6e45f.html

 Brian, J. ( ). The Negative effect of social media on society and individuals. Small Business.

                 http://smallbusiness.chron.com/negative-effect-social-media-society-individuals-27617.html

Carol, M. (2016, May 27),  Social media and technology: Have we gone too far?. The Huffington Post.

           http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-carol-morgan/social-media-and-technology-have-we-gone-too-far_b_10152504.html

Cornell University, (2016, September 7). Posting personal experiences on social media may help you remember them in the future. Science Daily.

            https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160907143204.htm

Gregoire, C. (2015, July 28), Heavy Social Media Use Linked with Mental Health Issues in Teens. The Huffington Post.

          http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/social-media-mental-      health_us_55b129d9e4b08f57d5d3eedf

Jason, T. (2012), Study suggests benefits of social media in the class room. Education  World .

                http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/study-suggests-social-media-has-place-in-classrooms.shtml

Linköping University, (2016, September 7), Driving or talking? The brain concentrates on one thing at a time. Science Daily.

         https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160907082054.htm

Matt,  P.  (2016, September 15). Stressed at Work? Tell It to Social Media. Strategy and Business.

             http://www.strategy-business.com/blog/Stressed-at-Work-Tell-It-to-Social-Media?           gko=eab8b

Rayan, H.  (2015, Nov 18),  Why Businesses Can’t Survive Without Social Media. Fortune.

                http://fortune.com/2015/11/18/businesses-cant-survive-social-media/

Rayan, W. ( 2012, April 13),  More Ways Facebook can affect our daily lives. Mental Health.

           http://www.empowher.com/mental-health/content/more-ways-facebook-can-affect-our-     daily-lives-mental-health

Shiva D. K.  ( 2009, October 27 ) , Social media changing relationships. The Economic Times.

           http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2009-10-27/news/27640812_1_social-media-mobile-phones-relationships

Shlokinani, (2012,  November 12),  Effects of Facebook on communication – Its impact and study. Gocompu.Wordpress.

            https://gocompu.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/effects-of-facebook-on-communication-its-impact-and-study/

City Essay

            Jordan is one of the middle east countries. Jordan has borders with Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Saudia  Arabia. Jordan’s capital is Amman. Amman one of the famous cities in middle east in terms of organizing, public services, business encouragement, and the diversity of people. Amman’s population depends on the latest research has 4 million people after the Syrian crises because of the flowing the refugees from Syria which is made a huge challenge over different aspects. However, Amman is one of the most expensive city in middle east comparing with the local people’s incomes because of the different challenges that faced in the last 10 years.

            In terms of the social life in Amman, Amman has a lot of social life activities and appropriate to most of the people levels that lived in Amman. The activities are summarized that Amman has a lot of cafes and places to hang out with very high customer services and Amman has a huge sport city opened for everyone interested to practice different kind of sports. Moreover, Amman has a very organized public transportation system that can help people to move from place to another and this services having a reasonable prices for everyone. For example, Amman have a network of buses, Uber, Kareem, and a lot of caps everywhere.

            In terms of business encouragement, Amman has a huge business are that attracted by investors from over world, it is called Al-Abdali. In one hand, Amman developed a new criteria’s in order of attraction of investors. This business city “Al-Abdali” is very organized and equipped with a lot of public services that help the investors to run their business which leads to develop and improve the overall economic status of whole country which is Jordan.

            In terms of medical cities, Amman has a huge medical city that people come from different countries of middle east because the medical sector very developed and updated with the world in general.

            Finally, Amman is very organized, equipped, and attracted city to visit, to invest, and live as well. Furthermore, Amman is one of the safest places in middle east as well. (Yousef Melhem)

    

   

Survey of the people affiliated with Texas Tech University

on the perception of issues relating to the Black Lives Matter movement

For the course, ESL-5315-001 

Abstract

Herein, we discuss the perception of the people affiliated with Texas Tech University on the issues relating to Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.  The survey was based on a questionnaire and included approximately three hundred participants and was conducted within the campus.  The results of the survey suggested that the support for BLM movement is not very prominent among the respondents.  Though majority of the participants approved the motives of the BLM movement, half of them perceive that the movement is not headed in the right direction and that the protests for the cause of BLM movement are becoming violent in recent times.  Also, a fraction of the respondents hold a negative perception of the BLM movement and believe that the movement is overly exaggerated.  Majority of this group of respondents also believed that racism is not an issue in the country and that the BLM movement is not necessary.  (Ashwin)

  

Over the past few years there have been several allegations of systematic racial discrimination against the African-American communities by the police in the United States.  Many of these incidents (Taylor, 2016 & Balko, 2016) resulted in the fatality of the African-American involved, raising a nationwide question of whether the police are intrinsically biased against the black communities (Jackman, 2016). The aftermath of such incidents involved various protests, both by individuals like Colin Kaepernick (Waldron, 2016) and black activist groups like Black Lives Matter movement, demanding justice for those oppressed.  Amidst these racial tensions, there are several schools of thought, some of which refuse to acknowledge these persistent issues while others strongly support the black activist groups, comparing the Black Lives Matter to the civil rights movement (Sebastian, 2015). 

With these wide trends of thoughts, we, a group of six at Texas Tech University, decided to study the perception of people on the campus on the issues of racial bias and discrimination of the police against the black communities and their view of the Black Lives Matter movement, as a part of the requirement for ESL-5315-001, writing course.

Literature Review

There have been several scientific studies as well as statistical data that point towards the racial bias among the police.  One such statistic (Lowery, 2016) showed that the probability of an African-American being shot by the police is two times more than that of a white American being shot.  The same article also revealed that unarmed African-Americans are five times more likely to be shot than their white counterparts.  Another similar study (Bui & Cox, 2016) points out that the police are more likely to use force while dealing with black men.  But with regard to the use of lethal weapons, the article found no racial bias in the police community.  Another interesting article pointed to the reverse effect of racism (Taylor, 2016), stating that the police tend to be more careful while dealing with the African-American community, as they are aware of the consequences of mishandling them.  The article points to a simulation which assesses how police respond to armed suspects from different ethnic backgrounds and as stated before, the officers are less likely to fire at an armed black suspect, comparatively. 

With respect of the perception of the public on this issue, the GenForward survey (Swanson, 2016) says that youth tend to believe police are racially biased, with a majority of the participants saying that African-Americans and Hispanics are more likely to be mistreated.  The survey also talks about the personal experience of the participants with the police.  24% of African-Americans and 16% of Hispanics admitted to having had a bitter confrontation with the police, while only 8% of whites and 4% of Asians have had any such experience.  Another article pointing to the CNN/ORC poll (Byrnes, 2014) concluded that most of white Americans (57%) tend to believe that the police do not treat people of color with any difference, while 69% of African-Americans believe that the police are hostile towards their community.  On the other hand, when asked about the use of racial profiling by the police (Ekins, 2014), 70% of the survey participants, irrespective of their ethnic background, opposed such a practice.  The survey also pointed out that Democrats and Independents more strongly oppose racial profiling than Republicans.

Turning the focus towards the perception of people about the Black Lives Matter movement, a survey conducted by Pew Research Center (Horowitz & Livingston, 2016) showed that 43% of Americans supported the movement, while 22% opposed it and about 30% had no idea about what the movement was.  The survey also arrived at an obvious result that the most of the support for Black Lives Matter comes from the African-American communities (65%) and opposition comes from the whites (28%).  A more interesting result pointed out by the survey is that about 33% of the people who had an opinion about Black Lives Matter, claimed that they were not clear about the motives or goals of the movement.  On the other hand, a very recent poll by the Associated Press (Edwards, 2016) says that the support for Black Lives Matter is increasing among the young white Americans.  51% of the white participants surveyed between the ages of 18-30 said that they were in support of the movement.  This was considered as a 10% increase from a previous survey by GenForward. 

Hypotheses

With the above data on the perception of people about the Black Lives Matter movement and the bias of the police against certain ethnic backgrounds, we propose the following hypotheses for the current study:

1. Trying to deduce the perception of people about Black Lives Matter movement from a trend in social media, we believe that people who use a lot of social media in classes might not be aware of the movement.  People who use a lot of social media in classes might be either unaware or not interested in their academic surrounding.  This lackadaisical attitude might well translate into their awareness about the social environment, making them unfamiliar with the Black Lives Matter movement. 
2. Since people who express their disregard to national anthem protests possess a heightened sense of nationalism, we expect that such respondents would not prefer to acknowledge any kind of racial segregation in the country just as a result of their nationalistic pride.
3. We expect that respondents who support parental leave should also be in favor of Black Lives Matter movement.  As both these issues involve equality among different communities (men and women in the former case while blacks and whites in the latter), their response should be similar in both the issues. 
4. As recently, the Black Lives Matter movement is more associated with fighting against racial discrimination by the police, we also suggest that respondents who support Black Lives Matter might have a common perception that the police, in general, are biased and stereotype crime with African-Americans. 
5. A recent survey (Schwarz, 2016) points out that young Americans are more liberal in their political standpoints.  As most of the respondents in our study are young Americans, we believe that their liberal views might reflect in their answers to how the issue of racial bias can be handled by the police.  We hypothesize that most of the participants will suggest training the police and improving the relationship of the police with the black community (the view shared by the Democratic Party and its presidential candidate).

Methods 

Following the hypotheses, it was decided to conduct a survey among the students and faculty members of Texas Tech University to understand the perception of people about the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.  Most of the survey questions were designed in such a way to either prove or refute the hypotheses proposed in the previous section.  A copy of the survey questions in provided in the Appendix.  Unfortunately, due to space constraints in the survey, a question regarding improving the relationship between the police and the African-American communities was removed, which makes it difficult to make a direct conclusion on the final proposed hypothesis about people’s view on community policing and their political standpoint. 

In addition to the questions about the Black Lives Matter movement, the survey also included topics on social media and parental leave, which are also of interest.  In order to get an adequate sample to study this issue, approximately 300 people affiliated with Texas Tech were surveyed.  In this regard, each individual enrolled in the course agreed to survey a minimum of 12 other individuals, comprising 6 American males and 6 American females.  In addition to this, a small number of internationals were also surveyed, which included the students enrolled in the ESL course.  It must be noted that the results presented herein are not representative of the Tech campus in that the number of people studied constitutes less than 1% of the total campus population.  Also, no specific methodology was adopted in collecting the data, and the survey was conducted mostly approaching random participants. 

As specified earlier in the hypotheses section, one of the main purposes of this study was to understand the correlation between people’s perception about the Black Lives Matter movement and their response to different issues regarding social media and parental leave.  In this regard, the participants were asked about their degree and purpose of usage of social media so as to correlate and predict their awareness about Black Lives Matter movement.  Also, the participants were asked about their stand on paternal and maternal leave equality and an attempt was made to correlate this response to their stand on the BLM movement.  All data were gathered using an interactive online Google Spreadsheet. 

Results 

Following the survey of approximately 300 people, we now focus on the results of the survey in relation to the hypotheses proposed in the previous section.  With respect to the hypothesis that correlates social media usage in class with one’s awareness about the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, it can be concluded that there is no strong correlations between the two factors.  This can be observed by the following facts: about 70% of the people who avoid using social media during class hours are aware of the Black Lives Matter movement; however a closer look at the data also shows that around 70% of the people who are active users of social media during classes are also aware of the BLM movement to a certain extent.  Hence, we reemphasize that the usage of social media in class has no correlation to one’s awareness about the BLM movement.  However one must note that, out of approximately the 300 participants surveyed, more that 50% of the respondents completely avoided the usage of social media in class, while only slightly over 20% of the respondents are active users.  Thus the gathered data is more skewed towards non-active social media users.  In order to establish a stronger correlation in the current hypothesis, this bias has to be removed by surveying more respondents who actively use social media during class hours.  Also, it is worth noting that about 25% of the respondents who took the survey were in no degree aware of the motive of the BLM movement.  We were interested in knowing this sub-group of respondents’ social media patterns.  It could be concluded that Twitter, (a major current events based social media app) is not the preference of this sub-group.  Less than 15% of this sub-group preferred Twitter over the other social media apps.  Also, surprisingly only 18% of the respondents who were aware of the BLM movement prefer Twitter over other apps.  We discuss the consequence of this observation in more detail in the discussions to follow.

Secondly, it can be widely seen that the vast majority of the survey participants acknowledged that racism is a problem in the country.  About 70% of the participants acknowledged this, while about 18% felt that racism was not an issue, and 9% of the population surveyed had no opinion.  Also, in general, the support for the Black Lives Matter movement is not very prominent among the respondents.  42% of the respondents expressed their support for the BLM movement, while 34% felt the movement was not necessary, and 10% of the respondents were not sure of their standpoint.  These two counterintuitive data suggest that acknowledging the existence of racism does not necessarily imply support for the BLM movement.  Focusing on the specific hypothesis relating one’s view on the existence of racism in the country and one’s standpoint on Collin Kaepernick’s anthem protest, the data suggest that a significant percent of the population who were against the anthem protest did not think of racism as an issue.  25% of the respondents who were against the anthem protest did not believe that racism is an issue.  Note that this number is higher than the total percentage of people who did not acknowledge racism (18%) in the whole population studied, indicating that this sub-group of people who are against the anthem protest are ones who mostly did not agree with any form of racism existing in the country.  Also, it should be noted that this sub-group of the respondents who did not acknowledge any form of racism, had a negative view on the BLM movement.  72% of this sub-group thought the BLM movement will encourage violence against the police; 50% of this sub-group felt that the BLM movement disturbs the peace in the society and 65% of the respondents who thought racism is not an issue also thought that the BLM movement is exaggerated.   

The third hypothesis that was proposed connects an individual’s opinion on equality in parental leave to his standpoint on equality with respect to the BLM movement.  We hypothesized that respondents who support parental leave will also support the BLM movement, as both these issues involve equality among different sections of the population.  Analysis of the data shows that this hypothesis too lacks clear correlation.  While 40% of the respondents who believed that the parental leave policies should be mandated by the government also supported the cause of the BLM movement, 35% of them felt BLM is exaggerated and must stop.  Noting that about 55% of the survey takers are in favor of parental leave in total, there is almost an equal split among this group in their view about the Black Lives Matter movement.  So evidently, given the sample size of 300 survey takers, there is no correlation between the respondents’ view of parental leave and their perception about BLM movement. 

We now focus on the hypothesis which studies people’s perception of bias in the police community.  In general, most of the respondents felt that the police stereotype African-Americans with crime.  60% of the people felt that the police are biased against the African-Americans, while only 20% felt that the police are not biased and 18% were either not aware of the issues or had no strong opinion.  Also, 36% of the people recorded that the recent police shootings are not accidental, while 20% felt that the shootings were accidental and 40% recorded a neutral response.  With this we now focus on the fourth hypothesis, which states that a strong support for BLM movement will imply that most people think the police are biased against the African-American community.  However, we did not observe this from the data and in fact the reverse was observed.  Though, as stated before, the support for BLM movement was not prominent among the respondents (42%), most of the survey takers recorded that they feel that police stereotype the African-American with crime.  To further explore this, we analyze how respondents who expressed their support for BLM responded to the issues of bias in the police community.  It can be seen that a vast majority of this sub-group (80%) who supported the BLM movement felt that the police were biased.   

The final hypothesis relates an individual’s political standpoint to how he feels the police should handle the racial divide.  However, as stated in the Methods section, the related question was removed from the survey due to space constraints.  Hence, we try to deduce the political standpoint of our respondents with how they have answered most of the questions in the BLM section.  Though 60% of the people think that the police are biased and 70% of the people think that racism is a problem, the overall support for BLM is only 42%.  It must also be noted that a significant percent of the population were neutral on most of the issues related to BLM.  For example, 40% were neutral on their opinion about police shootings and 25% were not aware of the motives of BLM to any extent.  Hence, we state that with this scattered data, it is difficult to arrive at an affirmative conclusion about the political standpoint of the population studied. 

Discussion 

We now discuss in detail the results observed in the previous section.  In general, as expected, the majority of the respondents acknowledged that racism is a problem in the country.  This is not a surprising result, as most of the survey participants were between the ages of 18-25, and in line with many national polls which suggested young Americans acknowledge the racial tension prevalent in the society.  Another general observation is that, despite many national polls suggesting that the support for BLM movement is increasing among college students, we found in our survey that the support for the BLM movement was not as prominent as expected.  The reason for such an observation could be because a significant percent of the population either were not aware of the BLM movement to any degree, or had any opinion on the incidents about police shootings.  On the other hand, though many of the respondents did not have a strong opinion about the BLM movement, many expressed their concern about the anthem protest of Collin Kaepernick.  As we previously hypothesized, respondents who believed racism was not an issue in the country were the majority of those who opposed the anthem protest.  We believe that one’s strong sense of nationalistic pride is the reason for correlation between these two facts.  Also, the respondents who believed racism is not an issue in the country had a negative view on the BLM movement as it can be seen from the data presented in the results section.  This sub-group of the respondents are the majority who were bothered by the stand of the BLM movement, thought the movement is a violent organization, and also believed that the BLM movement is exaggerated in all senses.  We believe that the recent incidents involving the shooting of police officers by some African-American protesters could have made these respondents take a negative stand on the BLM movement. 

We now focus on the first hypothesis, which states that social media users in class should be the ones who are unaware of the BLM movement.  However, as reported in the results section, there was no correlation between the two facts.  This observation is directly attributed to the lack of data on people who use social media in class.  The data collected represented, significantly, the non-active social media users, and hence we conclude that the lack of correlation in this hypothesis is due to the lack of data collected.  We also analyzed the social media pattern of the respondents who were not aware of the BLM movement to any degree.  As showed in the results section, Twitter was the least preferred social media application of this sub-group.  It is also interesting to note that Twitter also was the least preferred app among the group of people who were well informed about the BLM movement.  Out of the popular social media applications available, Twitter is the one based on informing people about current and social events.  Though Twitter is perceived as a major medium for spreading awareness about the BLM movement (Anderson & Hitlin, 2016), the low popularity of Twitter among most of the current set of respondents, who are aware of the BLM movement, refutes the common perception.  On the other hand, most the respondents (around 70%) who used social medial for checking news were aware of the BLM movement to some extent.  Also, it is interesting to note that only a small percentage of people (about 30%) who believed that social media can bring about social changes were aware of the motives of the BLM movement.  To sum up all the information put forth, we conclude that social media plays some part in educating the respondents about the BLM movement, but it is not the only platform for spreading awareness about the movement.
We also hypothesized that majority of the respondents who supported parental leave would also support the BLM movement, as both these issues are related to the equality of certain group of the population.  However, as mentioned in the results section, there was no clear correlation in the data between the two factors.  This indicates that the perception of equality among the respondents was not the same across the issues.  We also perceive that, since parental leave is an issue of direct personal concern to the majority of the population, as opposed to the BLM movement (as only the African-American community would be the most affected and concerned section about the BLM movement), striving for equality may not be of the same degree in both the issues. 

Another important conclusion which can be arrived from the data is, though a significant percent of the respondents agreed that police stereotype African-Americans with crime, the empathy and perception did not translate into their support for the BLM movement.  In fact half of the population who believed police stereotype African-Americans with crime recorded that the BLM movement is moving in the right direction and the other half said that the movement is not heading in the right direction, and is propagating violence in many cases.  This perception is understandable in the wake of recent confrontations between the police and the African-American communities.  This could also be the reason for the mixed perception about the BLM movement, though majority of the respondents acknowledged the existence of racism in the country. 

Finally we discuss the hypothesis which tries to correlate an individual’s political view to his opinion about the BLM movement.  As we previously emphasized, data about this particular topic was not gathered due to space constraint in the survey.   Hence in the results section, we tried to deduce an individual’s political view from his view on the BLM movement.  As stated previously, we observed a lot of scattered data.  There were mixed opinions about the BLM movement, though the majority of the respondents acknowledged racism. This had made it difficult to support or refute the final hypothesis proposed. We also suspect that a simple correlation such as the one proposed herein might not be relevant as one’s political leaning depends on a variety of stands such as economic issues and not just on social issues.

Conclusions

To conclude, this survey intended to study the perception of people of Texas Tech on the issues pertaining to Black Lives Matter movement, resulted in several conclusions.  The survey participants, who were mostly between the ages of 18-22, on an average admitted that racism is an important issue concerning the country.  Despite this observation, the support for the BLM movement among the respondents was not prominent.  While half of the survey takers agreed that the BLM movement is heading in the right direction, the other half argued that the movement is resulting in violent protest of late.  A significant percent of the young population also lacked any knowledge of the movement, leading to the question, if social media, where youngsters spend a significant amount of their time, serves any purpose in spreading social awareness among the population.  Analysis of the results from the survey suggested that social media is not the only platform where respondents gathered their information about the BLM movement yet it does play some role in spreading social awareness about the movement.  Also, it was observed that a small percentage of the respondents who did not acknowledge the existence of racism of any form in the country, widely held a negative perception of the BLM movement.  This sub-group of the population often thought that the BLM movement is exaggerated and even condemned the national anthem protest of Collin Kaepernick.  Also, a significant majority of the respondents believed that the police stereotype African-Americans with crime.  We also note that all the conclusions arrived herein are based on a random sample of approximately three hundred participants.

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