Questions for interview with the young

Social Media questions

1.       Do you do homework with or without technology, such as other media tools?

2.       Do you use Face book or texting more?

3.       Do you think Face book is better for information?  Or do you like to text for quick immediate answers?

4.      How many times a day do you use your iPhone? Or how often?

Technology questions

1.       What kind of cell phone do you own?

2.       How long does your iPhone hold a charge?

3.       Do you upgrade from 3G to 4G, when it comes out for internet service or your cell phone?

4.       Why?

5.       Who pays for the cost of your cell phone, internet service and when did you get your laptop?

The interview that I conducted was with a 17 year old junior in high school who is a young man.  His nickname is Josh. He is a typical adolescent who uses most of the new technology and I was given a minimum amount of time because of both our schedules.  He is involved with sports, basketball, lacrosse and football.

                The questions were placed into two parts:  social media type questions and technology questions. What I discovered was that he has an iPhone, Mac Laptop and an iPad. Starting with his iPad, he said that he did not have a laptop at first, because his mom thought that he could access the internet, but it was not connected. At that point he would use his iPhone to go on the internet every day to access the web, games, Facebook, texting, and more and he would run up the phone bill to $15 every day.  Then his mom purchased the app and things got better.  They dropped iPad, and his mother bought him a Mac laptop for Christmas last year.

                He goes on Facebook and uses it but not that often because he is busy in his schedule. He uses texting more than Facebook.  Texting is his primary technology for use.  His mother calls him on the phone when he doesn’t answer her text.  The problem with his phone is that he lives in a dead zone for AT&T coverage. He explained that he upgrades as soon as 4G was out, he now has 5G for his iPhone because it helps with connecting and getting a signal.  It is a stronger signal having 5G. He doesn’t charge his phone very often, every couple days, because he shuts his phone off once at night to save the charge. It is important to say that I was surprised that a 4G has less of a chance for a signal in a dead zone than a 5G.

                He does some of his homework on the laptop and he uses a flash-drive to print or to take to school to print, but he doesn’t use it very often. Most of the time he hands in homework the old way, hand written. He said he can type better than his friends who did not take the class in word processing. They still use two fingers when typing.  He said he does use his iPhone several times a day to find his friends.  In his high school, they are not allowed to have their iPhones on at all. They take them away, if they are used. They are given back at the end of the school day.

                In conclusion, I learned a lot about location being important for internet coverage, cell phone coverage and what happens when you have a particular service such as AT&T instead of Verizon. From this interview, I learned that Josh lives in the country where the signal from the towers for his cell phone is the importance, as well as the service from AT&T as your company. Verizon is the better service provider for cell phone in his area. I was surprised about all of that, because he lives on a hill compared to people who live in a valley, and who usually have bad coverage for cell phones living in the country. His mother has changed their internet service a couple times and they now have Gen5 Hughes net. He said she complains about the cost no matter what they have.