David Brooks: Social Animal

I took away from this video is that sometimes being a "social animal can get to your head. When you are more social, you live by different standards rather than someone who is not socially popular. A family who is socially in might be a family who has successful parents and attractive children who they insist must get into Harvard. However, for a family that is not as socially in, they may not try as hard to marry somebody who is beautiful, rich, and a alumni of Harvard. They might not even want their kids going to Harvard due to the extreme financial costs.

    The speaker's effective is that he gives techniques of what these look like. For example, he gives an example of what politicans do scandalously due to their social abilities. After hearing about many politican scandals that have happened in America, many people understood his point. The point that really struck everybody was his point about the families of beautiful kids who are all expected to go to Harvard. Since we see this more often then not in society, this really sparked a point through the people.

    His presentation is mostly talk. Pictures are not needed, as his presentation is meant to be something that you visualize in your head. He makes it very easy to understand, so pictures are not necessary. Also, everytime he makes a point, he follows it with a story. This is useful, because it helps people grow and understand better.

What matters in this video is that our society can be shallow through our social norms. We do not always want to realize our emotions. We constantly try to build ourselves up. For example, in many sports, even if the kids lose every single game, they still get an award. A few years back, my little brother's soccer team lost every single game, and yet they still had an award ceremony filled with trophies and celebration. Even when I have dance competitions, everybody still gets an award along with a special award for something that they noticed about the group. In one of my tap dances last year, we got an award for "Best Hands". Really? Do they actually feel the need to give us an award just because they wanted every single dance to feel as though they had accomplished something? Also, with this feeling of greatness that we all like to believe we have, we tend to build ourselves up and make our lives sound better than they actually are.

    This video connects to me personally, becasue sometimes I like to build myself up as well. If I did bad on a paper, sometimes I blame it on the teacher for being a terrible grader. However, I do not often stop and think as to if it is my fault if I did this or not. I even see other people do it too. If they do not pass the math test they took, they just say that the teacher is at fault. I also feel that when I am socially accepted, sometimes I can act out a little more than if I was not socially accepted.
 
      This video connects to education, because many teachers and students think that they are awesome when maybe all of them are not. According to Brooks, 95% of teachers think that they are above average teachers. Did you think that 95% of your teachers were above average? I do not think that I do. Basically, many teachers who probably do not teach well, are believing that they are excellent. Certainly there are some excellent teachers out there, but not all of them are. Also 96% of college students say that they are above average in social skills. How many students actually are super social? I am pretty sure that 96% of college students are not extroverts.

   This video connects to the world, because in our world we are constantly influenced by this false buildup. For example, in the television show Gossip Girl, it is basically about a  bunch of high schoolers and college students who were raised to be beautiful and expected to get into the best colleges, because of their academic or athletic skills and their parents' money.

Gossip Girl is a television show about a bunch of high schoolers who live by the social norms of the rich and famous. They act out, because they know that they will be forgiven faster than the average person. Also, they are all expected to get in to great schools. These are an example of the people David Brooks mentioned in his talk.

When people see shows like Gossip Girl, they constantly feel as though they are capable of achieving this social succes. However, many people are and still act out and do what they are not suppose to do. All of the sudden, they are surprised as to why they are having issues in their life.