YouTube

We, students of the SIUC’s Center of English as a Second Language, located in Carbondale IL, advised by Mr Leverett and Mrs Phillips-Zee, decided to do a survey on YouTube. We asked Americans several questions related to privacy, copy rights, and government control because these are the main topics of our “newstalk” class, as well as article discussion, that is, each day one student brings up a polemic topic he/se has found trough an article and the other classmates are supposed to discuss about it. The answers were computed according to both gender and age of the surveyed people. As we are learning English, the main goal of this survey was to force us to talk to Americans, practicing our English. I did my survey very quickly since not only my neighbors but also all of their friends are friendly Americans. I went to their house and asked them some questions, and the next day their friends knocked on my door because they wanted to answer the survey too. One fact very funny happened. One girl, who was extremely drunk, wanted to answer, but she couldn’t read very well, so I had to read for her, and also it took a long time, because she couldn’t concentrate in only one thing at once. Everybody I asked knew about YouTube, but not everybody uses it very often, and a very few people have put movies on Youtube, or even sent movies to friends.

I am not surprised with the answers. I was expecting exactly what the result of the survey has showed us. Almost every American has heard about YouTube. Almost everybody has cell phone. I’ve noticed that men are more likely to use the computer as a sort of entertainment because they answered positively the questions related to video downloading and “whether they are interested in YouTube or not” more than women did. And also they are more likely to seek illegal forms for keeping watching clips. Both men and women didn’t know about the problem between YouTube and Viacom, however, after I explained them, they gave their opinion, even though the result of the survey doesn’t show it. Women are more afraid of being filmed, they tend to keep their privacy more than men, in their opinion, the people who film you without permission should be punished. For me the most interesting finding was about government control. The number of people that thinks the government should control what is showed is greater among over-thirty’s. It seems they are trying to protect their children. They don’t want to expose their children to everything posted online. It can be proved by looking at the number of women over-thirty that said the government should control not only the language but also the movies posted online on YouTube. Some of them said the government should be able even to block websites.

In my opinion this survey reflects the reality. I’ve read men are more likely to use the Internet as an entertainment. While for some people YouTube is a way to have fun, for other it is nothing more than business. I don’t agree with some things that are shown on there, but I also don’t agree with some kind of advertisement shown on TV. I don’t like some kind of appeal that companies are used to doing to get new clients. I feel the company has had success when I see a nice ad, that I can enjoy watching it. But I feel the opposite when I see ads that one company tries to shame another. It also happens on the political sphere. So, I agree with free clips, and I enjoy watching them, but I totally disagree with illegal things, as well as movies that can influence badly in the children’s education. We have asked many people, I would say we’ve asked enough number of people to give us a good notion about what Americans know and think about the issue. I would include question about whether they have computer or not. Another important thing for me is the frequency they are used to using the internet, because one person who uses the Internet with low frequency, or even doesn’t use it won’t very likely know about YouTube. My last opinion is that we should have asked them the reason why they would block a movie. It was a very interesting survey though. Beyond the practice of our listening & speaking, we could be more informed about a current issue.

Andre