How much do UNT students interact with one another while walking to class?

Arron Cannon - UNT Geography Major

 

At first the experience of observing random UNT students as they walked to and from class was a tad awkward for me. I felt as if I were spying on the unknowing UNT students and judging their behavior on why or why not they interacted with each other but after a few short minutes I realized that this experiment was also for me, to see if I could be observant to the world going on around me. In the beginning of my short social experiment I asked myself whether or not electronic devises played a role in students being antisocial. Almost 7/10 students were preoccupied with some sort of electronic device but even the students that were not using their phones, laptops or headphones were just as antisocial as the ones that were in fact in an electronic trance. So I denounced electronic devise being the reason why hardly any UNT students interacted with each other. One particular student wearing clothing that would be associated with working-out stopped another female UNT student with the same type of athletic wear and I assume asked a question but I cannot confirm whether or not a question was asked since I was too far away to hear the short conversation between the two. I then made a very broad assumption about the experiment I was conducting that students who shared a common interest with one another were more likely to interact with each other. By this time fifteen or so minutes had passed and I found myself searching the area for more students that were interacting but to no avail. I was sitting on a bench right outside the Environmental Science Building at UNT so my position was in plain sight, and the only students that noticed me were a couple of fellow geographers. The two guys I had known from previous classes asked me what I was doing so instead of quickly explaining what was going on in the hopes they would leave me alone in my social experiment I decided to make them involved. I asked if they would like to help me in the name of science, they both smirked and said “ok”. I then instructed them to haphazardly select a UNT student they did not know and start a conversation. Only one was bold enough to take part and after the first awkward failed attempt I concluded that was more than enough evidence I needed for this experiment plus the instructor waved us in. I found that other than the two female students that quickly engaged in conversation no other students had a slight inclination of others around them.