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Making Disney Magic

Many reader posts this week focused on John Foreman’s article, which doesn’t surprise me.  I would have, too.  Full disclosure: I was literally obsessed with Disney as a child, and as far I was concerned Disney could never be bad.  It all started when Cinderella came to my birthday party when I was 3 and told me I was a princess.  I was 5 years old the first time my parents took me to Disney World (which I pronounced Dis-uh-nee), and we’ve returned many times since.  I vividly recall receiving a special hotel room key with my name printed on it, and hiring a family tour guide who could get us extra fast passes as we rode the rides.  It was all about efficiency, and there would be no time wasted.  As my sister and I grew older, it became more and more like a game as we tried to get as many fast passes for as many rides as possible.  It seemed like a race against all other families to do the most we possibly could in the shortest possible time.  In hindsight we were maybe too intense about our vacations.

Modern Fam - gloria- i lose i burn this hose down
The Duncan Family Disney Mentality, as demonstrated by Gloria from Modern Famliy

 

So to me, the Disney MagicBand feels like a device that would cater directly to my weirdly intense family.  We get sucked into the adventure and can’t stop running between rides and discreetly racing other families and buying snacks along the way, which is probably what they want — complete absorption in the entire theme park experience.  The MagicBand removes all obstacles in our way, like having to physically remove your wallet to pay for things.  It seems like it would be a perfect fit for us, so I decided to dig deeper into Disney’s data collection.  Apparently, the MagicBand is technically defined as “an all-in-one device that effortlessly connects you to all the vacation choices you made with My Disney Experience.”  What a nice personal touch.  However, if you check out Disney’s Privacy & Legal page you can actually “review how your information is collected and protected” which will then direct you to this FAQ where you can then access The Walt Disney Company Privacy Center.  The sheer number of links it takes to get to this page is enough for me to lose interest in learning about how Disney is tracking my data.  This stuff is boring so I read it for you.  Here’s what I’ve found.

Disney collects three types of information: personal, anonymous, and aggregate.  They collect your name, address, email, password, gender, date of birth, phone number, payment information, anything posted on their website, anything posted on a Disney app, location information when using their websites or apps, usage, viewing and technical data, and more.  So what happens to your data?  Well, a member (read: subsidiary or affiliated entity) of the Walt Disney Family of Companies (including ABC, Disney, DisneyPixar, ESPN, Hollywood Films, Marvel, Lucasfilm, Muppets, Playdom, Star Wars, and others) will act as data controller.  Specifically, a data processor will be the one analyzing your data on behalf of the data controller.  Using your data, they can “send you offers and promotions for our products” and “provide you with advertising based on your activity on our sites and applications.” From here, you can click through to Disney’s Online Tracking and Advertising page, which, if you’ve made it this far, is where you’ll really lose interest in caring about any of this (with the exception of maybe some data enthusiasts or something).  Do I really want to understand the full reality of giving Disney my data in return for this plasticky wristband of convenience?  Or do I want to be blissfully ignorant as I buy my $9 bottle of water with the wave of my arm, just like a magic wand?  I want to say no, that I wouldn’t be a part of their system, and that I wouldn’t simply give my data away so easily.  But let’s be real…

Tom - this is america, I want it now

Use Your Words

This week in class I chose to observe how often we use specific words.  I chose the words “like”, “um”, “kinda”, “ok”, and “so”, because I wanted to see how often they actually occur in conversation.  I’ve always been reprimanded for using “like” so often, so I wondered if it would be used as frequently in class as it is  in normal conversation.  Turns out, its used fairly commonly in class as well.  Additionally, after the first hour of class I realized that almost every sentence either began with “so” or used “so” as a conjunction.  Here are the results of my tally.

Screen Shot 2015-03-12 at 4.33.02 PM

It turns out that “so” barely edged out “like” for most frequently used.  “Um” was a decently close third place.  “Ok” and “kinda” were not frequent at all, which I found surprising.  In hindsight, other words that I would have been interesting to include are “you know”, “sorta”, “well”, “stuff”, and “whatever”.

 

Ill Effects of College Scattergrams

When looking at a map, Mark Monmonier encourages users to be critical of the subjective influences that have shaped it, emphasizing the undue respect maps receive as compared to other data visualizations. Specifically, Monmonier states that “maps, like numbers, are often arcane images accorded undue respect and credibility,” reflecting his frustration with individuals’ lack of skepticism (Monmonier 3). Well, Monmonier may have been disappointed with my habit of obsessing over college scattergrams during my junior and senior years of high school.

https://www.cappex.com/page/collegeCenter/scattergramStandAlone.jsp;jsessionid=EC6AE4ABF835738BEA2A1BC9B2F08D94.tomcat-main01?id=198385&collegeID=198385&collegeName=Davidson%20College&isForProfitCollege=false

For those who do not know, college scattergrams “are collected data points graphed to show the GPA and test scores of applicants to the college, indicating their accepted pool of students in a visual form” (McNamara). To be honest, I used to scour through these scattergrams for hours, switching from college to college on sites like Cappex , ultimately affecting my decision to apply to certain schools based on the probability that I would be accepted. I fell prey to those who designed these scattergrams, who stripped me of my identity beyond my GPA and test scores. Similarly, scattergrams do not capture the importance of other factors that determine college acceptance, such as extracurriculars, legacy status, college essay, teacher recommendations, etc.. Monmonier would also criticize how rejections are seen as red dots, while acceptances are seen as green, which “mislead the map viewer” into thinking they are an ‘other’ or not worthy enough to be a part of the green dots (Monmonier 3). Therefore, this “visual reduction” of a student negatively impacts their self worth by making it seem as though test scores and GPA are the most prized attributes colleges focus on (Manovich 38). In analyzing data visualizations, we should be mindful of how they only offer a limited and biased view of the bigger picture.

Additional Sources Used:

https://www.cappex.com/page/collegeCenter/scattergramStandAlone.jsp;jsessionid=EC6AE4ABF835738BEA2A1BC9B2F08D94.tomcat-main01?id=198385&collegeID=198385&collegeName=Davidson%20College&isForProfitCollege=false

http://threeforfreecollege.com/2013/09/20/the-truth-about-gpa-test-scores-and-scattergrams/