Hunter College Strangers Essay

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There’s no doubt that thousands and thousands of people attend Hunter College every day. Yet, as I travel the hallways of Hunter College or squeeze my way into the elevators, I realized that there’s always this one same thing that keeps repeating over and over again. Every time someone is surrounded with strangers, they do one of the following- stare at the ceiling, avoid eye contact, go on their phone to look “busy” or simply stayed quiet. It is true that when we’re surrounded with strangers for the first time, it can be a bit intimating. I mean, we don’t know the person next to us so we can’t really act ourselves. But I wanted to go deeper into this problem; I mean I wanted to know why majority of us can’t start a conversation with a perfect …show more content…

Or is it because technologies are advancing so it’s easier to talk to strangers on social media than in person? So I decided to do some research. I went all around the school and asked ten random college students the same question – “What’s the first thing you do when you’re surrounded with strangers and have nothing to do?” And then I asked “Why?” Of all the ten people I asked, 60% would not start a conversation with a stranger. They explained it’s because they either did not know them or because they sucked at starting a conversations with strangers. From the 60% who would not interact with these strangers, 40% reported that they would have used their phone to either play games, text someone they knew, go to social media or listen to their music in order to avoid the awkward moment. The remaining 20% would either mind their own business or stay there doing nothing since they have no real connection/ reason to interact with a stranger. On the other hand, only 40% of the participants would interact with the stranger. When I asked them “why?” they responded with the fact that they were either social enough and knew how to start a conversation with a stranger or they’re simply trying to make new

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