Drowning in Logos

A new iphone application entitled "Logos Quiz Game" has gained quite a bit of popularity recently. I wanted to try it out for myself, so I downloaded it to my iphone and started playing, and now I can't stop. I'm hooked! I beat the first five levels in a day! That's over 200 logos. 


Though, when I closed the application I realized that it was kind of weird that I was playing a quiz game identifying big companies' logos. Why am I able to recognize so many logos off the top of my head?  


It's not only me who is extremely skilled at identifying logos, it's our whole country. According to Jay Walker-Smith, President of Yankelovich (a market research firm), "We've gone from being exposed to about 500 ads a day back in the 1970's to as many as 5,000 a day today" (CBS). 


At first when I read this statistic, I was skeptical, 5,000 is a enormous amount of ads. But, then I started thinking about it and I realized, ads are everywhere: Your tv, your newspaper, on the radio, on billboards, on the internet, on facebook, in movies, in music videos, the sides of trains, the sides of buses, the side of buildings, the sides of boats, vending machines, iphone apps, tray tables on airplanes, examining tables in a doctor’s office, taxi video screens, subway turnstiles, sports stadiums, benches, even your coffee cup has an advertisement on it. 




So, are we drowning in logos? I think yes. If high school students had to take a test on identifying countries on a world map and a test on identifying logos, which one do you think they would score stronger on? 

To Measure an Education

Growing up in an upper-middle class neighborhood, I've been told repeatedly just how lucky I am to be receiving such a high quality education. Due to some ignorance, I never truly understood what I was being told--until I began writing my junior theme. I'm doing my junior theme on the cutting of arts education is America's schools.

Did you know that fewer than 50% of 18 year olds have received an arts education? That in itself is a pretty staggering number, but the shock only continues once you learn how much that percentage drops when applied to minorities; particularly minorities living in lower class neighborhoods. 26% of 18 year old African Americans and 28% of 18 year old hispanics have received an arts education in their lifetime.

A quarter of some minorities in our country have not received an arts education.

An arts education that allows students to grow intellectually, socially, and emotionally. An arts education that has been proven to raise test scores and reduce tardies and truancies.

Three in four children of these minorities have never received that.

And we as Americans wonder why minorities have an extremely high, high school drop out rate?

What if--what if 100 percent of minorities had the ability to receive an arts education, would their drop out rate decrease? I sure think so.

I finally understand how lucky I am, but with this understanding comes guilt. Every school I have attended throughout my life has offered art classes. If I'm going to a public school shouldn't everyone else enrolled in public schools be receiving the same kind of education I am? I think that for what lower classes' property taxes (that fund public schools) lack, the government should make up in. Aren't we supposed to be a "fair" country?

My statistics for this post can be found here and here.

Thanks for reading,

Chrisanthy