week 10

10 Things I Learned While Observing People for 30 Minutes at the Brighton Starbucks

1. Some people are really boring to watch and they do not do much. These people are those that sit still while they read their newspapers or work on their computers. Since they do not move a lot, there isn’t a lot to observe.

2. Some people are really interesting to watch because they do move a lot. These are the people who change seats and gesture a lot while they talk. These are also the people who impatiently wait for their coffee by puttsing around the store and looking around.

3. People switch seats often when they first arrive at Starbucks.

4. Some people talk using their hands constantly and others do not use them at all.

5. There are multiple ways to prepare coffee the same way. By this I mean, if one is putting sugar in their drink and then stirring, there are multiple different ways to do it based on the tinniest of gestures; some people shake their sugar and some do not and some stir for a long time and some barely even leave their stirrer in the drink.

6. At 9 am on a Monday morning there are many different people in Starbucks who are doing many different things. Some people are just in and out of the store getting theirs and others’ drinks, some are here to read the paper, others are here to do work and others to meet with friends. These people are all doing something different and on their own missions but for a space in time occupy the same space.

7. Writing for 30 minutes is tough. First of all it hurts the hand and secondly if it is not busy, it gets boring with people doing the same 3 motions over and over again.

8. Some people are natural people watchers. These are the people who get distracted by everyone who walks by them or into the store. There are also the people who never look up from what they are doing and do not seem to care about those around them.

9. The store will get extremely busy once you are done with the observation.

10. Even with the store not being busy there is a lot going on. I can now see how someone with ADD or ADHD would have problems concentrating in a space such as this. There are constantly things to distract someone and a lot of the movements or gestures that were observed are also those that are used in the classroom. The amount of movement that one individual does is astounding and it would be difficult to sit in a room where there are 30 people doing them.