2A – Bug List

1. My feet getting cold and wet when it rains.
• Why? I step into puddles. I wear shoes the satisfy my want to have a fashionable outfit. Fashionable shoes are typically not waterproof. 
2. When my phone crashes while I am surfing the web.  
• Why? I use my phone every day. Not every phone is meant to last forever. Many phones are sensitive to hard shutdowns which leads to the processor failing more often. 
3. When people are scared to go to the emergency room. 
• Why? All people should be able to get emergency medical attention. Some people do not have the money to pay the bill even with insurance. This gives people fear whenever they may need to go see a doctor.     
4. When my pen runs out of ink. 
• Why? I use pens frequently and many pens only have a limited supply of ink to use. Companies that sell pens do not want their pens to last forever or else their sales drop. 
5. The amount of marine life that is dying. 
• Why? Humans continually dump trash into the oceans. Many sea animals eat the trash mistaking it for food. The animals choke or cannot digest the trash and as a result, die.  
6. How hurricanes destroy infrastructure that cannot easily be fixed. 
• Why? Some areas cannot afford proper infrastructure that can survive hurricanes. In addition, some areas do not have the money to rebuild infrastructure right away. 
7. When my tire goes flat on the highway
• Why? Random debris is always on the roads. Some debris is tiny and not easy to spot and avoid while driving at fast speeds. Most tires are not created to run over sharp debris. 
8. Unsanitary public restrooms
• Why? Many public restrooms are under control by departments that do not have enough money to keep them clean. For example, parks have public restrooms and are under control of the city. If the city loses funding they have less money to clean restrooms.
9. When businesses are not accommodating to people with disabilities. 
• Why? A large amount of money is needed to invest in accommodations for people with disabilities.
10. Whenever I write the paper I would be writing on gets caught in the wind. 
• Why? Paper, especially in notebooks, get caught by the wind at one of the page openings. 
11. In my hometown, all but 3 restaurants close after 10 p.m. on weekdays.
• Why? The small population size of the town leads to a limit many restaurants demographics. 
12. It is not easy to recycle computers in my rural area
• Why? In many rural areas, free recycling programs are difficult to maintain because of the limited amount of people that would need that service on a consistent basis
13. Waiting in line at the grocery store during their lunch rush when there are open registers.
• Why? Many grocery stores only schedule half of their cash registers to be used at any point. Many stores do not want to have a self-checkout machine because it raises the chance of theft. 
14. Gerrymandering in elections.
• Why? Political parties draw out districts to give themselves a significant advantage. This devalues the way the overall population's votes 
15. Child Hunger
• Why? Some families do not have a breadwinner with a consistent income. When the breadwinner of the family does not have enough money for food their children will have fewer opportunities to eat.   
16. Traffic Jams not at peak “rush hour” times
• Why? Many roads in big cities were built with predetermined population growth for the people that would use the roads. These estimates were typically conservative. In addition, many cities do not have enough funding to reconstruct roads with more lanes.  
17. No easy way to convert my DVDs into Blu-ray discs.
• It is more profitable for companies to resell the owner of an older movie in a different format than to allow them to buy a machine that can transfer content on DVDs to Blu-Rays. 
18. Cell phones that need to be replaced after 2 years 
• Why? Most phones today have lithium batteries and when they are not properly maintained can lead to the battery not being able to hold a charge. Some phones, such as Apple iPhones, do not have the ability to change the battery. 
19. When my cold cup creates condensation and leaves rings on my desk.
• Why? The cold contents of the cup reacting with the warm surrounding air cause the cup to have water attached to it. The cup is not designed to stop condensation. 
20. Mandatory software updates on my computer that last 2 hours 
• Why?  Companies, like Microsoft, want to continue to improve their software in a convent way. They determined the best way to improve their software, Windows, on their customers’ computer is to have an update that is downloaded. This downloading process takes several hours. 

Reflection:

   I found this assignment easy for the sole reason that this is the way I was taught to look at problems. In early schooling, I was asked to look at problems and brainstorm why they exist. This translated to now when I am asked to analyze why a problem exists I always try to find the deep-rooted cause. For each of the annoyances above, I would first try to think about my interactions with that annoyance. Then I would continue to think about how other people would interact with that annoyance. Many times I did have to stop myself from finding a solution during this activity because I was almost instantly trying to come up with one for each other problems.

The hardest part for me personally was thinking about 20 things that bug me rather than explaining and understanding how they exist. It was easy to find 10 personal annoyances that I face on a daily basis. Then the next 10 seemed to include more societal problems that would take a lot of effort to understand and change.