Waching daily Sep 23 2017

Hello everyone, I want to thank you all in advance for watching my application video.

Today I am going to be talking about the Social Penetration Theory. The Social Penetration

Theory states that as a relationship continues to grow and develop the communication in this

relationship goes from light and simple to a deeper more personal level. Now for this

presentation I am going to focus on a more specific aspect of this theory which is the

aspect of closeness through self-disclosure. Self-disclosure is the voluntary sharing of

one's personal past, values, and secrets with another person. This closeness is achieved

in a relationship by each person opening up to one another. The more they share the closer

they feel to each other on a personal level. The story I am going to share today has to

do with my personal life and who I live with. I have three other roommates in my apartment

but this story is only about one of them her name is macy. Macy and I met back in high

school, we did a club together called younglife and I would say we were pretty good acquaintances

we weren't super close but we had hung out a couple times in group settings multiple

different situations. When I went home back last year for christmas break I ran into her

and of course we did some catching up. So she told me she was going to transfer her

to UTSA for her junior year and she asked me if I needed another roommate for this year.

At the time I still needed a roommate and I had always thought that Macy was super sweet

and had great morals so I said sure why not! Now getting closer to move in day I realized

I didn't really know anything about her other than I thought she was super sweet and nice

and we'd only hung out a couple times. So I was a little nervous to see what would happen

because being good acquaintances is completely different than living with someone for a whole

year. So I was excited and nervous to see what was going to happen. For the first couple

days after move in um everyone was running around doing some last minute shopping and

spending all our time with our families until they went home and we were left on our own.

So we didn't have our first real encounter together until about the fourth night after

moving in. Um the first couple times we talked were just small talk, little small conversations

here and there. On the fourth night after our parents left and all our families were

gone back home and it was just us two in the apartment um our other roommates were out

and about, we ended up sitting on her bed just talking for about two hours I think about

stories from our past and just really opening up and getting to know each other. This was

honestly the greatest thing that could have happened for our friendship ever since then

macy and I have only continued to grow closer together and she's now one of my closest friends.

We spend almost all our time together at least three times a week before we go to sleep she'll

come lay on my bed and she'll just tell me things about her week and how things are going

and she'll really open up and share everything and of course I do the same. We just tell

each other everything um our two other roommates have also joined in and every time we have

these late night talks our bonds only continue to grow stronger. Some of the reasons I believe

this theory works the way it does is because sometimes people just need someone they can

vent to or share something upsetting so they can just get it off their chest, it's not

healthy to keep things locked up inside so when we find people we can open up to we begin

to feel very comfortable with them and keep going back to them to share more and just

really open up. Now I would like to discuss how I can take this experience and my new

understanding of this theory and apply it to other aspects of my life. I would most

definitely use this in a work setting as a communications major I always hear that communications

industry is about who you know um i think that using this theory with my fellow workers

in the communications industry could go along way because getting to know people could bring

me to a deeper level and bring us on a better communication and better friendship and that

could really help out in the long run when needing those connections and needing to meet

new people you know we could always go back to each other and say hey that 's a familiar

face we're pretty good friends and in the long run it could just be very beneficial.

In conclusion now that I have experienced this for myself I would probably act differently

by paying more attention to someone's likes and dislikes and making more of an effort

to really get to know someone instead of just making small talk here and there and making

sure I really get to know them for who they are. I believe that I've gained a better perspective

on how great it can be to really open up and the benefits that could come along with it.

To end my application video I would like to leave y'all with a quote that I think sums

up this video and this theory perfectly and that is, "friends give us the courage to lift

the blinds on our hearts. and to open up and show what we generally keep hidden from the

rest of the world." Thanks for watching!