After my site visit and interview, I was less nervous about my second interview, but I was still pretty nervous. The week I had my first interview, my mom went on Common Sense Media, and she got in contact with Michael Robb, the Director of Research, and they agreed to do an interview on Tuesday, May 22. However, we realized later on that we had to move it because of my Ellis Island Field Trip, so we moved the interveiw one day later (I was kind of happy about that because I think if he interview was on Tuesday, I wouldn’t have been ready for it)

I met with Mrs. Edwards on Wednesday at school, and we got my questions ready. I came up with 10 questions with the help of my mom and Mrs. Edwards. Here they are:

1. What attracted you to your line of work?
2. What are your responsibilities at Common Sense Media?
3. What are the pros and cons of playing video games?
4. What makes video games so addictive and how is an addition to video games the same and/or different from an addiction to drugs?
5. What’s your company doing to help alleviate the problem of addiction?
6. How can you minimize the negative effects from playing video games?
7. What role does age play when talking about the effects of video game playing on the brain?
8. What trends have you observed in kids and their electronic usage?
9. What percentage of kids are mostly affected?
10. What can we (parents, teachers, educators) do to help kids to be less addicted?

At 4:00 after school, my mom and I called Michael Robb using Skype. My mom voice recorded the whole thing, and she helped type up the information while I wrote it down.

Afterward, I really think I learned a lot, like the main problems with video games, and how Common Sense Media addresses those problems. I realized there wasn’t really anything to be nervous of.