While current Grinnell Students made up only 53% of the survey respondents, much of the data and focus of this study will be on them (Root-Wiley). While alumni, faculty, and staff, all use Plans for many of the same activities as current students, current students are the only ones who are constantly surrounded by and forced to interact with each other on a daily basis both on- and offline.
First, I will show that Plans satisfies all the criteria for a community as set forth by Amitai and Oren Etzioni.
Second, I will further explore the interactions between real life and the virtual community to show the hybrid features of the community. This will include a focus on plan love and the auto read list.
I did not enter this research with any clear hypothesis. I was only interested in collecting some data to inform or at least confirm some of my assumptions about Plans. While a comprehensive study of Plans would take months and require additional ethnological research on top of my survey, I hope to begin to delve into the Plans community. This survey specifically focused on the auto read list, plan love, and the use of Plans as only one form of communication. While seemingly basic, these are the tenets that drive Plans at the most basic level, and any further research into Plans would be less valuable without a basic understanding of these primary underlying forces.