Comments for August 31

Topic of the week post

I don’t use all of the social media channels either. I too made a blog just for my intro class. I forgot about the like feature of Facebook until you mentioned it. I thought about going on there and looking up some things to follow. After following a few things on Twitter though, I remembered why I don’t ‘like’ things very much anymore, because it clogs up the newsfeed with advertising. I am aware of the things I would like, and don’t need to be reminded that Mountain Dew is a fine product while I am looking at baby pictures from a distant cousin and reading sad song lyrics.

 

Engagement in social media

You are absolutely right about the use of social media making people worse in real social settings. When writing to someone over the internet, you can filter your thoughts, meaning that you can edit what you want to say into a clean and concise message which can be understood easily. When you are talking to someone face to face, however, exchanges must be made much more quickly.

My View of Social Media

Prior to this class, how much time per day would you say you spent engaging in social media? What are your main uses for social media? Would you say the amount of time spent by people using social media is more of a positive or negative thing and why?

 

Before this class I spent probably 20 minutes a day on Facebook, that is all. I had dabbled in Twitter, but few of my friends use it, so I was tweeting to no one. I use Facebook just to occasionally send someone a link or say hi to someone. If I really need to contact someone I will just call them. I do not do too many status updates. Primarily when I do them it it when I thought of something funny, I do not like to post irreverent things for the sake of posting them. I don’t do politics very much on Facebook any more either. The last time I did, I got into an exchange with a friend of a friend about occupy wall street which did not end well. I think that the use of social media in regards to being positive or negative varies on a case by case basis. It is good to keep in touch with friends, and this is a new medium to do that. I once asked my dad if he stayed in touch with his high school friends after he went to college and he told me that he didn’t talk to them much. He said he would call them sometimes and see them when he went home. That is understandable because landlines were the only means of communication back then. The use of social media for the purpose of staying connected is a good thing. However, some people do it too much. over the summer I was eating lunch with two other people, boy and girl. I was talking to the boy while the girl was playing on her phone. When I asked her what she was doing she said she was talking to someone on Facebook. That really grinds my gears. I was sitting there, at lunch, trying to be sociable, but to her, Facebook was a better channel of interaction than face to face communication. That happens far too often, when the cell phone becomes the centerpiece and human interaction takes a back seat.