· Stay off of social media for 2 days

· Try to work out more instead of being on social media

· Commute with friends/family on different platforms

 

· This is going to be extremely hard. When I am bored, and people are busy to chat I rely heavily on browsing social media

· The hardest platforms to avoid are Instagram and Snapchat.

· During this challenge I need to focus on trying new things and focus on who I am as a person.

· Doing this challenge will be interesting and beneficial because I will understand the effect social media has on a person. 

 

Overall, I was doing really good on the challenge until I went to hang out with a friend. I made sure my friend knew about the challenge and to only contact me through texting so we could still communicate. On day 2, I went to hang out with my friend instead of hangout at my house all day so I wouldn’t break the challenge. When I was hanging out with my friend, I had to do a quick assignment that was due before we continued to hangout. When my friend was waiting for me to finish, she was on her phone; she was looking at Tik Tok videos. I could hear the sound when I was doing homework and I was really trying not to look. I ended up failing because I looked over and saw a video she couldn’t stop laughing at. 

I learned that avoiding Social Media is way harder than I thought. Even if you choose not to use it others around you will rely on it. Social media has become the new norm that people do today instead of trying new activities. During my situation with my friend, I wasn’t going to deny her from using social media around me. This was my own challenge that I was doing.  During this challenge, I never really had any major emotions. The only time I thought about giving into Social media was when I was bored. Due to natural habits I decided to move the social media apps to a different screen on my phone to prevent of clicking on the app out of habit. I have noticed in the past I would open the apps out of boredom habits and shuffle though the apps that were downloaded on my phone.


Length of the challenge
My challenge sadly only lasted 2 days. During this time I really got to teach myself that I don't need to rely heavily on social media. I can explore the world more with my friends. I can also focus on bettering my health and eliminate some social media times for exercising. 

            The major reason for my increased phone time is to communicate with people I couldn’t see in person as much. I didn’t want to lose my friendships and bonds with the people I had in person, so I made sure I stayed connected online. Overall, keeping connections with people made my self-esteem better, and not having the pandemic affect my current life. When watching the video, the social dilemma, I really understood that everyone during the pandemic is becoming more hooked to social media than they ever did before. Due to limited time to reach out with friends you have to heavily rely on the platform. Due to the pandemic, many people like me were forced to get sucked into social media.

            Another change I had to face was having school online. This really affected me because I transferred to the school in September 2019 and by March 2020 everything was moved online. I missed a lot of experiences from school and having to form better connections. Having classes on zoom really took a lot on my old computer. ½ way through school I had to purchase a new computer. As for learning in class, Zoom was a hard environment to learn in. I am a hands-on learner and having everything virtual is made it harder to focus. Especially since I was able to have my phone. Zoom life overall was just hard to fully focus on class for 2 hours straight.

When gyms started to close, I wasn’t able to participate in my daily exercises. This upset me because I wanted to continue to better myself both physically and mentally. I decided that I was going to do online classes to maintain the muscles that I worked for. I never thought I would be doing workouts online when I didn’t really own any workout equipment.

Finally, the last thing I participated in online during the pandemic is having virtual tours during the 4^th of July and New Year's eve. Due to the fireworks being canceled, there was no way to enjoy the fireworks show. So as a background image there was a virtual show at the space needle. They went all out on their laser show so the audience can enjoy the best they could during a pandemic. Another concept that that made me realize what people like me are going through during the pandemic is the participatory media culture. The barrier is low to enter, and many people can join when they want to. During a time of uncertain times, companies were trying to find a community space for people to enjoy and engage with their close network of friends. The goal was to keep everyone safe while being able to enjoy a holiday with their close network of people.  Also, many people don’t know what real and what fake when browsing. As a result, anyone could view the lifestream of fireworks at their confidence and advertising of the stream. according to Vogel, "Young adults are particularly likely to have participated in these activities. Roughly half of adults ages 18 to 29 (48%) say they have had a virtual party or gathering because of COVID-19, compared with 38% of those ages 30 to 49 and 21% of those 50 and older." since I participated in the 4th of July celebration, I was one of these people. It was nice to have data that roughly 50% of Americans were being safe during the pandemic. 

Overall, the pandemic is a strange time to try to enjoy life in person. Right now the online world is really important for everyone to try to maintain their mental health high. 

 

Instagram 

When I am about to take photos, I straighten my hair and put make on my face. I feel more confident when I cover my blemishes. The next step I do before my picture is to put on an outfit that I haven’t worn in a picture and feel satisfied with my appearance. After I have taken around 20 pictures, I will choose my favorite 1-2 photos and post them to my account. However, before I post the picture, I will edit the picture lighting to make myself look tan with a filter. I want to make sure I have the best pictures displayed so I can try to get the most likes. Overall, it boosts my self-esteem when I reach a new record. 

 

Snapchat

When I use Snapchat, I don’t enjoy taking pictures with my natural face unless it’s a long-time friend. I am guilty of using filters to cover my natural look. I will send pictures with a funny filter on my face, the classic dog filter, different lighting filters, etc. It makes me feel better about taking fast pictures to keep the conversation going. The biggest issue with Snapchat is my friend will screenshot pictures where I don’t look my best and save them to look back at later. 

 

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the last social media I focus on. On this platform, I am really focused on maintaining the most connections. Due to jobs looking at this platform, I don’t want to look like I barely use the site. Also, due to graduating in June, I want to make my job search the easiest and try to use my social media to my advantage. 

 

Connection to class

When looking at this challenge my life strongly relates to the term curatorial. In society, everyone has an idea of how a person should look when they post on social media. This really plays a part in everyone’s life; especially mine. Before I upload any post, I think to myself, “will people like this more than my last post?” If the answer is no, I will discard my editing and post something later on. 

 

The other concept in this class that relates to my view on social media is to build networks. Today, especially during a pandemic, it is hard to stay close to everyone right now. Everyone wants to know how you are doing in the pandemic and uploading to social media is how everyone is able to stay close. However, it is especially hard on people’s mental health right now because everyone wants to maintain their average amount of likes. If people start to see a decline it makes them think that people don’t enjoy their posts anymore. 

 

During the pandemic, I have been focusing on limiting my posts on social media. I have currently deleted my account on Facebook and Twitter. I hope that in the near future I will be able to delete my Snapchat. I used to focus so much on getting the most likes and getting the most followers. I now realized I haven’t talked to any of these people in years and won’t talk to them in the future. I want to keep my life private now and focus only on sharing in person and texts. 

An issue that Goffman addressed is how socializing has become so much harder because encounters are premeditated. No one truly knows each other in person when following each other. We all are just networks in a way. Everyone wants to portray a view of their world with a role they desire, it doesn't have to be real. However, everyone will portray you differently whether you like it or not. This view on society causes bias on social media platforms. People who view your posts think you portray the perfect life. However, that is usually not the case.  

This photo was taken by a photographer and was highly edited. It is my favorite picture but it does show the real me.

 

Matt does make good points about the financial attributes the government is doing, but it is impossible for the economy to fully crash. The president already has released a statement that if an individual gets a job offer, they will automatically lose their unemployment benefits. This would prevent the economy from fully crashing. Biden states that the individual must accept the job even if the offers less money than unemployment benefits. Also, in the next 4 months, all the unemployment files that were reported at the beginning of the pandemic will expire. At that point, people must file for a job that is being offered in the economy. 

 

Currently, many companies are looking for employees to join their company, especially truck drivers due to the port being backed up. There are many shortages of products to it the products just sitting in the port waiting to be unloaded and delivered to companies. People shouldn’t have an issue finding a job before their unemployment expires. 

 

Within this article, there is a lot of ton of misinformation to the audience. Matt is addressing all the small issues that are happening in the economy and stating that this minor detail is going to completely make the economy collapse. However, this is not the case. Another factor that Matt portrays in the article is gaslighting. Matt gaslights on the concerns that are happening in the US right now. As a result, many readers will start to believe Matt and think the economy truly is going to collapse. The reader then gets stressed out for the future due to the globe still being in a pandemic and many American’s still struggling with bills.

 

I personally believe that Matt is using Satire in this article to get to people on unemployment. Unemployment is a perk that many Americans have gotten during the pandemic. If this perks, they are getting free money from sitting on their couch. By exaggerating about the economy crashing due to stimulus check and unemployment, many people relying on that may believe the article and feel bad about not helping the company return back to normal. This also may scare people on unemployment to job search to help save the economy from crashing. If this is the case, then Matt did a great job because the information he laid out sounds very concerning, and the event needs to be changed now or else the economy will fall. 

 

According, the Marwick and Lewis, social media is where people find the most articles and get the most attention. Many people find news articles that are fake and start to believe what they are reading because it was on the internet. However, this gives the audience a lot of misinformation around the world. Just like Matt’s article, many people may not know what to believe about the economy anymore. They are paranoid about the money they have to earn and where that may go with the economy crashes. This could also scare people away from buying a new house. If the economy were to crash, they would be scared of wasting their money on a house that has lost value.

The app offers a variety of functions and capabilities. This includes editing photos, messaging friends, posting pictures, having a live stream to update people, and adding stories to allow temporary posts. By swiping to the right of the app you are allowed to message anyone you follow. When you select a photo, you can edit the photo to adjust the light setting to your choice. This allows people to eliminate having another app to edit their photos. 

Another perk Instagram has recently added is having a business profile. This lets people advertise their business and connect to people more locally. They are also able to add links to their post to help have easy access to their followers. 

Another thing Instagram could have been designed for was to connect different people with similar posts online. According to O'Neil, “To build an algorithm, we only need 2 things. A historical data set and a definition of success.” This would be easy for Instagram to add this sort of feature as they already know people's like interests that they have posted over the years they have used the app. Currently, the app functions by allowing you to find people and their close friends. Instagram doesn’t promote your connections of people who have similar posts and relations to each other. This feature would allow people who are in public be able to meet new people on the platform. 

This function could have been included to filter out people's posts that you might not agree with. Right now, whoever you follow will see their posts online. If you don’t like the topic of their post, you will still have to view it. This might change the views of their friends and families if they don’t agree with their posts. By creating this feature, the app would develop an algorithm. According to Cathy O’Neil, “algorithms are typically from a “homogenous group of people who have their particular incentives.”

I can expect that female millennials and generation Z would enjoy this app more than most people. This group of people would enjoy being able to post pictures of them and gain likes. I also think that anyone interested in art would be on the Instagram platform. They would be able to display their artwork online and even promote their work. Within this app, people like to post their proudest moments in life. Similar to the show Nosedive, people post the good in their life to receive compliments and votes. They don't want to post the bad parts of their life because they want to expect people to view them as perfect. 

The users that might be excluded from this app are older people. They might not understand all the features the app offers. They also might not find a ton of their friends and family on the platform if they are in the same age group. 

The value of Instagram is to help people develop their creativity in a simple matter. The overall goal is to allow people to post their art and pictures online to share their art with the world and people close to them. 

When interviewing my dad, he stated that he doesn’t really post much online. He typically comments on friends' posts and occasionally will post family pictures on Facebook. He has Instagram and Twitter but doesn’t post anything on Them. He also mentioned that he doesn’t really even open the apps. He only has friends connected on his platform to keep his network close and to update them if he ever decides to post. 

Through social media, he found that the Flogging Molly concert was going to be virtual on St. Patrick's day. According to Emily Vogels, "adults under the age of 50 are more likely than those ages 50 and older to say they have live-streamed a concert or play (24% vs. 16%) or exercised via an online fitness class or video (25% vs. 10%)."  

 

News

I asked my dad how he gets updates on the news and what is happening in the world today. He gets his information from news on TV and through the radio. He doesn’t search for news updates online because he knows that the important stuff around the world today will be mentioned through KOMO or CNN. He doesn't want to read articles online that could portray fake news; especially if the author is resulting in misinformation. He believes the TV news is the most accurate way to find information. According, the Marwick and Lewis, social media is where people find the most articles and get the most attention. Many people find news articles that are fake and start to believe what they are reading because it was on the internet. Based on the interview with my dad, this was the main reason why he wanted to avoid fake news. He didn't want to believe the wrong information.    

 

Bills

I asked my dad how he typically pays for bills. He said about a decade ago he would use checks a lot more for bills than he does today. He has set up all the bills to be automatic deposit on the 5^th of every month. This allows him to never miss a bill and eliminates the time and the hassle of paying monthly bills. As for medical bills, he has to wait for the letter to be delivered in the mail, so he knows the exact amount that is needed. This is essential for him because he can’t access everyone’s mychart account to know the amount for the bill. 

 

Shopping

My dad stated that he prefers to shop in person than online. The internet holds too many images for clothing options. He prefers to shop in person to find his own sense of style and to have the opportunity to try it on before he buys it. He states that he is a picky shopper and doesn’t want the hassle of having returned.

 

Reading

I asked my dad if he prefers to read on a tablet or a paper copy. He stated that he prefers to read a paper copy of articles or books than having everything online. He states that reading on a tablet is hard on his eyes and he can’t focus if a notification pops up while he is reading. 

 

Messaging

Finally, I asked how he typically contacts his friends and other family members. He said he only contacts people through calls, texts, or email. He doesn’t contact anyone through a social media app because they have his phone number already. He also stated that since he doesn’t go on social media every day, he doesn’t check if people have messaged him on there. 

 

conclusion

After interviewing my dad about his view on how he runs his life, I realized that he doesn’t have social media tied into his day as most people do. He prefers for the important news to come to him and eliminate wasting time browsing the social media platforms. It is important to note, "we can't theorize the internet without considering the relationship between the social, political, and economic forces that impact its structures, functions, and use." my dad didn't want to think about social media this way so he eliminated the platforms from his life. 

 

In this class, I learned a ton of concepts that will help me understand how media will be used in the future. I think the biggest section I learned from is the fake news section. I personally never heard of the vocabulary words misinformation and disinformation before I took this class. After hearing the meaning of these words, I now understand that some people on social media will release fake stories to their followers and the internet in an attempt to trick people through disinformation whereas others will accidentally spread this misinformation because they do not know any better or are spreading the news that someone else started. This helped me understand that a lot of the stories and news articles that are found on social media are fake and that in order to find out if they are actually real I will have to do a lot of fact-checking so I don’t spread any misinformation myself. 

Another concept that I learned from this class has to do with the overall functionality of social media and how it works. Many people different people who enter the platforms each have many different intentions for why they are there in the first place. Some people use it peacefully to look at memes and to take a break from the day during their downtime. Others use it as a way to network and stay close to their connections and friend. Many people will also use it as a source of news to keep up with the times.  There is an infinite amount of ways to use social media and there is no wrong way to use the device, it is all about how someone prefers to use it. Social media can be a dark and scary place so it is better to use social media for enjoyment.  For example, like making memes for fun to send to some of your friends and express yourself like we were able to learn about in challenge 4. This challenge was where we got the chance to develop our own memes. 

 

Favorite Module

I believe that my favorite module in this class would have to be the week seven module. This module was titled “Ghost in the Machine? Algorithm, Codes, and Bias”. I personally thought this module was my favorite because I know the issue that is within the social media platforms has to do with algorithms. I thought it was really interesting to learn about how these algorithms that are designed into these applications are actually biased against certain people. The developer’s own biases become ingrained in the programs that they create. Another interesting thing was to learn that social media is taking over everyone’s life and is figuring out what people’s interests are during their free time. People are always entertained with what they find when browsing but don’t notice what the system is doing in the background.  Due to the algorithms, that have formed in the social media platform, I started to eliminate the applications from my day-to-day life. I didn’t like how the platforms were understanding my interests. 

My second favorite module from this class was fake it till you make it. In this meme, I really got to learn a variety of new concepts that I never heard before. I always thought fake news was on purpose until learning more about it in this class. I now know that some writers do it on purpose and some don’t. Learning about the difference between misinformation and disinformation helped me to better see and identify the different types of fake news that I find online.  Another interesting thing that I learned about was satire when going through the lesson.  I see a lot of satire nowadays when scrolling through social media and I was unsure of what it was called until learning about it recently.  I personally thought it was fun doing the challenge on a fake news article to have hands-on experience on the concepts I learned. For Example, in my challenge, I went over the article about the economy crashing during the pandemic. The author was stating that if people didn’t go back to work the economy would completely crash. There were so many articles to choose from for this challenge. From this section, I will always know the difference between misinformation and disinformation. I will also fully understand what the term gaslighting means on the internet. 

 

Challenging concepts

During this class, I think one of the topics that challenged my thinking the most was the Tik Tok section. First of all, I never used the app since it was created. I had no idea what the platform’s posts were based on and why they became so popular. When learning about this module, I learned that people love to portray disinformation for their audience. They know that when they deliver fake news on this platform, they will gain views and attract new followers for their future posts. This really confused me because I don’t understand why people would want to share a cool talent they have instead of disinformation to their audience. I personally thought that disinformation put a bad persona on their account. After seeing how much disinformation was found on Tik Tok I realized just how hard it would be to sort out all of that disinformation from some actual real news that also shows up on the app from time to time.  A lot of people seem to use this app as a way to manipulate others in order to gain likes in order to boost their own popularity, regardless of the results. 

 

Another concept that challenged me in this class is in relation to the meme module. When watching the documentary “Feels Good Man” I was shocked at how many people used Pepe the frog for bad instead of good. This meme was invented to have a positive correlation to the world, but it turned into a negative. I felt bad when Matt Furie was trying to fight for Pepe and the meme only got worse. Overall, I just will never understand why people will add hate and negativity to the internet, especially in memes. 

 

What I would pass along

If I was to pass any concept from this class to the general public, I would share that people use social media to try to become the next big thing. They will try to manipulate as many people as possible and will try to do this in a variety of ways. This may mean they will intentionally post disinformation to gain attention to their feed and gain more money off of you. People need to be aware that much of the information you find on the internet will most likely be fake. You need to be aware of this, so you don’t fall for the trap. An example of this would be the challenges and trends that become popular on the internet. Before you participate you need to be fully aware of what the outcome will do to you and to not do anything that may harm you or someone else. An example of this would be the Tide Pod challenge. Many teenagers fell for this trap and caused the company to be viewed in a bad way. The company then had to inform their customers to not eat their product, and, in some stores, they locked their product up. 

 

Another concept I would pass along to the general public is “We can't theorize the internet without considering the relationship between the social, political, and economic forces that impact its structures, functions, and use.” This is important to understand because the posts that are on the internet have a relation to something in the world. This relation is to something positive or negative. In anyone's life, they are going to have options with what is going on in the real world. As a result, it will form opinions on what is going on in life today and what you find on the internet and within social media.  

 

Finally, the most important concept to keep in mind with social media is the benefit it was given to the newer generation. This would be allowing people to network. Having social media, you are able to stay connected to many people that were in your life. You are always able to stay connected to what is going on in their life, even if you aren’t close to them anymore. This is awesome for the newer generation because they don’t have to lose track of events that on in each other’s life. The other side to networking, is you are able to connect with people that will help you reach your future goals. As a wise person once stated, “It is not about who you know in life, it is about who knows you.” Having social media always let new networks know you.